The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra is a seasonal German orchestra based at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus for the annual summer festival Bayreuth Festival. It is reconstituted each season in order to perform Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and other of his stage works, as envisaged by the composer and festival founder. The festival occurs annually, although in some years it was cancelled because of war or other reasons.
Although otherwise entirely devoted to the works of Wagner, the inaugural festival in 1876 was opened with a performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, and this practice has often been followed subsequently. It has become something of a tradition since Wilhelm Furtwängler reintroduced it in the 1930s.
The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra does not have a permanent membership but each year the festival organisers recruit leading musicians from other German orchestras, depending on their availability. Some musicians always arrange their schedules so as to be available for the orchestra; other participate less frequently. [1]
Conductors of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra at the Bayreuth Festival have been:
A number of other notable conductors have conducted the orchestra for recordings and broadcasts.
Gustav Heinrich Ernst Martin Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. He was a major influence for many later conductors, and his name is often mentioned when discussing their interpretative styles.
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.
Elisabeth Grümmer was a German soprano. She has been described as "a singer blessed with elegant musicality, warm-hearted sincerity, and a voice of exceptional beauty".
Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Wagner, Bruckner and Richard Strauss.
Karl Eduard Maria Elmendorff was a German opera conductor.
Franz Konwitschny was a German conductor and violist of Moravian descent.
Franz Wüllner was a German composer and conductor. He led the premieres of Wagner's Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, but was much criticized by Wagner himself, who greatly preferred the more celebrated conductors Hans von Bülow and Hermann Levi.
Fritz Busch was a German conductor.
Mannheim National Theatre is Germany's biggest theatre that records over 3,000 artistes from different surrounding theatres.
Ludwig Suthaus was a German operatic heldentenor.
This is an audio and video discography of Tristan und Isolde, an opera by Richard Wagner which was first performed on 10 June 1865 in Munich.
Georg Wilhelm Rauchenecker was a German composer, conductor and violinist.
The Meiningen Court Orchestra is one of the oldest and most traditional orchestras in Europe. Since 1952 the now 68-member orchestra has been affiliated to the Meiningen Court Theatre and in addition to their opera performances regularly give symphony concerts and youth concerts. The incumbent music director (GMD) is Philippe Bach.
Members of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art, awarded to acknowledge and reward excellent and outstanding achievements in the fields of science and art. It is based in Bavaria, Germany.
Georg Dohrn was a German conductor and pianist, who worked in Munich and Breslau. Inspired by Johannes Brahms to pursue music, he collaborated with notable musicians and composers of his era.
Isolde Josefa Ludovika Beidler was the first child of the composer Richard Wagner and his wife, who is generally known as Cosima Wagner.
Erna Schlüter was a German operatic dramatic soprano and voice teacher. Beginning as a contralto at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater in 1922, she moved to the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 1925 where her voice developed to dramatic soprano, to the Stadttheater Düsseldorf in 1930 where she appeared in 1933 in the world premiere of Winfried Zillig's Der Rossknecht and was awarded the title Kammersängerin. Her last station, from 1940, was the Hamburg State Opera.