Paul Schmitz (conductor)

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Paul Schmitz (born April 16, 1898 in Hamburg , † February 6, 1992 in Munich ) was a German conductor . He was General Music Director of the Leipzig Opera from 1933–51 and again from 1964–73 , and between them General Music Director of the Kassel State Orchestra .

Paul Schmitz

Life

Schmitz studied piano and organ at the Mannheim University of Music, as well as composition with Ernst Toch and learned to conduct with Wilhelm Furtwängler . After completing his studies, he initially worked as a répétiteur and accompanist, but also played as a pianist in an entertainment band. In 1921 he became Kapellmeister at the Staatskapelle Weimar and later at the Stuttgart Opera . In 1927 he was engaged as the first Staatskapellmeister of the Munich State Opera , where he succeeded Karl Böhm .

In 1933 he took up the position of general music director in Leipzig as the successor to Gustav Brecher, who was hostile to the Nazis because of his Jewish origins ; He kept this until 1951. The Leipzig Lord Mayor Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and the opera director Hans Schüler suggested that Schmitz should also be assigned the position of Gewandhaus Kapellmeister , which had become vacant after Bruno Walter's flight from Germany. The responsible appointment body rejected this, however, due to Schmitz's young age and little experience as a concert conductor. However, he took over the leadership of the Gewandhauskammerorchester. With this he made numerous recordings on shellac records for Leipziger Rundfunk and Deutsche Grammophon .

At the Leipzig Opera he worked with the director pupils and singers such as Margarete Bäumer , Irma Beilke and Friedrich Dalberg . He had u. a. the musical direction of the world premieres of Hans Stieber's Der Eulenspiegel (1936), Winfried Zillig's Die Windsbraut (1941) and Carl Orff's Catulli Carmina (1943). Paul Schmitz was one of 15 conductors on the so-called God-gifted list of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . After the end of the Second World War, in which the New Theater was destroyed, he also conducted interim works in the Dreilinden House that were not allowed to be performed during the Nazi era, such as Hindemith's Cardillac , Tchaikovsky's Eugen Onegin and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunow .

He then accepted an offer from West Germany and worked until 1963 as general music director of the Kassel State Orchestra . After his retirement there, however, he initially returned to Leipzig with guest performances and finally from 1964 again as general music director, where he also ended his career in 1973. In 1963 he recorded the opera Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert for Eterna .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e rundfunkschaetze.de: Paul Schmitz - The two-time Leipzig general music director
  2. ↑ Die Kunst: Bibliography on the history of the fine arts, music, literature and theater , Vol. 3 (1964), p. 271.
  3. ↑ Deutscher Rundfunkarchiv (DRA): An insight into shellac record production - sample records with the Leipzig Gewandhauskammerorchester under Paul Schmitz
  4. ^ Gudrun Dittmann: Opera between adaptation and integrity. To the world premieres of contemporary German operas at the Leipzig New Theater in the Nazi state. The Blue Owl, 2005, p. 120.
personal data
SURNAME Schmitz, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1992
Place of death Munich