Walter Henry Rothwell

[1] After initial training from his mother, who had been a piano pupil of Friedrich Wieck, he entered the Royal Academy of Music in Vienna at the age of nine.

[2] After a two-year apprenticeship under Mahler, Rothwell left Hamburg to conduct operatic performances in many European cities, becoming director of the Royal Opera in Amsterdam.

He conducted this orchestra for seven years until it was disbanded because of financial problems resulting from the United States' entry into World War I.

[2] In the summer of 1919, Rothwell became the first music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, chosen by founder William Andrews Clark, Jr. after the position was declined by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

He continued in this position until 13 March 1927 when he died of a heart attack while driving to the beach at Santa Monica, California where he often would go to study music scores.