Rudolph Schmitt

This article deals with the clarinetist Rudolph Schmitt. For other people see Rudolf Schmitt .

Rudolph Schmitt (born February 12, 1900 in Eßweiler ; † August 30, 1993 in Long Beach (California) ) was a German clarinetist . He began as a traveling musician , later stayed in the USA and played in various orchestras there.

biography

Rudolph Schmitt was the son of the traveling musician Simon Peter Schmitt. At the age of 11 he learned to play the clarinet from Gustav Hebel ( Jettenbach ). His first trip as a musician was in 1913 with Gustav Hebel and the "Ulrich Band" from Kreimbach-Kaulbach to Holland. With his older brother Karl, his cousin Jakob Meisenheimer and other relatives, Schmitt traveled to the USA (to Texas, Kansas and Chicago) and Mexico in 1914.

He stayed in Chicago and took clarinet lessons from Anton Quitsow and Heinrich Sallmann. In 1917 he joined a Danish band, with which he toured the American Midwest. He then played in the Chicago Civic Orchestra, with the Chicago Civic Opera Company, in a training group for young symphony musicians, with the radio station WGN and in cinema orchestras as first clarinetist.

In 1932 Schmitt went to San Francisco and played in the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the leadership of Pierre Monteux, in the San Francisco Opera Company, in the Paramount Movie Studio in Hollywood, on the radio stations NBC and CBS in San Francisco and in the San Francisco Wind Instrument Ensemble (Wind instrument ensemble). In 1956 Schmitt played in the Long Beach Municipal Band (town band) in Southern California and was a sought-after clarinet teacher at Mills College in Oakland, California .

Conductors during his time as a musician included Bruno Walter , George Szell , Leopold Stokowski , Artur Bodanzky , Fritz Reiner , Bernadino Molenari , Leonard Bernstein , Georg Solti and Otto Klemperer . After a concert in San Francisco, where he played the Bartók Trio “Contrasts” for clarinet, violin and piano, a music critic wrote about him: “ Goodman has recorded the piece and made it familiar, but Rudolph Schmitt, who played it last night (...) is a much more accomplished clarinetist. Consistently the piece came to life for the first time ”(Goodman, who recorded the piece, made it familiar, but Rudolph Schmitt, who played it last night (...) is a much more accomplished clarinet player. As a result, the piece really came into its own for the first time .)

He spent his old age in Long Beach , where he died on August 30, 1993. Until his death he visited his birthplace Eßweiler several times .

literature

• Marliese Fuhrmann: Cuckoo Call and Nightingale. The Palatinate hiking musicians . Gollenstein, Blieskastel 2000, ISBN 3-933389-27-5 .
• Paul PJ Engel: Palatinate Musikantenland Museum at Lichtenberg Castle . Görres-Verlag, Koblenz 2001, ISBN 3-920388-99-2 ( Landkreis Kusel . No. 1).