Word: gewandhaus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Mendelssohn did not have to work, but his family believed in industry. Declining a permanent chair at the university in Berlin, Felix in 1835 took a paying post as music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Dictatorial, high-strung and charismatic, Mendelssohn demanded absolute obedience from his players and in the process raised the level of orchestral playing in Leipzig, Germany, and throughout Europe to new highs. He also changed the entire look of German symphonic life by using Mozart and Beethoven as the backbone of the repertory (instead of local celebrities like Anton Eberl and Karl Reissiger). Haydn...
...time impressing girls in local wine cellars, called the place "Little Paris." "It was a delightfully individualistic school," recalls a West German professor who studied there in the early 1930s, when it boasted many a towering scholar. "We studied hard. We enjoyed Leipzig and its charms-the wonderful Gewandhaus orchestra, the Friday night Bach concerts in the Thomaskirche and the fine restaurants...
Then followed several years of training in orchestra leading from such men as Bruno Walter, Fritz Busch, and, chiefly, Furtwangler. He was eventually offered a high-salaried position at the Gewandhaus at Leipzig, but only under the condition that he become a German citizen. Since Much was disturbed by the political makeup of Germany at the time, he decided to return to France, explaining to friends he "just wanted to come back home...
...boats and pine forests out of Grieg's nostrils. His music, delicately flavored with the weedy condiments of Norwegian folk song, soon won him world fame. By the time he was 60 even the Central Europeans admitted he was good, placed a bust of him in the famous Gewandhaus hall of fame in Leipzig. Even the concert-shy man-in-the-street knew and whistled melodies from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite...
Wagner, Medelsshohn, Greig ? these were the composers played creditably by the new 60-piece Indianapolis Orchestra. Teacher Schaefer proved an authoritative leader, but that surprised no one. Ferdinand Schaefer was weel trained in Germany before he came to the U.S. He was first violinist in the famed Gewandhaus orchestra in Leipzig, had conducting experience with several Leipzig and Berlin organizations. Almost every summer he goes back to Germany for a visit. He likes his beer and the music made by the small orchestras in every German city. U. S. cities should have just such orchestras, he says...