Wolfgang Sawallisch

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Wolfgang Sawallisch (born August 26, 1923 in Munich ; † February 22, 2013 in Grassau ) was a German conductor and pianist .

Life

Signature of Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch in Hamburg, 1960

Wolfgang Sawallisch was the son of Maria and Wilhelm Sawallisch. The father was director of the Hamburg-Bremer fire insurance in Munich. Wolfgang Sawallisch had a brother Werner five years older than him. He passed the Abitur in 1942 at the Wittelsbacher Gymnasium in Munich.

In his musical education he was generously supported by his family, especially by his mother, who was widowed at an early age, who returned to work because of him, and also by his older brother. In this way he was able to prepare for his profession as a pianist and conductor without financial worries before and after the Second World War. His professional development was interrupted by military service and British captivity in Italy.

During his school days and between high school and military service, he took private lessons with Wolfgang Ruoff . After returning to Munich, he studied with Joseph Haas and in 1946, after one semester, passed the state examination at the State University of Music in Munich . He took conducting lessons from Hans Rosbaud and Igor Markevitch . He found his first job at the Stadttheater Augsburg . During this time he married the singer Mechthild Schmid (1921–1998), daughter of the organ builder Magnus Schmid (1889–1964) from Pemmering , whom he had already met in his youth in Munich. She had a great influence on him all through life together. He started his own family by adopting his wife's son, born in 1944, from his first marriage. Mechthild renounced her own career as a singer in favor of her husband's career; on the one hand she suffered from being in the shadow of the successful man, on the other hand she saw her role as his manager. After 46 years of marriage, she died of thyroid cancer at the age of 77 as a result of her illness.

In 2003, Wolfgang Sawallisch founded the foundation named after him, the main purpose of which is to promote the musical education and training of talented young musicians and groups. The foundation is based in Grassau in the Upper Bavarian Chiemgau , where Wolfgang Sawallisch had his residence since 1962. In 2003 the Grassau Market made Sawallisch an honorary citizen of the community.

Sawallisch was seen in public for the last time at a benefit concert by the Bavarian State Orchestra in Grassau on February 2, 2013 under the direction of Kent Nagano . He gave the Opernwelt his last press interview for the January 2013 edition. The son Jörg died in January 2013, just one month before his adoptive father. Sawallisch, his wife and son are buried in Grassau.

After the death of Wolfgang Sawallisch, his assets including his villa in Grassau and the associated 35,000 m² park-like property were transferred to the Sawallisch Foundation. It organizes concerts and master classes there as part of the Music Academy founded in 2018. The property also includes a guest house.

Interesting music autographs from his estate were auctioned on May 7, 2019, including a letter from Johannes Brahms, a letter from Franz Liszt, five letters from Richard Wagner and, among the seven items, Richard Strauss' two letters and two music manuscripts.

Career

The rise as a conductor was based on the standards of the Kapellmeister tradition; he was répétiteur and conductor at the Stadttheater Augsburg 1947–53; 1953–58 General Music Director at the Theater Aachen ; 1958–60 general music director in Wiesbaden ; 1960–64 music director in Cologne and from 1961 professor of conducting at the Cologne University of Music ; 1960–70 chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and 1961–73 also chief conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra .

The dedication of the French composer André Casanova (1919–2009) for the Notturno pour Orchester op. 13, written “In memoriam Richard Strauss”, which was published in 1960 by Ricordi in Paris , also fell during his time in Hamburg . A copy of the score with over 100 pages is in the music department of the central library of the Hamburg public library (HÖB) with the personal handwritten dedication to Sawallisch.

From 1973 to 1980 he was chief conductor of the Orchester de la Suisse Romande , Geneva. With this orchestra he went on a concert tour to Japan and South Korea from October 28 to November 12, 1976 with 14 concerts.

Since his international breakthrough with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the “Edinburgh Festival” in 1955, Sawallisch has been invited to guest conductors in Western Europe. There were also commitments in Bayreuth (1957–62), Salzburg , Florence and at La Scala in Milan . Since 1964 Sawallisch traveled regularly to Japan, where he worked with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo (since 1967 honorary conductor). As the only conductor since the orchestra was founded, he was also awarded the title Honorary Conductor Laureate in 1994 .

Collaboration with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra

From March 5 to 8, 1957, Wolfgang Sawallisch conducted a symphonic concert for the first time at the Wiener Musikverein as part of the “Great Symphony” (with the French suite after Rameau by Werner Egk, the 5th Beethoven piano concerto with Friedrich Wührer and the 8th symphony by Dvořák). The success of this concert created the basis for his time as chief conductor from 1960 to 1970 - for the first time in decades this position was repeated, because Herbert von Karajan was never officially chief conductor, but rather concert director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde . Sawallisch felt that his decision-making authority was severely restricted by the orchestra's rental status and the resulting dependence on the concert organizers. As the “old school Kapellmeister” he avoided organizing a “Sawallisch cycle” analogous to the “Karajan cycle”, but instead created the “Symphoniker cycle” and placed the emphasis on cyclical performances of the works of individual composers (Bruckner cycle, Beethoven cycle).

The orchestra made records with him, the most important events being the first American tour in 1964 and the Japan-America world tour in 1967 with a mammoth repertoire, an unusual density of concerts and daily bus rides lasting for hours during the six-week tour. Sawallisch took the risk of presenting the Wiener Symphoniker with Bruckner's 3rd Symphony, a work largely unknown in America at the time, in New York's Carnegie Hall , and received hymnic reviews. In 1967 the tour focused on a UN concert with Henryk Szeryng as a soloist.

Disagreements led to Sawallisch's resignation in 1970, and after a ten-year hiatus, he returned in 1980 as a guest conductor on a European tour. Since then he has remained one of the permanent conductors - until June 24, 2005, his last concert in Bad Kissingen , which was already overshadowed by serious health problems , with works by Kodály, Haydn and Brahms.

The musicians valued Sawallisch for his musical competence, clear striking technique and work- centered interpretation, which was never spectacular - this earned him the reputation of a bureaucratic master of mediocrity with some critics. The Wiener Symphoniker recorded 165 productions with him, whereby the America trip with 34 concerts counts as a single production. Sawallisch was one of the most influential conductors for the orchestra in the second half of the 20th century.

Sawallisch went on a concert tour with the Wiener Symphoniker from September 30th to November 11th 1967 with 35 concerts in the USA and Japan.

Guest conducting in Japan

At the suggestion of Daigora Arima (1900–1980), the then President and General Manager of the NHK Orchestra, who had attended a Sawallisch concert at the Wiener Musikverein in the early 1960s, the first guest performance came from October 9 to November 30, 1964 the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo . This resulted in a longstanding artistic relationship that lasted until 2004. During this time, in addition to his full-time work in Munich and Philadelphia, Sawallisch completed numerous tours with the NHK orchestra and conducted more than 300 concerts as a guest conductor in the Tokyo area and in 45 other cities throughout Japan. Akio Mayeda, 1983 permanent employee of the University of Zurich and the NHK radio station, today honorary professor in Vienna, described in a chapter in the book Stations of a Conductor - Wolfgang Sawallisch the particularly good cooperation between Sawallisch and the NHK orchestra.

For his many years of service, Sawallisch was awarded the title of Honorary Conductor by the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1967 and the title of Honorary Conductor Laureate in 1994.

Work at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich

From 1971 to 1992 Munich was at the center of his musical work. As general music director of the Bavarian State Opera , he succeeded Joseph Keilberth in 1971 . In 1976/77 he was director of the house until August Everding took office . The Ministry of Culture resolved the tension with Everding in 1982 with the appointment of the General Music Director as State Opera Director and Everdings as General Manager of the Bavarian State Theater. He was adopted with a great farewell gala on New Year's Eve 1992.

The aria of the Queen of the Night of Hell's Vengeance sings in my heart , sung by Edda Moser and accompanied by the Bavarian State Orchestra under the direction of Wolfgang Sawallisch (record from August 1972), is part of a "Music Collection from the Earth" from the year 1977 for the Voyager 2 space probe . In October 2013, on the occasion of her 75th birthday, Edda Moser described the special history of the Electrola recording in radio interviews .

Sawallisch's performances of the complete works of Richard Wagner (1982/83) and Richard Strauss (1988) received international acclaim. Sawallisch also campaigned for the moderate modern age ( Hindemith , Egk , Sutermeister , Yun , Henze ). His skepticism towards experimental directorial theater earned him the reputation of a conservative opera director from several critics.

With the Bavarian State Opera, Sawallisch made a guest appearance in Japan (Tokyo and Osaka) from September 21 to October 12, 1974.

Chief of the Philadelphia Orchestra

Philadelphia Orchestra truck in front of Carnegie Hall for the September 26, 1995 concert
Concert poster in front of Carnegie-Hall for the concert on September 26, 1995. Program: 1st piano concerto by Brahms (soloist: Ignat Solzhenitsyn), 7th symphony by Beethoven

After 22 years at the National Theater in Munich, Sawallisch was musical director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1993 to 2003 . With him he went on concert tours at home and abroad, for example in September 1995 in the USA. In his last interview in January 2013 in the “Opernwelt”, Sawallisch said about the importance of the work as head of the Philadelphia Orchestra: “I thought to myself: I still need that! And there were also the years with the biggest and most beautiful tasks for me personally. Because at that time the Philadelphia Orchestra had a timbre that Chicago and New York simply do not offer. That came about through Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski . Building on it was exactly what I wanted. "

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Sawallisch obituary dated February 24, 2013 recalled a conversation Sawallisch had in 1997 with George Blood, the sound engineer of the Philadelphia Orchestra. When asked whether there was a piece of music that he had never conducted, Sawallisch replied that it was Bach's B minor Mass : “This work is such a monumental expression of the ability of the human mind to express the greatest thoughts in music, that I feel there is nothing I could bring to a performance which is not already on the page. I do not think I will ever be able to perform this work. "

Chamber musician

Sawallisch was also active as a pianist. Since he and Gerhard Seitz (violin) won first prize in the violin-piano category at the Geneva International Music Competition in 1949 , he has also performed regularly as a chamber musician and accompanist a. a. by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau , Peter Schreier and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf .

Awards and honors

Discography (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Rohde: The perfect maestro is an old capellmeister. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 24, 2013.
  2. ^ Munzinger-Archiv GmbH, Ravensburg: Wolfgang Sawallisch - Munzinger Biographie. Retrieved August 15, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk: alpha forum: Sawallisch, Wolfgang | BR.de . January 10, 2012 ( br.de [accessed August 15, 2018]).
  4. ↑ Information from his nephew Walter W. Sawallisch
  5. ^ Organ builder Magnus Schmid ( memento of December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on: Parish Pemmering
  6. ^ Daniel Webster: Mechthild Sawallisch, 77. In: philly.com. December 29, 1998, archived from the original on December 3, 2013 (obituary).;
  7. ↑ a b Wolfgang Sawallisch Foundation - Welcome to the Wolfgang Sawallisch Foundation. Retrieved on August 15, 2018 (German).
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Sawallisch in Grassau
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Sawallisch Foundation: The fifth charity trip to the country ( Memento from October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Kai Luehrs-Kaiser : “I was always skeptical.” In: Opernwelt , January 2013, p. 30 (interview).
  11. ↑ The Musician Graves - page 5 - GENERAL CLASSIC THEMES - Tamino Klassikforum. Retrieved December 6, 2018 .
  12. ↑ http://www.hartung-hartung.de/DB_Objekte_ThumbNail.aspx?mode=pdf&src=C:/Inetpub/vhosts/hartung-hartung.de/db/PDF/HH_A145_scr_mini_locked.pdf
  13. ↑ http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/E_R_Liste_HH_145.pdf
  14. ↑ Jan Philipp Sprick: Hamburg was an essential part of my life. ( Memento from November 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Philharmoniker Hamburg . 2005 ( PDF ; 577 kB)
  15. ^ Hanspeter Krellmann: Stations of a conductor - Wolfgang Sawallisch. Munich 1983, pp. 192-214.
  16. ^ Wolfgang Sawallisch Confirms His Retirement From the Podium | Playbill. Retrieved August 15, 2018 .
  17. ↑ 25 years of Kissinger Sommer. In: Stadtblatt Bad Kissingen. Photo on p. 10, June 2010 edition ( PDF ; 9.3 MB)
  18. ^ Hanspeter Krellmann: Stations of a conductor - Wolfgang Sawallisch. Munich 1983, pp. 192-214.
  19. ↑ musiklexikon.ac.at
  20. ↑ Wolfgang Sawallisch: In the interest of clarity. My life with music. Hamburg 1988, pp. 189-210.
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Sawallisch: In the interest of clarity. My life with music. Hamburg 1988, pp. 93-103.
  22. ^ Conductors ^ NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo. Archived from the original on December 31, 2012 ; accessed on May 15, 2020 (Japanese, English).
  23. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  24. ↑ Edda Moser. Retrieved August 15, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Record recording of the Magic Flute . September 1, 2006, accessed August 15, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Great moments of musical life - Badenweiler - . In: Badische Zeitung . ( badische-zeitung.de [accessed on August 15, 2018]).
  27. ↑ Act II, Der Hoelle Rache (Moser, Sawallisch). Retrieved August 15, 2018 .
  28. ↑ FONO FORUM: Edda Moser. Retrieved August 15, 2018 .
  29. ↑ The singer Edda Moser. ( Memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  30. ^ Hanspeter Krellmann: Stations of a conductor - Wolfgang Sawallisch. Munich 1983, pp. 192-214.
  31. ↑ Opera world. January 2013, p. 30 ff.
  32. ↑ philly.com
  33. ↑ Brahms Medal. ( Memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: aluan.de .
  34. ↑ a b Conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch is dead. In: Wiener Zeitung . February 24, 2013.
  35. ^ Accademici. In: Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Italian).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sawallisch, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 2013
Place of death Grassau