Frederick Martin Reiner (Hungarian : Reiner Frigyes; December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) [1] [2] was an American conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to prominence as a conductor with several orchestras. [3] He reached the pinnacle of his career while music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and early 1960s.
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Reiner was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary into a secular Jewish family that resided in the Pest area of the city. After preliminary studies in law at his father's urging, Reiner instead decided to pursue the study of piano, piano pedagogy, and composition at the Franz Liszt Academy. Between 1903 and 1905 he studied the piano with István Thomán. From 1905 to 1908 he was a member of the composition class of Hans Koessler. From 1907 until 1909 he studied piano pedagogy with Kálmán Chován. During his last two years there, his piano teacher was the young Béla Bartók.
After early engagements at opera houses in Budapest and Dresden (June 1914 to November 1921), where he worked closely with Richard Strauss, he moved to the United States in 1922 to take the post of Principal Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, where he remained until 1931. [4] During that period, in 1928, he and his wife became naturalized citizens. [5] In 1931 he accepted the role of conductor of both the Philadelphia Grand Opera and head of the orchestral department at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. [6] Some of his pupils included Leonard Bernstein, Lukas Foss, Max Goberman, Boris Goldovsky, Walter Hendl, Sylvan Levin, Henry Mazer, Howard Mitchell, Vincent Persichetti, Ezra Rachlin, Nino Rota, Felix Slatkin, Ethel Stark, and Hugo Weisgall. Reiner dismissed composer Samuel Barber from his conducting class as he lacked that talent. [7] Reiner resigned from Curtis in 1941. [8]
He conducted the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1938-1948 [9] [10] and made a few recordings with them for Columbia Records. He then spent several years at the Metropolitan Opera, where he conducted a historic production of Richard Strauss's Salome in 1949, with the Bulgarian soprano Ljuba Welitsch in the title role, [11] and the American premiere of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in 1951. [12]
He also conducted and made a recording of the 1952 Metropolitan Opera production of Bizet's Carmen , starring Risë Stevens. [13] The production was telecast on closed-circuit television that year.
In 1947, Reiner appeared on camera in the film Carnegie Hall , in which he conducted the New York Philharmonic as they accompanied violinist Jascha Heifetz in an abbreviated version of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. [14] Ten years later, Heifetz and Reiner recorded the full Tchaikovsky concerto in stereo for RCA Victor in Chicago.
Reiner's music-making had been largely American-focused since his arrival in Cincinnati. After the Second World War he began increasing his European activity.[ citation needed ] He became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1953. [15]
He appeared with members of the Chicago Symphony in a series of telecasts on Chicago's WGN-TV in 1953–54, and a later series of nationally syndicated programs called Music From Chicago . Some of these performances have been issued on DVD. [16]
He made recordings in Chicago's Orchestra Hall for RCA Victor from 1954 to 1963. The first of these — of Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben — occurred on March 6, 1954 and was among RCA's first to use stereophonic sound. [17] His last concerts in Chicago took place in the spring of 1963. [18]
One of his last recordings, released in a special Reader's Digest boxed set, was a performance of Brahms' Symphony No. 4, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in October 1962 in London's Kingsway Hall. This recording was later reissued on LP by Quintessence and on CD by Chesky.
On September 13 and 16, 1963, Reiner conducted a group of New York musicians in Haydn's Symphony No. 101 in D major; this was followed by September 18 and 20, 1963, sessions devoted to Haydn's Symphony No. 95 in C minor. [19]
At the time of his death (in November 1963) he was preparing the Met's new production of Wagner's Götterdämmerung .
Reiner was married three times (one of them to a daughter of Etelka Gerster) and had three daughters. His health deteriorated after a heart attack in October 1960. [1] [20] On November 11, 1963, while preparing for performances of Götterdämmerung at the Metropolitan Opera, Reiner became afflicted by bronchitis, which developed into pneumonia. He died in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City on November 15, 1963, at the age of 74. [1] [21]
Reiner and his compatriot Joseph Szigeti convinced Serge Koussevitzky to commission the Concerto for Orchestra from Bartók.[ citation needed ]
Reiner's conducting technique was noted for its precision and economy, in the manner of Arthur Nikisch and Arturo Toscanini. [2]
Igor Stravinsky called the Chicago Symphony under Reiner "the most precise and flexible orchestra in the world"; it was more often than not achieved with tactics that bordered on the personally abusive, as Kenneth Morgan documents in 2005 biography of the conductor. Chicago musicians have spoken of Reiner's autocratic methods; trumpeter Adolph Herseth told National Public Radio that Reiner often tested him and other musicians. [22]
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. Klaus Mäkelä was named music director-designate in 2024, with his first contractual season to begin in 2027. The orchestra's most recent music director is Riccardo Muti, whose tenure spanned the seasons from 2010 to 2023, and he continues to perform on occasion as director-emeritus. The CSO is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".
The Columbia Symphony Orchestra was an orchestra formed by Columbia Records for the purpose of making recordings. In the 1950s, it provided a vehicle for some of Columbia's better known conductors and recording artists to record using only company resources. The musicians in the orchestra were contracted as needed for individual sessions and consisted of free-lance artists and often members of either the New York Philharmonic or the Los Angeles Philharmonic, depending on whether the recording was being made in Columbia's East Coast or West Coast studios.
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career, he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–1954), and this led to his becoming a household name, especially in the United States, through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born American conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his free-hand conducting style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from the orchestras he directed.
The Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement orchestral work composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular, and most accessible works.
István Kertész was a Hungarian orchestral and operatic conductor who throughout his brief career led many of the world's great orchestras, including the Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Detroit, San Francisco and Minnesota Orchestras in the United States, as well as the London Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, and L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
Erich Leinsdorf was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality. He also published books and essays on musical matters.
Artur Rodziński was a Polish and American conductor of orchestral music and opera. He began his career after World War I in Poland, where he was discovered by Leopold Stokowski, who invited him to be his assistant with the Philadelphia Orchestra. This engagement led to Rodziński becoming music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also prepared the NBC Symphony Orchestra for Arturo Toscanini before the Italian conductor's debut with them. A dispute in Chicago led to Rodziński's dismissal in 1948, whereupon he shifted his career to Europe, eventually settling in Italy, although continuing to maintain a home in Lake Placid, New York. In November 1958, beset by heart disease, he made his professional return to the United States for the first time in a decade, conducting acclaimed performances of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Exhausted, he checked into Massachusetts General Hospital where he died 11 days later.
William Steinberg was a German-American conductor.
Michael Andreas Gielen was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aiding his ability to interpret the complex contemporary music he specialized in.
Walter Hendl was an American conductor, composer and pianist.
James W. Sample was an American conductor.
The Piano Concerto No. 1, Sz. 83, BB 91 of Béla Bartók was composed in 1926. Average playing time is between 23 and 24 minutes.
Richard Mohr was one of RCA Victor’s most prominent producers of classical and operatic music recordings from 1943 through 1977. His producing credits included recording the casts of the world premieres of Samuel Barber's Vanessa and Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, as well as the first LP recordings of Ernani,Luisa Miller and Lucrezia Borgia and three versions each of Rigoletto,Aida,La Traviata and Il Trovatore.
The Chicago Symphony Chorus began on September 22, 1957, when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) announced that Margaret Hillis would organize and train a symphony chorus. The music director Fritz Reiner's original intent was to utilize the chorus for the two weeks of subscription concerts that season, performing George Frideric Handel's Messiah in December and Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem in April. When Bruno Walter informed the orchestra's management that his March 1958 appearances would be his last in Chicago, the board president, Eric Oldberg, insisted that Walter conduct Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem utilizing the new chorus. During that first season, it was logistically impossible for Hillis to audition and prepare a new Chorus for three major works within less than four months. As an interim fix, the Apollo Chorus of Chicago was used for the Christmas Messiah concerts.
Wassili Leps was a Russian-born American composer and conductor.
Vladimir Romanovich Bakaleinikov, also Bakaleynikov and Bakaleinikoff was a Russian-American violist, music educator, conductor and composer.
Henry Simon Mazer, was an American and later Taiwanese conductor, recording artist and music educator who was the founding principal conductor and music director of Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 until suffering a stroke in February 2001. Prior to his move to Taiwan, he was the conductor and associate conductor of major American symphonies including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He contributed greatly to the refinement of the performances of classical music in Taiwan, leading local musicians to gain recognition overseas. There is a cultural center dedicated to him in Taipei.
Lambertus Reiner "Reinbert" de Leeuw was a Dutch conductor, pianist and composer.
Les nuits d'été, Op. 7, is a song cycle by the French composer Hector Berlioz, setting six poems by Théophile Gautier. The cycle, completed in 1841, was originally for soloist and piano accompaniment. Berlioz orchestrated one of the songs in 1843 and did the same for the other five in 1856. The cycle was neglected for many years, but during the 20th century it became, and has remained, one of the composer's most popular works. Of the many recordings made in the 20th and 21st centuries, most are of the orchestrated version and are sung by a soprano or mezzo-soprano.
Reiner to Conduct Symphony. Young Hungarian Musician Chosen to Pilot Destinies of the Cincinnati Orchestra.
Reiners Naturalized.
Philadelphia Takes Fritz Reiner. Cincinnati Leader Engaged to Direct Famous Orchestra and Grand Opera Company. . . . Fritz Reiner has accepted an engagement to conduct the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company for next season . . . . [He] has also accepted the appointment as head of the orchestral department of the Curtis Institute and will take over the duties of the position next fall.
Dr. [Randall] Thompson Resigns as Curtis President; Fritz Reiner Also Quits.
Fritz Reiner to Lead Pittsburgh Symphony
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)Dr. Fritz Reiner, for 10 years musical director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, resigned today 'because of other plans.'
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)The exceptional aspects of the performance were due almost entirely to the presence of two newcomers to the opera house. One was Fritz Reiner, who conducted brilliantly; the other was Ljuba Welitsch, a Bulgarian soprano with a thrilling voice and an overwhelming desire to please the customers.
Reiner's big job at the Met this coming season is the musical preparation and conducting of Stravinsky's new opera, 'The Rake's Progress.'
[Stevens] has sung 'Carmen' many times before, but not ever as well as she is doing it now. Fritz Reiner has found and brought forth, as conductor, every note of Bizet's enormously vivid score. . . .[it] is the greatest thrill of the theatrical season . . .
Fritz Reiner Takes Over and Chicago Gets its Orchestra Back
Farewell to Reiner
Fritz Reiner Resting in Chicago Hospital.
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