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Hans Rosbaud (July 22, 1895, Graz, Austria – December 29, 1962, Lugano, Switzerland) was an Austrian conductor, particularly associated with the music of the twentieth century. As a youth, he studied music at a conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, under the tutelage of Bernhard Sekles in composition and Alfred Hoehn in piano.
Rosbaud's first professional post was in Mainz, starting in 1921, as the music director of the city's new School of Music, which included conducting the municipal symphony concerts. He became the first chief conductor of the Hessicher Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra (later the Hr-Sinfonieorchester) of Frankfurt in 1928.[1] During the 1920s and 1930s, he presented premieres of works by Arnold Schoenberg and Béla Bartók. During the Nazi era, his freedom to present new music was restricted. In 1937, he became the general music director of the city of Münster. In 1941, Rosbaud took the same position in Strasbourg.
In 1945 he was named music director of the Munich Philharmonic by United States occupation authorities. In 1948, Rosbaud's contract with the Munich orchestra was allowed to lapse because the city authorities wanted to move the orchestra's repertoire in a conservative direction.[2] That year Rosbaud became the first chief conductor of the South West German Radio Orchestra in Baden-Baden, where he remained for the rest of his life. In 1954, he conducted the first performance of Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron on 8 days' notice, and this performance was preserved on a 1957 commercial recording for Philips.[3] He regularly took the SWR Symphony Orchestra to festivals of contemporary music, such as at Donaueschingen.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Potts, Joseph E., "European Radio Orchestras: Western Germany" (September 1955). The Musical Times, 96 (1351): 473-475.
- ^ Monod, David (2006), “Americanizing the Patron State? Government and Music under American Occupation, 1945-1953”, in Riethmüller, Albrecht, Deutsche Leitkultur Musik?: Zur Musikgeschichte nach dem Holocaust, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, pp. 55, ISBN 3515089748, <http://books.google.com/books?id=KO4001a3o6kC&pg=PA55&vq=%22were+let+go+when+their+contracts+expired%22&dq=%22Deutsche+Leitkultur+Musik%3F%22&sig=38M3f-Ru5roM_Guvo1ZPlsLjGmA>
- ^ Obituary for Hans Rosbaud (1963). The Musical Times, 104 (1440): 126.
- ^ Helm, Everett, "Donaueschingen Festival" (December 1956). The Musical Times, 97 1366: 657-658.
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