Oskar Fried

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Oskar Fried

Oskar Fried (born August 10, 1871 in Berlin , † July 5, 1941 in Moscow ) was a German conductor and composer .

Life

Childhood and youth

Oskar Fried was born in Berlin in 1871 as the son of the Jewish businessman Jérôme Fried . He received violin lessons from his older brother and probably also played for Joseph Joachim . Fried had to drop out of high school in 1880 due to the family's material hardship. Instead, he learned the Horn game in town wind of Nowawes at Potsdam . At the age of about fourteen Fried gave up his job in the town piping and for a few years led an adventurous wandering life that led him all over Europe - as a traveling musician who played at dance festivals and weddings, and for a time even as a dog trainer, Clown and stable boy at a circus.

1889-1898

In 1889 Fried became a horn player in the Palmengarten Orchestra in Frankfurt am Main , where he also gained his first conducting experience and was soon given a position in the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra . In Frankfurt he studied for two semesters with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory from 1891–1892 and was a private student and assistant to Engelbert Humperdinck , who introduced him to Wagner's works for around three years . The first compositions date from this time (songs; Adagio and Scherzo for wind instruments; orchestral fantasy on themes from "Hansel and Gretel"). After the Frankfurt years Fried went to Düsseldorf for a short time (according to Paul Bekker in 1892, according to other sources in 1894) (the sources are divided on the exact point in time) , where he occasionally tried his hand at painting and then settled in Munich . Here he found contact with literary modernism ( Frank Wedekind , Knut Hamsun , Otto Julius Bierbaum ) and was promoted by the conductor Hermann Levi (premiere of the fantasy on themes from "Hansel and Gretel"). In 1895 the opera "Die vernarrte Prinzes" (based on OJ Bierbaum) was written, which was never performed due to legal disputes. On the basis of a bet, the bohemian Fried went to Paris in 1896 - only with very limited financial means - where he at times suffered bitter hardship.

1898-1934

Oskar Fried 1909, etching by Hermann Struck

In 1898 he returned to Germany and settled in Werder (Havel) . He earned his living as a dog breeder. At the same time he pursued musical studies ( counterpoint with Philipp Scharwenka ) and composed. In 1899 he married Gusti Rathgeber, OJ Bierbaum's former wife. In 1900 he bought a house in Berlin-Nikolassee , where he lived until he emigrated in 1934.

In 1901 Richard Dehmel wrote “Verkläufer Nacht” for mezzo-soprano, tenor and orchestra, and in 1903 “Das drunken Lied” ( Friedrich Nietzsche ) for soloists, choir and orchestra. The premiere of the “Trunken Song” on April 15, 1904 with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Wagner Association under Karl Muck achieved a sensational success and made Fried famous overnight. In the same year he composed the “Harvest Song” (Richard Dehmel) for male choir and orchestra and, following the success of a concert with Liszt's “Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth”, became the conductor of the Sternschen Gesangsverein .

In 1905 he met Gustav Mahler on the occasion of the first performance of the "Trunkenen Lied" in Vienna (March 6, conductor: Franz Schalk ). In the same year Fried took over the direction of the New Concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted a very successful performance of Mahler's 2nd Symphony on November 8th , which also deeply impressed the composer. Fried and Mahler were on friendly terms ever since.

On October 8, 1906, Fried conducted the Berlin premiere of Mahler's 6th Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic. It was to be followed by the first performances of the 7th Symphony on January 17, 1910 and Das Lied von der Erde on October 18, 1912, as well as the German premiere of Mahler's 9th Symphony on February 4, 1913 .

1907 Fried took over the direction of the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Berlin with the Philharmonic. In 1908 he was given the direction of the Blüthner Orchestra . In October 1910 he performed Arnold Schönberg's “ Pelleas und Melisande ” at a concert by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde - the first performance of a major Schönberg work outside of Vienna. In 1912 Fried resigned from the direction of the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde because he did not accept efforts to undermine their modernist programs. While he was seen less often in Berlin from now on, his path in the last years before the war led him more and more abroad, where he became a pioneer for modern music. In 1912 he composed the melodrama “The Emigrants” based on verses from Émile Verhaeren's collection of poems “Les Campagnes Hallucinées” as translated by Stefan Zweig (first performed in January 1913 with Tilla Durieux as speaker and the Berliner Philharmoniker). A little later he gave up composing and from then on worked as a freelance conductor.

With the collapse of Berlin's musical life as a result of the war, Fried was increasingly dependent on foreign guest conductors, which took him all over Europe: Manchester, Milan, Paris, Copenhagen, Budapest. In 1916 he directed the German premiere of Sibelius's 4th Symphony at the Neue Freie Volksbühne Berlin . In 1921 he was the first foreign artist to be invited by Lenin to the USSR (Beethoven's 9th Symphony at the Bolshoi Theater ) and in 1924 again undertook a concert tour to the USSR, where he continued to make frequent guest appearances. The flourishing of the record industry and a long-term, comprehensive contract bound him from 1924 to the Deutsche Grammophon-Gesellschaft and again more firmly to Berlin. In 1924 he was the first conductor to record a complete Mahler symphony for record (2nd symphony, orchestra of the Berlin State Opera and Berlin State and Cathedral Choir ). In the years up to 1930 he created his discographic legacy primarily with the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera . In 1925 he took over the management of the newly founded Berlin Symphony Orchestra, which emerged from the Blüthner Orchestra (a predecessor of today's Konzerthausorchester Berlin ). Tours took him through Europe, the USSR and America. In 1926 Fried conducted Tchaikovsky's B flat minor piano concerto on the occasion of Vladimir Horowitz's German debut .

1934-1941

In 1934 Fried had to emigrate as a Jew and socialist, he went to the USSR and became Kapellmeister in Tbilisi (Tbilisi) and conductor of the symphony orchestra of the All Union Radio Committee in Moscow and conducted a large number of concerts until 1937 before he - probably due to illness - had to give up conducting. Shortly before his death on July 5, 1941 in Moscow, he received Soviet citizenship. One source speaks of "strange, as yet unexplained circumstances" in relation to his death.

effect

If Oskar Fried's achievements as one of the outstanding conductors of the first half of the century and a pioneer for the modern age gradually returned to the consciousness of a wider public through the republication of a series of recordings, his compositional oeuvre has largely been forgotten. The works created after the turn of the century in particular caused a sensation at the time, and there was even talk of a typical "Fried style". The works of those years, especially “The Emigrants”, the “Harvest Song”, “The Drunken Song” and the “Transfigured Night”, identify Fried as a composer who, based on the late romanticism of Wagner and influenced above all by Gustav Mahler , developed its own language. His melodrama “The Emigrants” - probably one of the very first pieces for the concert hall, which is carried by a decidedly politically critical intention - reflects current social problems and combines extremely suggestive melodies with harmonies that are controlled over long stretches of whole tone complexes. Recovering Fried's music in the repertoire would be the task of committed performers.

Discography

literature

  • Paul Bekker : Oskar Fried. His becoming and creating. Berlin 1907
  • Friedrich Blume (Ed.): Music in the past and present. Kassel 1955
  • Peter Cahn : The Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main (1878–1978) . Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1979
  • Ludwig Finscher (Ed.): Music in the past and present. General encyclopedia of music. Stuttgart 2002
  • Franz Krautwurst:  Fried, Oskar. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 442 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hugo Leichtentritt : Oskar Fried. In: Monographs of Modern Musicians . Leipzig 1906, Volume 1, pp. 46-58.
  • Monika Schwarz-Danuser: "From melodrama to speaking voice". Aspects of the speaking voice in Oskar Fried's “The Emigrants” . In: Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Rainer Riehn (eds.): Music concepts 112/113 “Schönberg and the spoken word” . Munich 2001
  • Paul Stefan : Oskar Fried. Becoming an artist. Berlin 1911
  • Michael Stegemann: A very original and peculiar patron . Manuscript of a broadcast on NDR Radio 3 on July 20, 2001

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fried, Oskar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor and composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 5, 1941
Place of death Moscow