Contents
- Author’s Note
- Conductors born in the 1850s
- SIR GEORGE HENSCHEL
- ARTHUR NIKISCH
- ROBERT KAJANUS
- MAX FIEDLER
- KARL MUCK
- Conductors born in the 1860s
- ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ ARBOS
- GABRIEL PIERNÉ
- FRANZ SCHALK
- FELIX WEINGARTNER
- RICHARD STRAUSS
- ARTURO TOSCANINI
- LORENZO MOLAJOLI
- MAX VON SCHILLINGS
- HANS PFITZNER
- SIR HENRY J. WOOD
- Conductors born in the 1870s
- LEO BLECH
- OSKAR FRIED
- WILLEM MENGELBERG
- ALEXANDER VON ZEMLINSKY
- SIEGMUND VON HAUSEGGER
- ALFRED HERTZ
- FREDERICK STOCK
- SERGEI RACHMANINOFF
- SIR LANDON RONALD
- SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY
- SELMAR MEYROWITZ
- PIERRE MONTEUX
- ETTORE PANIZZA
- PABLO CASALS
- BRUNO WALTER
- ARTUR BODANZKY
- OSSIP GABRILOWITSCH
- TULLIO SERAFIN
- SIR THOMAS BEECHAM
- PHILIPPE GAUBERT
- SIR HAMILTON HARTY
- GAETANO MEROLA
- FRANTISEK STUPKA
- Conductors born in the 1880s
- D. E. INGHELBRECHT
- CARL SCHURICHT
- BRUNO SEIDLER-WINKLER
- ALBERT COATES
- LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI
- IGOR STRAVINSKY
- HERMANN ABENDROTH
- ERNEST ANSERMET
- NIKOLAI MALKO
- FRITZ STIEDRY
- VACLAV TALICH
- SAMUIL SAMOSUD
- ALBERT WOLFF
- VITTORIO GUI
- OTTO KLEMPERER
- HANS WEISBACH
- WILHELM FURTWAENGLER
- FRANCO GHIONE
- ROBERT HEGER
- GENNARO PAPI
- PAUL PARAY
- GEORGE GEORGESCU
- PIERO COPPOLA
- HANS KNAPPERTSBUSCH
- FRITZ REINER
- SIR ADRIAN BOULT
HANS WEISBACH
1885-1961
Almost slipping off the “famous conductor” radar, Hans Weisbach was a Bach and Bruckner specialist at the Leipzig Radio before the war, and based in Wuppertal in his later years, who made it to the USA via an HMV/Victor recording of Haydn’s Oxford with the London Symphony — it graced the catalogs for several years at least: I remember borrowing it from a friend at the age of 12. A mellow stylistic cousin to Franz Schalk, Clemens Krauss, Gunter Wand, the nearly invisible Weisbach knew everything there was to know about gemuetlich musicmaking, notably in an approach to string playing that favored soft attacks and bouncing bow, considerable vibrance, a mellow woodsy warmth. The truth is, all it took was the second bar of Weisbach’s Haydn 92 to convince me he belonged in this book — how is it that when the cellos initiate their arpeggio rise it sounds as if a keyboard had been gently struck? To borrow James Salter’s description of the chateau at Chenonceaux straddling its little river, the music “seems to be drifting in the meadows of a dream.” And the same could be said of much of Weisbach’s ‘39 Verdi Falstaff from Leipzig, so wise and witty, so light and sly, graced by a full plate of relaxed largamente phrasing. They don’t make meadows like that every day.