Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch (12 March 1888 – 25 October 1965) was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Wagner, Bruckner and Richard Strauss.

Knappertsbusch followed the traditional route for an aspiring conductor in Germany in the early 20th century, starting as a musical assistant and progressing to increasingly senior conducting posts.

In 1922, at the age of 34, he was appointed general music director of the Bavarian State Opera, holding that post for eleven years.

[1] He conducted at the Mülheim-Ruhr theatre from 1910 to 1912; more significant, according to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, were his summers as assistant to Siegfried Wagner and Hans Richter at Bayreuth.

He invited guest conductors such as Richard Strauss and Sir Thomas Beecham,[3] and won high praise for his own conducting.

The same reviewer observed that Knappertsbusch's experience at Bayreuth before the war had given him an advantage over rival conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler.

[4] He was musically conservative, but conducted the premieres of seven operas during his time at Munich: Don Gil von den grünen Hosen by Walter Braunfels, Das Himmelskleid by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Samuel Pepys by Albert Coates, Die geliebte Stimme by Jaromír Weinberger, Lucedia by Vittorio Giannini, and Das Herz by Hans Pfitzner.

There were evidently several reasons for this: he refused to join the Nazi Party and was frequently rude about the régime;[n 1] budgetary constraints meant little to him; and Adolf Hitler, who had strong ideas about music, did not like his slow tempi, calling him "that military bandleader".

[7] During the next nine years, Knappertsbusch worked mostly in Austria conducting at the Staatsoper and the Salzburg Festival, and continuing a long association with the Vienna Philharmonic.

The president of the Vienna Philharmonic recalled: After the war there was a widespread desire in Munich for Knappertsbusch's return, but like the other leading musicians who had worked under the Nazi régime he was subject to a process of denazification, and the occupying American forces appointed Georg Solti as general music director of the State Opera.

[1] He declined an invitation to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but continued to appear as a guest artist in Vienna and elsewhere, and became a pillar of the Bayreuth Festival.

Both have remained in the catalogues, and when the 1962 set was transferred to CD, Alan Blyth wrote in Gramophone, "this is the most moving and satisfying account of Parsifal ever recorded, and one that for various reasons will not easily be surpassed.