Fritz Cassirer

[1] Fritz Cassirer studied music with Hans Pfitzner and Gustav Holländer, after which he was appointed to conducting posts in a succession of German opera houses: Lübeck, Posen, Saarbrücken and Elberfeld.

[2] While Cassirer was in charge of the Elberfeld opera, his colleague Hans Haym introduced him to the music of Frederick Delius, which was little known in Germany and hardly known at all anywhere else.

[2] Cassirer was a member of the Komische Oper company that visited London in 1907, playing Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann.

Beecham, who had hitherto known nothing of Delius's music, expressed his "wonderment" and was from then on a lifelong devotee of the composer's works.

[6] After turning down an offer to appear at the Manhattan Opera House, New York, Cassirer retired to Munich, and devoted himself to philosophical and literary studies.