Background
He was born in Leiden in 1875.
He was born in Leiden in 1875.
He studied under Julius Röntgen and at the Berlin High School for Music.
His peers such as Gerald Moore considered him the doyen of accompanists in his day. He decided early to become an accompanist, a field of which he made a special study. On 9 November 1896, in the presence of the composer, and still a month shy of his 21st birthday, he accompanied the Dutch baritone Anton Sistermans at the premiere of Brahms" Vier ernste Gesänge in Vienna.
Foreign many years he worked with singers such as Raimund von zur-Mühlen, Elena Gerhardt (United States of America tour 1920, Spanish tour 1928), Julia Culp, Frieda Hempel, Alexander Kipnis, Gervase Elwes, Ludwig Wüllner and Helen Traubel (he accompanied Traubel on a world tour in 1945-1946).
He appeared with the 13-year-old Yehudi Menuhin in Berlin on 23 April 1929, and they exchanged inscribed photographs of themselves in commemoration of the event (Bos"s gift to Menuhin is now in the Museum of the Royal Academy of Music). He recorded lieder of Brahms, Reger, Schubert, Schumann and Wolf with Elena Gerhardt (1927-1932).
He figures prominently in the Hugo Wolf Society"s Complete Edition 1931-1938, accompanying Gerhardt, Herbert Janssen, Gerhard Hüsch, Alexandra Trianti and Elisabeth Rethberg. He died in Chappaqua, New York, United States on 5 August 1955, aged 79.
He preserved his musical memories in "The Well-tempered Accompanist" (1949.
Company-written with Ashley Pettis).