Leo Borchard

Lew Ljewitsch "Leo" Borchard (31 March 1899 – 23 August 1945) was a German-Russian conductor and briefly musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Borchard was born in Moscow to German parents, and grew up in Saint Petersburg where he received a solid musical education, as well being a regular visitor to the Stanislavsky Theatre.

[2] During World War II he remained in Berlin as a Resistance activist under the name Andrik Krassnow, during which time his duties included contact with Ludwig Lichtwitz, a specialist in false identity papers.

[citation needed] On 26 May 1945, two and a half weeks after Germany's unconditional surrender, he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic at the Titania Palast cinema, in a concert featuring the Overture to Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mozart's Violin Concerto in A major and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.

[3] One week later he was appointed musical director of the orchestra by the Soviet official Nikolai Berzarin, replacing Wilhelm Furtwängler, who was in exile in Switzerland.

On 5 and 6 September 1995 Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic marked the anniversary of Borchard's death with performances of Mahler's 6th Symphony.