Jascha Horenstein

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Jascha Horenstein (* April 24 . Jul / 6. May  1898 greg. In Kiev , Russian Empire ; † 2. April 1973 in London ) was a Ukrainian-Jewish conductor . He is considered a high-quality Bruckner and Mahler interpreter.

biography

Jascha Horenstein was born the thirteenth of sixteen children of a religiously and musically educated Jewish family. In 1905 she left Russia and settled in Königsberg , where Horenstein received his first violin lessons . In 1911 the family moved to Vienna , where his mother's ancestors had lived. His niece was Beate Sirota .

Horenstein studied with Joseph Marx and Franz Schreker , whom he followed to Berlin in 1920 . His debut as a conductor took place in Vienna in 1922. Back in Berlin he was supported by Wilhelm Furtwängler , who granted him guest conducting with the Berlin Philharmonic from the mid-1920s . In 1929 he became music director of the Düsseldorf Opera, today's Deutsche Oper am Rhein , the general manager was Walter Bruno Iltz .

Horenstein made outstanding contributions to the performance of contemporary operas, Ernst Krenek's heavyweight , the world premiere of Manfred Gurlitt's The Soldiers , The Lindberghflug by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill and Igor Stravinsky's The Story of the Soldier and Hans Pfitzner's Das Herz (1932) were on the opera 's repertoire ), Hermann Reutters The Prodigal Son based on André Gide (1933) and Winfried Zillig's Der Rossknecht based on the drama by Richard Billinger (all conducted by Horenstein). Walter Bruno Iltz staged Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss (1934, in the sets by Caspar Neher ), Kurt Weill's guarantee (text: Caspar Neher), From a House of the Dead by Leoš Janáček (1931) and a spectacular production by Wozzeck by Alban Berg (1930, about which Alban Berg wrote to Iltz: “I am more pleased with this recapitulation than some premieres, yes it makes me proud”).

Horenstein's increasingly successful career, also internationally, experienced a sudden turnaround in 1933 when the National Socialists came to power . Although Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels held his protective hand over Walter Bruno Iltz, he ran into difficulties with the National Socialists, since in 1932 he opposed the demands of the Düsseldorf NSDAP leadership for a “German game plan” and a “German ensemble” and forbade any influence would have.

In 1933, on the 50th anniversary of Richard Wagner's death , Iltz and the opera were accused of the Jewish Jascha Horenstein in a press campaign : “Unfortunately, Mr. Horenstein conducted the consecration hour. We have to say 'unfortunately', because it is unheard of that the German theater in Düsseldorf cannot find a German conductor for a Wagner celebration, that one has to work with Mr Sascha (!) Horenstein. [...] Mayor teaching and general manager Iltz will have to still change, otherwise will one day need to be removed but made in any way to it that truly German spirit and German culture in all branches comes in the German Dusseldorf advantage. "( People's slogan , February 13, 1933) At the beginning of March 1933, an SA unit finally besieged Horenstein's last performance, Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio, and demanded the conductor's immediate removal.

Horenstein was on leave and had to leave Düsseldorf. He settled in Paris and accepted invitations as far as Australia. In 1939, shortly before the start of World War II , he moved to New York , where he taught alongside other prominent exiles (such as Thomas Mann ) at the New School for Social Research and directed secondary orchestras. From 1947 he conducted again in Europe, initially mainly in France. In the 1950s he also appeared again in Germany. Later the high point of his career were the concerts in his last adopted home, Great Britain, where he broke a number of lances as the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra for the Austrian late romanticism .

In 1958 Horenstein was awarded the German Critics' Prize.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jascha Horenstein http://www.classical.net/music/performer/horenstein/index.php
  2. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb: Faithful to the leader and God-gifted. ÖBV, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-215-07490-7 (chapter Das Deutsche Volkstheater under Walter Bruno Iltz ).
  3. ↑ Winfried Hartkopf, Winrich Meiszies, Michael Matzigkeit, balance Dusseldorf '45: culture and society from 1933 to the postwar period. Grupello, 1992
  4. ↑ On the work of the conductor Jascha Horenstein in Düsseldorf (1928–1933) http://www.ns-gedenkstaetten.de/fileadmin/files/d_mug_jahresbericht_2009.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Horenstein, Jascha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ukrainian-Jewish conductor
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiev
DATE OF DEATH 2nd April 1973
Place of death London