Felix Weingartner
Paul Felix Weingartner, Edler[1] von Münzberg (2 June 1863 – 7 May 1942) was an Austrian conductor, composer and pianist.
Life and career
Weingartner was born in
In 1902, at the
Weingartner was the first conductor to make commercial recordings of all nine Beethoven symphonies, and the second (to Leopold Stokowski in Philadelphia) to record all four Brahms symphonies. In 1935 he conducted the world premiere of Georges Bizet's long-lost Symphony in C. His crisp classical conducting style contrasted with the romantic approach of many of his contemporaries such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, whose conducting is now considered "subjective" on the basis of tempo fluctuations not called for in the printed scores; while Weingartner was more like Arturo Toscanini in insisting on playing as written. His 1935 recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, for instance, sounds much more like Toscanini's 1936, 1938, 1939 and 1952 renditions (only the last of which was recorded in a studio rather than at a concert) than Furtwängler's far more expansive readings.
He taught conducting to students as eminent as Paul Sacher, Charles Houdret, Georg Tintner and Josef Krips. He experimented with films of himself conducting (such as in his only recorded performance of Weber's overture to Der Freischütz) as a tool in "orchestral training".[2]
He was married five times, to Marie Juillerat (in 1891), Baroness Feodora von Dreifus (1903), mezzo-soprano Lucille Marcel (1912; died in 1921), actress Roxo Betty Kalisch (1922),[3] and Carmen Studer (1931).
Composer and editor
Despite his lifelong career as a conductor, Weingartner regarded himself as equally, if not more importantly, a composer. Besides numerous operas, Weingartner wrote seven symphonies which have all been recorded, with his other orchestral music, by cpo - classic production osnabrück, in Osnabrück, Germany. A sinfonietta, violin concerto, cello concerto, orchestral works, at least five string quartets, quintets for strings and for piano with clarinet and other pieces including a great many Lieder for voice and piano, one of which, "Liebesfeier" (text: Lenau) achieved a status as his most famous short work, in effect a "hit". Weingartner's choice of verse for his songs mirrors that of his contemporary composers: Max Reger, Joseph Marx, Richard Trunk and Richard Strauss.
His musical style, notably very generous, indeed rather valuable in its rather Schubertian melodic interest, is of its time: an amalgam of late
Weingartner edited, with Charles Malherbe, the complete works of Hector Berlioz (he once called Berlioz the "creator of the modern orchestra") as well as the operas Joseph by Méhul and Oberon by Weber, and individual works of Gluck, Wagner and others. He also made orchestral versions of piano works such as Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, Weber's Invitation to the Dance, and Bizet's Variations chromatiques. Before Brian Newbould's more recent work, in 1934, he made a performing version of Schubert's Symphony No. 7 in E major, D. 729, that has received some performances and recordings; he also arranged works by a number of early Romantic masters for orchestral performance.
Writings and interests
Weingartner was early interested in the occult, astrology, and Eastern mysticism, which influenced his personal philosophy and his music to some extent. He was himself a prolific writer who published a poetical drama, Golgotha, in 1908. He wrote copiously on music drama, on conducting, on the symphony since Beethoven, on the symphonies of Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann as well as on art and esoteric subjects. Two collections of essays were Musikalische Walpurgisnacht (1907) and Akkorde (1912). He also published an autobiography, Lebenserinnerungen in 1923.
References
- Edle.
- ^ "The Realm of Music". The Independent. Jul 6, 1914. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
- ^ "Champions: Felix Weingartner". The Hector Berlioz Website. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
Bibliography
- Dyment, Christopher; Dyment, Christopher (1976). Felix Weingartner: Recollections & Recordings. Rickmansworth, England: Triad press. ISBN 0-902070-17-7.
- Holden, Raymond (2005). The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09326-8.
- Weingartner, Felix (2004). On the Performance of Beethoven's Symphonies and Other Essays. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-43966-6.
- Weingartner, Felix; Arthur Bles (1971) [1907]. The Symphony Writers Since Beethoven. London: William Reeves. ISBN 0-8371-4369-1.
- Weingartner, Felix; Wolff, Marguerite (1937). Buffets and Rewards: A Musician's Reminiscences. London: Hutchinson & Co. OCLC 3288646.
External links
- Felix Weingartner at AllMusic
- Felix Weingartner biography
- Felix Weingartner String Quartet Nos.1 & 3, Opp.24 & 34 sound-bites and discussion of works
- Free scores by Felix Weingartner at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Newspaper clippings about Felix Weingartner in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- Works by Felix Weingartner at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)