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Frederick Martin "Fritz" Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.
Background
Fritz Reiner was born on December 19, 1888 in Budapest, Hungary, the son of Ign Reiner, a businessman, and of Vilma Pollak. His mother's interest in music provided him with his first contact with that art. Fascinated by seeing his first opera, Lucia di Lammermoor, at age six, he expressed the desire to study piano. Three years later, he was playing Wagner's Tannhäuser Overture from memory, and in 1897 he performed as piano soloist in Mozart's Coronation Concerto.
Education
He attended the Budapest Academy of Music (1898 - 1908), where he studied with Béla Bartók and Hans Koessler. He also studied law at the University of Budapest in compliance with his father's wishes, but after the latter's death in 1909, he dedicated himself to music.
Career
After graduating from the academy, Reiner became a coach at the Budapest Komische Oper (1909), where the following year he found himself conducting, at the last minute, a performance of Bizet's Carmen. In 1910 he became conductor at the Landestheater in Laibach (now Ljubljana, Yugoslavia), conducting Smetana's Dalibor; he also directed Laibach's Grand Symphony Concerts.
The following year, he began a three-year stay with the Budapest Volksoper, where he conducted one of the first Parsifal performances legally permitted outside of Bayreuth and the Budapest premiere of The Jewels of the Madonna by Wolf-Ferrari. He then moved to Dresden, where, from 1914 to 1921, he directed the Saxon State Orchestra. He was also selected as Kapellmeister. During this period he also conducted in Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, and Rome. His experience at Dresden had offered him the opportunity to conduct his first Ring, meet Richard Strauss, and attend Berlin and Leipzig performances conducted by Arthur Nikisch. Reiner usually referred to Nikisch, as well as to the Hungarian composer Leo Weiner, as great influences on his career. In 1921 Reiner left Dresden to undertake engagements in Rome and Barcelona. The following year he became director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1930. In 1928 he became an American citizen.
In 1931 Reiner joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music as head of the orchestra and opera departments (1931 - 1941). He taught advanced students, conducted the institute's orchestra, and supervised certain activities of the Philadelphia Academy of Music. He conducted the premiere of Menotti's Amelia Goes to the Ball (1937).
During the 1934-1935 season of the Philadelphia Grand Opera, Reiner conducted five out of ten productions. He was still occupied with various foreign commitments and participated in the 1936-1937 opera festivities at Covent Garden in honor of King Edward VIII's coronation. There he led Kirsten Flagstad's London debut as Isolde. Reiner was also associated with the Wagner performances (with Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior) at the San Francisco Opera (1936 - 1938). In 1938 Reiner became conductor and music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony and arranged its first recording contract in 1941 with Columbia.
He resigned from the Pittsburgh Symphony over some financial disputes in 1948 and became a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, where he made a spectacular debut conducting Ljuba Welitsch in a historic performance of Strauss's Salome on Feburary 4, 1949.
At the Metropolitan he conducted 113 performances of twelve operas with many of the most outstanding artists of the day. In addition to the celebrated Salome, certain of his Tristan und Isolde and Der Rosenkavalier performances were landmarks. Reiner conducted Flagstad's first postwar appearance at the Met (January 22, 1951) and the Met premiere of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (Feburary 14, 1953).
Though many critics and musicians sometimes felt that Reiner was more proficient as an operatic rather than a symphonic conductor, he used to say that when he was working on an opera, he wished he were conducting a concert and vice versa. After five years at the Met, Reiner returned to the concert hall podium as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1953 - 1962). Here, as he had previously in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, Reiner improved and perfected the quality of the orchestra and planned programs that offered both the traditional classics and modern works (though rarely any twelve-tone pieces, which he considered mere mathematics). His activities as guest conductor continued (including conducting at the opening performances of the Vienna Staatsoper in 1955).
Reiner made the Chicago Symphony one of the leading American orchestras. Unfortunately, a major controversy arose in February 1959, when he announced his decision to cancel the proposed State Department arrangements for the Chicago Symphony to tour western and eastern Europe--the most extensive tour ever planned for an American orchestra up to that time. Reiner's public reasons for the decision stressed the intensity of the touring schedule, and he promised to arrange for a future tour. Some say that Reiner's heart problems affected the decision to cancel the projected tour (he had a heart attack in 1960). In any event, he resigned from the orchestra in 1962. He died in New York City.
Reiner was always the dedicated and thorough musician. Music was his life, and he exemplified the extremely high standards that he always stressed in classes and interviews. He believed that the conductor must have an overall understanding of theory, harmony, counterpoint, and composition (he himself composed a string quartet and songs) as well as a perceptive appreciation of other art forms. According to Reiner, the conductor should be able to play the piano and transpose any score or musical arrangement, and he should rarely need to verbalize his intentions to the orchestra, even when facing it for the first time - the conductor's eyes should help express the mood he wishes to convey.
Personality
Reiner was known for his tempestuous temper during rehearsals and a distant attitude toward members of the orchestras. Yet this formidable public image was forgotten as soon as his almost motionless figure stood before his audience and he revealed to both audience and musicians alike his superior skills and compelling dedication as a conductor.
Connections
On April 23, 1930, shortly after divorcing his first wife, Berta Gardini Gerster, he married a Cincinnati actress, Carlotta Irwin.