Photo & Biography

Rudolf Kempe

henry — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 22:06:14 GMT

Рудольф Кемпе и Петер Рёзель. 1976 г.

Otto Klemperer

henry — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 22:04:16 GMT

Моисей или Ида Наппельбаум
Отто КЛЕМПЕРЕР. 1925. Берлинская галерея, собр. фотографий

Jascha Horenstein

Павел — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:09:46 GMT

Jascha Horenstein (May 6, 1898 - Kiev, Ukraine - April 2, 1973 London, England) The distinguished Russian-born American conductor, Jascha Horenstein, began his musical training in Königsberg as a piano student of his mother, and he also studied with Max Brode. In 1911 his family moved to Vienna, where he studied philosophy at the University and, starting from 1916, was a pupil of A. Busch (violin), Joseph Marx (music theory), and Franz Schreker r (composition) at the Vienna Academy of Music. He then continued his training with Franz Schreker at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1920). From 1920 Jascha Horenstein served as an assistant to Wilhelm Furtwängler in Berlin and began his career conducting the Schubert Choir in Berlin. In 1923 he was a guest conductor with the Wiener Symphoniker. Returning to Berlin, he conducted the Blüthner Concerts (1924) and was conductor of the Berliner Symphoniker (1925-1928); he also appeared as a guest conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker. He became principal conductor of the Düsseldorf Opera in 1928, and then the company's Generalmusikdirektor in 1929, but was removed from that position in March 1933 by the Nazi regime because he was a Jew. His Düsseldorf tenure was the only permanent musical directorship in his career. After conducting in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Palestine, he went to the USA in 1940 and became a naturalized American citizen. He also taught at the New School for Social Research while in New York City. Following the end of World War II, Jascha Horenstein resumed his career in Europe. He became especially admired in England, where he appeared as a guest conductor with the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1961 he made his debut at London's Covent Garden conducting Fidelio. His final operatic, and British, engagement was his March 1973 performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden of Richard Wagner's Parsifal.

Wilhelm Furtwangler

Павел — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:01:21 GMT

Wilhelm Furtwängler (January 25, 1886 – November 30, 1954) was a German conductor and composer. Furtwängler was born in Berlin into a prominent family. His father Adolf was an archaeologist, his mother a painter. Most of his childhood was spent in Munich, where his father taught at the university in that city. He was given a musical education from an early age, and developed an early love of Ludwig van Beethoven, a composer with whom he remained closely associated throughout his life. Though his chief posthumous fame rests on his work as a conductor, he was also a composer and regarded himself first and foremost as such, having in fact first taken up the baton in order to perform his own works.

By the time of Furtwängler's conducting debut at the age of twenty, he had written several pieces of music. However, they were not well received, and that - combined with the financial insecurity of a career as a composer - led him to concentrate on conducting. At his first concert, he led the Kaim Orchestra (now the Munich Philharmonic) in Anton Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. He subsequently held posts at Munich, Lübeck, Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Vienna, before securing a job at the Berlin Staatskapelle in 1920, and in 1922 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra where he succeeded Arthur Nikisch, and concurrently at the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Later he became music director of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Salzburg Festival and the Bayreuth Festival, which was regarded as the greatest post a conductor could hold in Germany at the time. Furtwängler also made a number of appearances as a conductor abroad. He made his London debut in 1924, and continued to appear there as late as 1938 to conduct a cycle of Richard Wagner's Ring. In 1925 he appeared as guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and made return visits in the following two years. Towards the end of the war, under extreme pressure from the Nazi Party, Furtwängler fled to Switzerland. It was during this troubled period that he composed what is largely considered his most significant work, the Symphony No. 2 in E minor. Work on the symphony was begun in 1944, and carried on into 1945. It was given its premiere in 1948 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Furtwängler's direction. Furtwängler and the Philharmonic recorded the symphony for Deutsche Grammophon; the music was much in the tradition of Bruckner and Gustav Mahler, composed on a grand scale for very large orchestra with romantic, dramatic themes. Another important work is the Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, completed and premiered in 1937 and revised in 1954. Many themes from this work were also incorporated into Furtwängler's unfinished Symphony No. 3 in C sharp minor.

Oskar Fried

Павел — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:43:48 GMT

Oskar Fried (August 10, 1871 – July 5, 1941), was a German conductor and composer. Born in Berlin, the son of a Jewish shopkeeper, he worked as a clown, a stable boy and a dog trainer before studying composition with Iwan Knorr (1891-92, Hoch Conservatory) and Engelbert Humperdinck (as private student) in Frankfurt. He later moved to Dusseldorf to study painting and art history. After a spell in Paris, he returned to Berlin in 1898 to study counterpoint with Xavier Scharwenka. The performance of his composition Das trunkene Lied ("the drunken song") for chorus and orchestra brought Fried his first public success and led to his appointment in 1904 as conductor of a Berlin choral society. In 1905 he first met Gustav Mahler. The meeting was successful and resulted in an invitation to conduct Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in Berlin in November 1905 (Otto Klemperer led the offstage band during this performance). The next year Fried introduced Russia to Mahler's music when he performed the same work in St Petersburg. From 1907 to 1910 he directed a choral society known as the Sternscher Gesangverein in Berlin. In 1913 Fried conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the second performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. In 1922 Fried went to the USSR as the first foreign conductor invited to perform after the Russian Revolution, and was greeted by Lenin on the station platform. In 1924 Fried made the first recording of any Mahler symphony, the Second, with the Berlin Staatskapelle. This performance has been praised as "remarkably successful", a "highly adventurous undertaking for an acoustic recording" which required "careful planning and experimentation". That same year Fried also made the first recording of any complete Bruckner symphony: his Seventh. In 1934 Fried left Germany for Tbilisi in the Soviet republic of Georgia, driven away from his homeland by the antisemitism of the Nazi regime. He conducted the Tbilisi opera and later the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, becoming a Soviet citizen. He died in Moscow in 1941.

Arthur Nikisch

Павел — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:28:09 GMT

Arthur Nikisch (October 12, 1855 – January 23, 1922) was a Hungarian conductor who performed mainly in Germany. Arthur Augustinus Adalbertus Nikisch was born in Lébény Szentmiklós, Hungary to a Hungarian father, and a mother from Moravia. Nikisch studied under Felix Otto Dessoff, Johann von Herbeck, and Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr. at the Vienna Conservatory, where he won prizes for composition and performance on violin and piano. However, he was to achieve most of his fame as a conductor. In 1878 he moved to Leipzig and became second conductor of the Leipzig Opera in 1878 and 1882 promoted as principal conductor. He gave the premiere of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in 1884. On 1 July 1885 Nikisch married Amelie Heussner (1862-1938), a singer and actress, who had been engaged the preceding years at the Kassel court theatre with Gustav Mahler. Their son Mitja (1899-1936) later became a noted pianist. Nikisch later became conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and from 1893 to 1895 director of the Royal Opera in Budapest. In 1895 he succeeded Carl Reinecke as director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In the same year he became principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and held both positions until his death. He was a pioneer in several ways. In 1912 he took the London Symphony Orchestra to the United States, a first for a European orchestra. He also made a series of early recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra, some of which display the portamento characteristic of early twentieth century playing. He died in Leipzig in 1922, and was buried there. Immediately after his death, the square where he had lived was renamed Nikischplatz, and in 1971 the city created the Arthur Nikisch Prize for young conductors.

Frederick Stock

Павел — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:19:42 GMT

Frederick Stock (Friedrich August Stock) (November 11, 1872 – October 20, 1942) was a German conductor and composer. Stock was born in Jülich, Germany and given his early musical education by his army bandmaster father. At the age of fourteen, Frederick Stock was admitted into the Cologne Conservatory as a student of violin and composition, where he counted Engelbert Humperdinck as one of his teachers, and Willem Mengelberg among his classmates. After graduating from the conservatory in 1890, Stock was accepted to the Municipal Orchestra of Cologne as a violinist. In 1895, Stock met with Theodore Thomas, director of the then fledgling Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the man who was to have a decisive impact on Stock's future. After the sudden death of Theodore Thomas in 1905, Frederick Stock took over the post of music director of the Chicago Symphony. That year, he wrote a symphonic poem Life, "in memory of Theodore Thomas". At first filling in the position only on a temporary basis, Frederick Stock finally assumed the role of permanent music director in 1911 only after the Chicago Symphony's board of directors failed to persuade Gustav Mahler, Hans Richter, Felix Weingartner, Karl Muck, and Felix Mottl, among others, to take over the position. Frederick Stock's thirty-seven year tenure as head of the Chicago Symphony was surpassed in America only by Eugene Ormandy's lengthy directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Soon after Stock's death in Chicago on 20 October 1942, Désiré Defauw was chosen as his successor.

Karl Muck

Павел — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:04:39 GMT

Karl Muck (22 October 1859 – 3 March 1940) was a German conductor. Born in Darmstadt, Germany, Muck earned a Ph.D. in classical philolology at Heidelberg. An early love for music led him to take piano lessons. After earning his doctorate, Muck entered the Leipzig Conservatory. He began conducting in 1884 and led orchestras in Zurich, Brno, Salzburg, Graz, and Prague. In 1892 he began conducting the Royal Opera in Berlin, where he remained until 1912. Along the way he also conducted at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth and also worked with the Vienna Philharmonic. He became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1912. He was considered a modern, adventurous conductor and was responsible for leading the orchestra in historic recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey, in 1917. In 1918, Muck was accused of sympathising with the enemy during World War I for conducting performances of German music. After declining the request of a performance of the Star Spangled Banner during a concert, Muck was arrested under the Alien Enemies Act and imprisoned at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia for the duration of the war. After his deportation from the United States, he was never to return. Muck is one of two German conductors to have been expelled from the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity in 1919 for sympathizing with the Central powers. He had been elected to national honorary membership in the Fraternity in 1915 (Sinfonia Handbook, Spring 1939, pp. 23-24). Muck went on to lead the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, made additional recordings and appeared regularly in Bayreuth. Muck died in Stuttgart, Germany.

Richter Hans

Павел — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:58:25 GMT

Hans Richter (4 April 1843 – 5 December 1916) was an Austrian conductor. Richter was born in Raab (now Győr), Hungary, and studied at the Vienna Conservatory. He had a particular interest in the horn, and developed his conducting career at several opera-houses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He became associated with Richard Wagner in the 1860s, and in 1876 he was chosen to conduct the first complete performance of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In 1877, he assisted the ailing composer as conductor of a major series of Wagner concerts in London, and from then onwards he became a familiar feature of English musical life, appearing at many choral festivals including as principal conductor of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival (1885-1909) and directing the Hallé Orchestra (1899-1911) and the newly-formed London Symphony Orchestra (1904-1911). In Europe his work was chiefly based in Vienna, where (transcending the bitter division between the followers of Wagner and those of Johannes Brahms) he gave much attention to the works of Brahms himself, Anton Bruckner (who once slipped a coin into his hand after a concert by way of tip) and Antonín Dvořák; he also continued to work at Bayreuth. In later years Richter became a whole-hearted admirer of Sir Edward Elgar, and he also came to accept Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. On one occasion, he laid down his baton and allowed a London orchestra to play the whole second movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony itself. Never afraid to experiment on behalf of the music he loved, he lent his authority to an English-language production of The Ring at Covent Garden (1908). Failing eyesight forced his retirement in 1911. He died in Bayreuth in 1916. Richter's approach to conducting was monumental rather than mercurial or dynamic, emphasising the overall structure of major works in preference to bringing out individual moments of beauty or passion. Some observers regarded him as little more than a time-beater, but others, notably Eugene Goossens, pointed out the remarkable rhythmic vitality of his work, a quality which hardly squares with the image of Richter as a rather stolid and static personality.

Felix Mottl

Павел — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:55:23 GMT

Felix Josef von Mottl (24 August 1856 – 2 July 1911) was an Austrian conductor and composer. Born in Unter Sankt Veit, today Vienna, Mottl was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed some operas, of which Agnes Bernauer (Weimar, 1880) was the most successful, and numerous songs and other music. His orchestration of Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder is still the most commonly performed version. Mottl had a successful career at the Vienna Conservatoire. He became known as a gifted conductor of Wagner's music, and assisted Hans Richter in the preparations for the first complete Ring Cycle at Bayreuth; in 1886 he directed the performance of Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival. From 1881 to 1903 he was conductor at the Karlsruhe Opera, and made a wide reputation for his activity there, particularly in producing the works of Wagner, Hector Berlioz and Emmanuel Chabrier, whose operas he championed; Mottl also orchestrated Chabrier's Bourrée fantasque and Trois valses romantiques. In later years, as a conductor of Wagner especially, he visited London and New York, where he was guest conductor for the Metropolitan Opera in 1903. In 1904 he was made a director of the Akademie der Künste at Berlin. In June 1907 he cut some player piano rolls with Welte-Mignon, including his own piano transcription of the Prelude, the Love Duet and Brangäne's Warning from Tristan. He died in a Munich hospital on July 2, 1911, after suffering a heart attack on June 21, while conducting his 100th performance of Tristan in Munich