Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was born on September 15, 1876 in Berlin and began his musical
education at the age of eight at the city's Stern Conservatory. When he
was nine, he made his first public appearance as a pianist. Following visits
to one of Hans von Bülow's concerts in 1889 and to Bayreuth in 1891,
Walter decided upon a conducting career. He was first engaged as a coach
at the Cologne Opera in 1893, and made his conducting début there
with Lortzing's Waffenschmied. The following year he went to the Hamburg
Opera where he worked as an assistant to Gustav Mahler. After seasons at
the theatres in Breslau, Pressburg and Riga, he returned in 1900 to Berlin,
where he conducted the Berlin premiere of Der arme Heinrich by Hans Pfitzner,
whose operas Walter faithfully supported.
In 1901 Walter joined Gustav Mahler at the Court Opera in Vienna. In
the following years, which were formative ones for Walter's international
career, he was invited to conduct in Prague, London (where in 1910 he conducted
Tristan und Isolde and Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers at Covent Garden) and
Rome. A few months following Mahler's death in 1911, Walter led the first
performance of Das Lied von der Erde in Munich, and in Vienna the following
year the first performance of the Ninth Symphony, having also prepared
the score for publication. Walter became an Austrian citizen in 1911, officially
changing his last name from Schlesinger to Walter. In 1913 he left Vienna
to become musical director of the Munich Opera, remaining there until the
end of 1922. In 1923 he visited the United States to conduct the New York
Symphony Orchestra, and was re-engaged for the following season. Further
guest appearances in Europe included several with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw
Orchestra. In London, Walter was chief conductor of the German seasons
at Covent Garden from 1924 to 1931. In 1925 he returned to Berlin as musical
director at the Städtische Oper, Charlottenburg, and also began his
long association with the Salzburg Festival. In 1929 Walter left Berlin
for Leipzig to succeed Wilhelm Furtwängler as director of the Gewandhaus
concerts.
In 1933, when the political situation became impossible for him, Walter
left Germany for Austria. This was to be his main center of activity for
the next several years, although he was also a frequent guest conductor
of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1934 to 1939, and made guest
appearances elsewhere, including annual visits with the New York Philharmonic
from 1932 to 1936, and in Florence in 1936. At the Vienna Staatsoper he
was guest conductor from 1935 and artistic adviser from 1936. In 1938 the
Anschluss uprooted him once more. Walter was granted French citizenship,
but settled in 1939 in the United States. During his American years he
conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic (where he was musical
adviser from 1947 to 1949), and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among others.
Between 1941 and 1959 he also conducted at the Metropolitan Opera. Beginning
in 1947, he made numerous return visits to Europe, becoming an important
figure in the early years of the Edinburgh Festival, and returning to Salzburg,
Vienna and Munich.
Walter's Mahler recordings contributed to the eventual, if somewhat
late, acceptance of the composer, while a generation of opera-goers was
treated to his performances of Wagner and Strauss. Walter was also a very
capable pianist who occasionally conducted Mozart concertos from the keyboard
and accompanied lieder singers including Kathleen Ferrier. His compositions,
mostly dating from the first decade of this century, include two symphonies,
a symphonic fantasia, some choral works, chamber music and songs. He wrote
the autobiographical Theme and Variations (1946) and Of Music and Music
Making (1961).
He died on February 17, 1962, in Beverly Hills, California.
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