Alfred Hertz

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Alfred Hertz on the cover of Time

Alfred Hertz (born July 15, 1872 in Frankfurt am Main ; † April 17, 1942 in San Francisco ) was an American conductor of German origin.

Alfred Hertz fell ill with polio in his childhood . Although he walked with a stick all his life, his gait is described as "brisk and cheerfully". Hertz received his musical training from 1883 to 1891 from Dr. Hoch's Conservatory in his hometown. His first engagements took him to Halle (Saale) (1891–1892), Altenburg (1892–1895) and Barmen - Elberfeld (today Wuppertal) (1895–1899). While he was at the Wroclaw Opera (1899-1902), he gave a series of concerts in London in 1899 .

Metropolitan Opera House in New York

Hertz became famous for conducting Richard Wagner's operas at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City . In 1902 he made his debut there with the Lohengrin . On December 24, 1903, he directed the first staged performance of Parsifal outside the Bayreuth Festival , for which the opera was to be reserved according to Wagner's will - an action that annoyed Cosima Wagner so much that Hertz was banned from all German theaters from then on ( Felix Mottl , who had been rehearsing the performance for five months, had resigned as conductor at the last moment). From 1902 to 1915 Hertz was principal conductor for the German opera repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera. There he conducted a. a. the US premieres of Richard Strauss ' Salome and the second version of Engelbert Humperdinck's Königskinder . Some of the performances were recorded as an experiment by Lionel Mapleson, the Met's archivist, and later released on LP . However, the quality of these cylinders was not particularly good. In the 1908 season he shared the conductor's desk with Arturo Toscanini and Gustav Mahler . After some differences about the artistic design with Mr. Gatti-Casazza, the managing director of the MET, he succeeded Henry Hadley as conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, which had just been founded four years ago.

The premieres at the Metropolitan Opera House included:

In April 1906, Hertz conducted the performances of Enrico Caruso's US tour with the Metropolitan Opera, which came to an abrupt end with the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 . All the props and costumes brought by the Metropolitan Opera Company fell victim to the earthquake and the subsequent fire.

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra

Hertz later became music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 1915 to 1930 and earned fame and a cover story in Time magazine for his services . Hertz directed the first recordings of the San Francisco Symphony for the Victor Talking Machine Company from 1925 to 1930 . From 1926 onwards he conducted the orchestra for its first radio broadcasts.

The appointment of Hertz was an extraordinary stroke of luck for the orchestra, which he soon expanded to 80 musicians, which meant that the rehearsals and the number of performances increased accordingly. Under his 15 years of leadership, the orchestra developed into a precision instrument, and with the conclusion of the contract with RCA Victor in early 1925, a future-oriented record sound was obtained. For the first time women were part of the orchestra and they played throughout the year. Many soloists were waiting to play under Hertz.

Because the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra , Walther Rothwell , did not believe in open-air concerts, Hertz became the leading maestro of the Hollywood Bowl from 1922 , the "Father of the Bowl".

On April 15, 1930 he gave his farewell concert in the Civic Auditorium of San Francisco, where 11,000 people celebrated him. After 1930 he continued to work with the orchestra as a guest conductor.

Hertz spent most of his final years in Berkeley, California , but died in San Francisco at the age of 69 .

Hertz was married to the Austrian soprano Lilly Dorn, who after his death provided funds for the construction of the Alfred Hertz Memorial Hall of Music at the University of California, Berkeley and set up a foundation for scholarship holders for further studies in music.

literature

  • Hugo Riemann: Music Lexicon . 8th edition. Max Hesses Verlag, Berlin 1916, p. 462.
  • The Opera. Introduction by Alfred Hertz. In: The Art of Music, Vol. IX. Publisher: The National Society of Music, New York 1916

swell

  1. ^ Wilhelm Guschlbauer: 75 years of "Met" II . In: Der Opernfreund Vol. IV, Nº 31, pp. 7–8 , January 1959. Archived from the original on January 20, 2016. Retrieved on September 11, 2008. 
  2. ^ Alfred Hertz papers in The Music Library, University of California, Berkeley.
  3. ↑ The Orchestras Begin (English) . In: Time , October 31, 1927. Retrieved July 14, 2007. 
  4. ^ Alfred Hertz Victor recordings
  5. ↑ Lilly DORN-LANGSTEIN at the Vienna Singakademie 1906 ( Memento from November 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Alfred Hertz Memorial Concert Hall
  7. ^ Hertz Foundation scholarship

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hertz, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American conductor of German origin
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1942
Place of death San Francisco