Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt

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Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (born May 5, 1900 in Berlin ; † May 28, 1973 in Holm, Pinneberg district ) was a German conductor .

Life

Schmidt-Isserstedt autograph

The merchant's son received violin and music lessons in Berlin at an early age, studied musicology in Berlin, Heidelberg and Münster and was awarded a doctorate in 1923. phil. PhD. From 1920 to 1923 he studied composition with Franz Schreker in Berlin, but then devoted himself to conducting. From 1928 to 1931 he was conductor at the Rostock Opera , from 1931 to 1933 at the opera at the Hessian State Theater in Darmstadt , directed by Gustav Hartung .

Career in the Nazi state

In 1933 Schmidt-Isserstedt in Darmstadt was dismissed without notice and, after a year of unemployment, found a job at the "Deutsche Musikbühne", a touring stage owned by Prince Heinrich XLV. Reuss . After another year of Schmidt-Isserstedt's unemployment, the artistic director of the Hamburg State Opera Heinrich Karl Strohm succeeded in getting Schmidt-Isserstedt's engagement as first conductor in the NSDAP . In 1943 he was appointed head of the German Opera House in Berlin, where he became general music director in 1944.

In 1935 he divorced his Jewish wife Gerta Herz. He had two children with her, including the later producer of the English record company Decca, Erik (born March 25, 1931 - May 4, 2004), who emigrated to England with his mother in 1936 and Anglicized his name in Smith. On the Fuehrer's birthday in 1938 he was awarded the title of Staatskapellmeister . In October 1940 he made a guest appearance in occupied Oslo in the presence of Reichskommissar Josef Terboven and the Norwegian Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling . In the final phase of the Second World War , in August 1944, he was included in the list of the most important conductors approved by Adolf Hitler , which saved him from being deployed in the war, including on the home front .

Career after World War II

Schmidt-Isserstedt continued his career unharmed immediately after the end of the war. In a letter of April 29, 1948, the military government explicitly certified that he had a clean past. In fact, he was one of the few first-rate conductors who remained in Germany without an NSDAP membership. For this reason, he was commissioned by the British military in 1945 to reorganize the Hamburg (radio) music system. That is why he founded the NDR Symphony Orchestra that year , which he directed until 1971. 1955–1964 he was also at the helm of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Stockholm and also conducted numerous concerts in Covent Garden and at the Bavarian State Opera .

He died in 1973 and was buried in the cemetery in Holm (Pinneberg district) .

Schmidt-Isserstedt was regarded as a specialist in German-Austrian music of the 19th century (in particular Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms ), but also advocated the works of his contemporaries Béla Bartók , Igor Fjodorowitsch Stravinsky , Paul Hindemith and Bernhard Kaun .

In 2002 “Decca Records” released a “box” of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven (all symphonies and piano concertos, the violin concerto and some overtures) recorded by Schmidt-Isserstedt with the Vienna Philharmonic and the pianist Wilhelm Backhaus and the violinist Henryk Szeryng .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ For more information on Schmidt-Isserstedt's work in Berlin, see: Hubert Rübsaat: Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt , ISBN 978-3-8319-0350-4 , pp. 55–74
  2. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 531.
  3. ↑ Klee, Kulturlexikon, p. 531
  4. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb : Loyal to the Führer and God-Grace. Artist elite in the Third Reich , Österreichischer Bundesverlag Vienna 1991
  5. ^ Ernst Klee: The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  6. ↑ Contents of the Decca “Box”, with dates and other details of the recordings
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt-Isserstedt, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1973
Place of death Holm-Holstein