WALTER, BRUNO

WALTER, BRUNO (Bruno Walter Schlesinger; 1876–1962), conductor. He was born in Berlin, where he studied at the Stern Conservatory. At 17 he became voice coach at the Cologne Opera and the following year assistant conductor, under gustav mahler , at the Municipal Theater in Hamburg. He conducted in various German towns until 1900, when he became conductor at the Berlin Opera, but he left after a year to become Mahler's assistant at the Vienna Opera, where he remained until 1912. In 1917 he was engaged as general director of the Munich Opera, which gained a brilliant reputation for its fine repertory and high standard of performance. From 1922 he worked as a guest conductor, making his American debut and conducting at the Salzburg Mozart Festival. In 1925 he became conductor of the Municipal Opera in Berlin-Charlottenburg, and in 1929 of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 1932 he was a guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic and was reengaged for the next three seasons under Toscanini. Meanwhile, the Nazis came to power and he lost his German engagements. In 1936 he accepted the post of musical director of the Vienna Opera, but when the Nazis overran Austria in 1938 he moved to France. On the outbreak of World War II he emigrated to the United States, settling in California, and from 1947 to 1949 was conductor and musical adviser of the New York Philharmonic. Walter was equally eminent as a conductor of orchestral and operatic music. A classicist among conductors, his interpretations were characterized by a contemplative, lyrical quality and by sensitive color and phrasing. He excelled as an interpreter of Mozart and above all of Mahler, with whom he had worked in close friendship for so many years. He conducted the first performances of Das Lied von der Erde and of Mahler's ninth symphony, and remained a lifelong champion of his music. Walter was also a composer, but discouraged the performance of his own works. A man of wide culture, he wrote several books: Von den moralischen Kraeften der Musik (1935); Theme and Variations (1947; autobiography); Gustav Mahler; ein Portraet (1957); and Von der Musik und vom Musizieren (1957; Of Music and Music-Making, 1961). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: P. Stefan, Bruno Walter (Ger. 1936); T. Mann, in: Musical Quarterly (1946), 503–8; A.L. Holde, Bruno Walter (Ger., 1960); MGG, s.v.; Riemann-Gurlitt, s.v.; Grove, Dict, s.v.; Baker, Biog Dict, sv.; H.W. Freyhan, in: AJR Information 25 (Aug. 1970), 5–6.