Eugene Szenkar

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Eugen Szenkar , Hungarian Szenkár Jenő (born April 9, 1891 in Budapest , † March 25, 1977 in Düsseldorf ) was a Hungarian conductor .

Life

The son of the conductor, organist and composer Nándor Szenkár performed as a pianist and conductor from an early age. In 1908 he was accepted into the composition class of Victor von Herzfeld at the Royal Music Academy in Budapest and in 1911 took up his first position as a répétiteur at the Budapest Volksoper.

In 1912 he received an annual contract at the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague, first as choir director, later as Kapellmeister. In 1913 he returned as Kapellmeister to the Budapest Volksoper, which existed until 1915.

After a season at the Landestheater Salzburg and a short interlude at the Centraltheater Dresden, in 1917 he became court conductor at the ducal court theater in Altenburg (today Thuringia), a position he held until 1920.

In 1920 Szenkar became 1st Kapellmeister (coordinated with Ludwig Rottenberg) at the Frankfurt Opera , where Paul Hindemith was at the first viola stand at the time . In Frankfurt he directed the world premiere of Egon Wellesz 's opera The Princess Girnara and the German premieres of Béla Bartók's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle and his dance play The Wood-Carved Prince . In Germany he pioneered the works of Bartók, with whom he was a close friend.

From 1923 to 1924 Szenkar was general music director of the Great Volksoper in Berlin, where in 1924 he conducted a highly acclaimed performance of Boris Godunow by Modest Mussorgsky. In 1924 he succeeded Otto Klemperer at the Cologne Opera . In addition to world premieres of contemporary operas (Braunfels, Wellesz), he directed the European premiere of Sergei Prokofiev's opera Die Liebe zu den Drei Orangen , the German premiere of Zoltán Kodály's Singspiel Háry János and performances of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen and five Mozart operas. Bartók's pantomime The Wonderful Mandarin was removed from the program after the premiere on the instructions of Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer . In the Society for New Music he campaigned for contemporary composers with numerous premieres.

Szenkar performed Mahler's Lied von der Erde , the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th symphonies at opera house concerts , as well as the 8th symphony with 800 singers and Arnold Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder with almost 1000 participants. In 1928 the Cologne Opera gave a guest performance at the Vienna State Opera with Mozart's Così fan tutte , Handel's Julius Cäsar and Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande , which was enthusiastically received. In the same year, on the 100th anniversary of Beethoven's death, a record of his 5th symphony was made . In 1928 and 1932 Szenkar gave guest concerts at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires .

In 1933 he fled to Vienna from the National Socialists. Here he conducted a performance of Mahler's Third Symphony with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and a performance of Wagner's opera Der fgende Holländer .

In 1934, Szenkar accepted an invitation to Moscow, where he directed the State Philharmonic Orchestra and was guest conductor at the Bolshoi Theater . He also led a master class for conductors at the State Conservatory. His later best-known student was Kyrill Petrovich Kondrashin .

Szenkar formed friendships with Sergei Prokofjew and Nikolai Mjaskowski . He conducted the world premieres of Aram Khachaturian's 1st symphony and Mjaskowski's 16th symphony. The engagement ended in 1937 with the expulsion from Russia during the first great wave of Stalin's purges.

In 1938 and 1939 Szenkar conducted concerts with the Palestine Orchestra founded by Bronisław Huberman in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Cairo and Alexandria. In 1939 he was invited as a guest conductor at the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro . The outbreak of war kept him in Brazil, where he and some colleagues founded the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira in 1940 , of which he was artistic director until 1948. During this time he built up a musical life based on the European model in Rio, gave up to 80 concerts a year, initiated Sunday matinees and youth concerts and founded a choir of amateur singers. During a guest performance in 1958 he was made an honorary citizen of the city.

Szenkar returned to Europe at the end of 1949. From 1950 to 1952 he was general music director in Mannheim and at the same time had an extensive guest contract with the Cologne Opera. From 1952 to 1956 he worked as Opera Director at the Düsseldorf Opera House under General Manager Walter Bruno Iltz , and until 1960 as General Music Director of Düsseldorf. From 1954 he led the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and the choir of the Musikverein on their first international tours. At a concert in the Royal Festival Hall in 1954 he performed Bruckner's 7th Symphony to a standing ovation . In 1958 he conducted the world premiere of Wellesz's 5th Symphony. In 1960 he resigned as General Music Director of Düsseldorf for reasons of age. In the following years as a travel conductor in Europe, he especially enjoyed visiting Hungary. His last conduct was Carmen in Cologne on the occasion of his 80th birthday. His son was the music producer and composer Claudio Szenkar .

literature

  • Eugen Szenkar, My way as a musician: memories of a conductor. Edited by Sandra I. Szenkar Berlin: Frank & Timme 2014
  • Elisabeth Bauchhenß: Eugen Szenkar (1891-1977): a Hungarian-Jewish conductor writes German opera history , Cologne; Weimar; Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50117-4

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Szenkar, Eugene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Szenkár, Jenő
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1977
Place of death Dusseldorf