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THE ORCHESTRA. Hans Richter
HANS RICHTER was the first of the great "star" opera conductors (called "prima donna conductors"). He was leader at the Bayreuth Wagnerian festivals from the first in 1876, conductor of the London Philharmonic concerts, founder of the London Richter concerts, and was known throughout Europe as one of the most energetic and accomplished of modern orchestral masters. His name is especially connected with the works of Richard Wagner, of which he became one of the most distinguished interpreters; but his performances of the works of Beethoven, Liszt, and Brahms were also famous wherever there was a music-loving public.
Born at Raab, in Hungary, on the 4th of April, 1843, son of the musical director of the cathedral, Richter began his musical education at an early age. He lived in a musical atmosphere, as his mother, whose maiden name was Josephine Csa zinsky, was the first to take the rOle f Venus in "Tannhãuser" at Vienna. As a boy, he sang in the cathedral choir, either soprano or alto as the circumstances re quired, and sometimes played the organ.
He made his public debut as a drummer in Haydn's "Paukcnmesse." When he was ten years old, in 1853, he appeared at a concert as pianist, and the following year, after the death of his father, he went to the choristers' school, "the Conviki," in Vienna—where Schubert received his. musical education. At Vienna, Richter became a chorister in the Court Chapel.
For five years, from 1860, Richter studied in the Vienna "Conservatorium," under Heissler and Sechter, and learned to play the horn under Kleinecke (klein' ek-keh), becoming finally hornist in the old Kãrnthnerthor Theater. The studies he had made in the meanwhile of the art of conducting did not bear fruit until 1868. In August of that year he made his first appearance as a conductor at the Court Theater in Munich, to which he had just been appointed, presiding over a performance of "William Tell;"
His friendship with Richard Wagner was long and close, and in the course of it Richter made the first copy of the music score of "Die Meistersinger." He stayed at Lucerne with Wagner, and worked with him from October, 1866, until December, 1867.
"I have mentioned that Wagner's workroom, where he was engaged on the score of the 'Meistersinger' was exactly underneath the room which I occupied in his house," he said on one occasion. "During the thirteen months which I spent at Villa Triebschen (treeb'-shen), I can positively state that I never once heard the sound of the piano in his room. This shows - that when composing or noting down his ideas, Wagner was never in the habit of trying how it would sound on the piano."
In 1868 Richter accepted the post of conductor at the National Theater, Munich, and remained there for a year. After a visit to Paris and then to Brussels, for the first production of "Lohengrin," in 1870, he returned to Wagner, at Lucerne, and made the copy of the music score of the four music dramas of the "Ring of the Nibelung" for the engraver. In January, 1875, he conducted a great orchestral concert in Vienna, which attracted attention to him, having in the meantime been conductor at the National Theater, in Pest, Hungary. This was followed by his appointment to the conductorship of the Court Opera at Vienna, and during the same period he conducted the Philharmonic concerts, and from 1884 to 1890 was conductor of the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musik freunde (meaning "Society of Friends of Music," an old established association in Vienna).
The beginning of his career in England came in 1877 with the famous Wagner concerts, when he shared the post of conductor with Wagner himself. In 1889 began the "Orchestral Festival Concerts," in London, which later became the Richter concerts, and were especially notable for the conductor's knowledge of the Beethoven symphonies, which he conducted without music score. Richter introduced Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" and "Tristan" to the London public, and, from 1904 on he presided at the special performances of German opera at Covent Garden. He died in Bayreuth on December 6, 1916.
Richter had many decorations, including the Order of Maximilian from the King of Bavaria. Oxford University bestowed the honorary degree of Mus. D. (Doctor of Music) upon him in 1885, and he received the Order of Franz Joseph. The list of the great opera houses and concert halls of Europe, in which Richter conducted, is a long and impressive one, and bears testimony to the versatile genius of this great conductor.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 5, No. 1, SERIAL No. 125
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
