Josef Suttner

Josef Suttner (born March 18, 1881 in Prague -Smichov; † April 1, 1974 in Munich ) was a Bohemian-German horn player and music teacher.

Life

Josef Suttner studied horn in Prague and in 1902 got a job as solo horn player in the orchestra of the Prague National Theater . In 1904 he became 1st horn player in the Grand Ducal Badischer Hofkapelle Karlsruhe . In 1908 he was appointed court musician, in 1910 chamber musician and in 1917 chamber virtuoso .

He was solo horn player at the Bayreuth Festival in 1908, 1911, 1912 and 1914. In 1909 the Metropolitan Opera House in New York offered him a guest performance as a solo horn player, but was not given leave of absence from his Karlsruhe employer.

For the audition in Munich, Suttner appeared in the uniform of a sergeant of the Vienna Deutschmeister Regiment with a horn provided by the Munich Opera. In 1918 Suttner succeeded Bruno Hoyer as principal horn of the Bavarian State Orchestra on the Franz Strauss chair , where he played his horn under the great conductors of his day until his retirement in 1945. He played Mozart's Second Horn Concerto with his orchestra under the direction of Bruno Walter .

Suttner was a tireless chamber musician. For decades he led the winds association of the Bavarian State Orchestra. His solo repertoire ranged from "Va tacito" from Handel's opera Giulio Cesare , played on a hunting horn in F (!) To the horn concertos by Mozart , Carl Maria von Weber , Carl Matys , Richard Strauss and composers from his time. He played the horn part at the world premiere of the Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano Op. 110 by Heinrich Kaspar Schmid and the world premiere of the Horn Concerto by Karl Pottgiesser .

Even after his retirement, he stepped in during the opera festival on July 27, 1947 as solo horn player in the opera Die Schweigsame Frau by Richard Strauss, conducted by Georg Solti . Josef Suttner took over this hornistically extremely difficult opera during the Munich Opera Festival without any rehearsal and without having known the voices beforehand.

Suttner can be heard on the first recordings of the Alpine Symphony (1941) and the symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben (1928) conducted by Richard Strauss. Suttner played many chamber music works with the piano or with his fellow wind instruments directly via the Reichsender München or recorded them on wax sheets (so-called stock cuts). With a total of 153 performances of the Siegfried call in Wagner's opera Siegfried , he still holds the world record. Suttner still mastered the full range of his instrument at the age of 88, which is testified by Hans Pizka , among others . He composed numerous small pieces for horn quartet, a piece for horn and piano under the title Memory and Etudes. A horn concerto composed by him is considered to be extremely difficult, as, among other things, a range from B to e3 (notated for F horn, sounding: from E to a2) has to be mastered.

In addition to his orchestral work, Suttner also worked as a professor at the State Academy of Music in Munich from 1921 to 1945 .

Works (selection)

• Josef Suttner, practical studies for French horn as an introduction to Richard Wagner's works for the stage . Revised and supplemented by Peter Damm based on Wagner's scores

Web links

• Works by and about Josef Suttner in the catalog of the German National Library