Felix Mottl

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Felix Mottl around 1900

Felix Josef Mottl (born August 24, 1856 in Unter Sankt Veit near Vienna , † July 2, 1911 in Munich ) was an Austrian conductor and composer .

Life

Mottl was born the son of a valet and studied at the Vienna Conservatory with Anton Bruckner and Otto Dessoff . He became known as a talented conductor of Richard Wagner's operas and, through Hans Richter, was invited as an assistant to the Bayreuth Festival in 1876 , where he helped to prepare the world premiere of the Ring des Nibelungen . In 1878 he got a position as Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper in Vienna, where he opened the season on September 27, 1878 with Beethoven's festival The Consecration of the House . However, he soon showed himself not very convinced of the comparatively low musical level of the house.

From 1880 to 1903 he was court conductor of the Grand Ducal Badischer Hofkapelle Karlsruhe . Since 1886 he has conducted regularly in Bayreuth (such as the premiere of Tristan and Isolde and the other five performances of this opera in Bayreuth until 1906): in eleven festival periods between 1886 and 1906 he directed a total of 69 performances, and he was the teacher of Wagner's son Siegfried Wagner . From 1898 to 1900 he directed the English performances of Wagner's operas at London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden . In 1903 he prepared the US premiere of Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera in New York , but resigned at the last moment. In the 1903/04 season he directed 62 performances and concerts at the Metropolitan Opera. Also in 1903 he went to the Court Opera in Munich, first as 1st Kapellmeister and from 1907 until his death as General Music Director. He was also director of the Royal Academy of Music in Munich from 1904 to 1911 . Mottl also composed several operas himself as well as numerous songs and instrumental works. In 1907 he recorded a number of piano roles for Welte-Mignon , including his own transcriptions for piano from Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde .

In unison with Cosima Wagner , Felix Mottl advocated excluding Jewish singers and musicians from active participation at the Bayreuth Festival as far as possible.

Mottl's grave monument

Mottl suffered a breakdown in the middle of his 100th performance of Tristan und Isolde on June 21, 1911, as did Joseph Keilberth in 1968. He died on July 2, after he had married the singer Zdenka Faßbender on June 26 in the hospital . His first marriage to Henriette Standhartner (1866–1933) came from his son Wolfgang Mottl, who was born in 1894 and died in 1962 in Schrobenhausen- Sandizell. He became known and famous throughout Europe as a pioneer of potato growing.

His son Wolfgang Mottl jun. Emigrated to Canada in 1952, while his youngest son Felix Mottl was well known as a senior public prosecutor at the Bavarian Supreme Court and as the long-standing president of the German Traffic Guard.

In 1911, Felix-Mottl-Strasse in Vienna- Döbling (19th district) was named after him.

Fritz Behn created Mottl's grave monument in the forest cemetery .

Honors (selection)

Mottl received the following honors, among others:

Works

Stage works

Other works

  • String Quartet in F sharp minor (1904)
  • Songs
  • Austrian dances for piano four hands

literature

Web links

Commons : Felix Mottl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Grave monument for Felix Mottl by Professor Fritz Behn in Munich. In: Father-city sheets . Born 1912, No. 3, edition of January 19, 1912, pp. 14-16.
  2. ^ Mottl estate directory , accessed on December 5, 2018.
  3. ↑ Court and State Manual of the Kingdom of Bavaria. 1906, p. 46.
personal data
SURNAME Mottl, Felix
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mottl, Felix Josef; Mottl, Felix Josef from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian conductor and composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Under Sankt Veit near Vienna, Austria
DATE OF DEATH July 2, 1911
Place of death Munich