Bruno Walter worked closely with Gustav Mahler, whose music he helped to establish in the repertory, held major positions with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others, made recordings of historical and artistic significance, and is widely considered to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century.
33 Facts About Bruno Walter
2.
Bruno Walter studied composition at Stern with Robert Radecke, and remained active as a composer until about 1910.
3.
In 1897, Bruno Walter became Chief Conductor at the municipal opera in Pressburg.
4.
Bruno Walter found the town provincial and depressing, and in 1898 took the position of Chief Conductor of the Riga Opera, Russian Empire.
5.
In 1899 Bruno Walter was appointed music director of the Temeswar, Austria-Hungary Opera, the current Banatul Philharmonic of Timisoara.
6.
Bruno Walter then returned in 1900 to Berlin, where he assumed the post of Royal Prussian Conductor at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, succeeding Franz Schalk; his colleagues there included Richard Strauss and Karl Muck.
7.
In 1901, Bruno Walter accepted Mahler's invitation to be his assistant at the Court Opera in Vienna.
8.
When Mahler died on May 18,1911, Bruno Walter was at his deathbed.
9.
Bruno Walter was the city's music director for most of this period, and he presided over most of the Wagnerian repertoire.
10.
In January 1914, Bruno Walter conducted his first concert in Moscow.
11.
In 1920, he conducted the premiere of Bruno Walter Braunfels' Die Vogel.
12.
In Munich, Bruno Walter was a good friend of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli.
13.
Bruno Walter ended his Munich appointment in 1922 and left for New York in 1923, working with the New York Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; he later conducted in Detroit, Minnesota and Boston.
14.
Back in Europe, Bruno Walter made his debuts with both the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1923, and was Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1925 to 1929.
15.
Bruno Walter made his debut at La Scala in 1926, and was chief conductor of the German seasons at Covent Garden in London from 1924 to 1931.
16.
Bruno Walter served as Principal Conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1929 until March 1933, when his tenure was cut short by the new Nazi government, as detailed below.
17.
However, Leipzig's Chief of Police informed management that he would cancel the concerts if Bruno Walter was to conduct them.
18.
Management resisted and Bruno Walter led rehearsals, but on the day that the first concert was to take place, the police, "in the name of the Saxon ministry of the interior," forbade the dress rehearsal and the concerts; Bruno Walter left Leipzig.
19.
Bruno Walter left Germany and was not to conduct there again until after the war.
20.
Bruno Walter was appointed Permanent Guest Conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1934 to 1939, and made guest appearances such as in annual concerts with the New York Philharmonic from 1932 to 1936.
21.
Bruno Walter used his influence to find safe quarters in Scandinavia for his brother and sister during the war.
22.
Bruno Walter settled in Beverly Hills, California, where his many expatriate neighbors included Thomas Mann.
23.
Bruno Walter made his last live concert appearance on December 4,1960 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pianist Van Cliburn.
24.
Bruno Walter's last recording was a series of Mozart overtures with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra at the end of March in 1961.
25.
Bruno Walter died of a heart attack in his Beverly Hills home in 1962.
26.
Bruno Walter is buried in the cemetery of Gentilino in Canton Ticino, Switzerland.
27.
Bruno Walter's work is documented on hundreds of recordings made between 1900 and 1961.
28.
Bruno Walter worked closely with Mahler as an assistant and protege.
29.
Bruno Walter led the first performance of Das Lied in 1911 in Munich and of the Ninth in 1912 in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic.
30.
Bruno Walter was to re-record both works successfully in later decades.
31.
Bruno Walter conducted the New York Philharmonic in the 1957 stereo recording of the Second Symphony.
32.
Bruno Walter made many highly acclaimed recordings of other great Germanic composers, such as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss Jr.
33.
Bruno Walter was a leading conductor of opera, and recordings of Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro from both the Metropolitan Opera and the Salzburg Festival, of Beethoven's Fidelio, and of Wagner and Verdi are now available on CD.