Erich Leinsdorf
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Erich Leinsdorf (February 4, 1912 - September 11, 1993) was an Austrian conductor.
Leinsdorf was born in Vienna, and studied music there. From 1934 to 1937 he worked as an assistant to Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival. He conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1938, being particularly noted for his Wagner.
He had a brief three-year post as Musical Director at the Cleveland Orchestra. His relative youth and recent naturalization as an American citizen caused him to be drafted into the United States Armed Forces during World War II. Though he managed to leave his assigned position as military band leader before the war ended, the damage to his Cleveland reputation was permanent, and his contract was not renewed. (Many years later, in the transition in Cleveland from Lorin Maazel to Christoph von Dohnányi between 1982 and 1984, Leinsdorf returned to lead several concerts, where he described his own role as "the bridge between the regimes'.[1])
He was conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1947 to 1955, and music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1962 to 1969. He subsequently appeared as guest conductor with a number of orchestras.
As the conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1967, he abruptly fled Israel in the middle of a concert series, just before the start of the Six-Day War. He left in such a hurry that he even forgot his tuxedo.
On November 22, 1963 during a performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra he interrupted the program with sad news saying "Ladies and Gentlemen, We have a press report over the wires...We hope that it is unconfirmed but we have to doubt it...that the President of the United States has been victim of an assassination." He was referring to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.
His memoirs, Cadenza: A Musical Career, were published in 1976.
[edit] References
- ^ Rosenberg, Donald, The Cleveland Orchestra Story. Gray & Co. (Cleveland, OH), 2000. IBSN 1-886228-24-8
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| Preceded by: Artur Rodziński |
Music Director, Cleveland Orchestra 1943–1946 |
Succeeded by: George Szell |
| Preceded by: Charles Munch |
Music Director, Boston Symphony Orchestra 1962–1969 |
Succeeded by: William Steinberg |
