Georg Tintner
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Georg Tintner (May 22, 1917 – October 2, 1999) was a Viennese-born conductor. As a child he was a singer in the Vienna Boys' Choir, directed by Franz Schalk. At Vienna State Academy he studied composition with Josef Marx and conducting with Felix Weingartner. Soon he was assistant conductor of the Vienna People's Opera.
Due to the persecution of Jews, Tintner moved out of Vienna in 1938, arriving in Auckland, New Zealand in 1940. He conducted a church choir until after the war, when he took over the Auckland Choral Society (in 1947) and the Auckland String Players (in 1948). He was naturalised in 1946. In 1954, he went to Australia and became resident conductor of its National Opera before joining the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera in 1957. Tintner is credited with pioneering televised opera in Australia.
He spent a year with the Cape Town Municipal Orchestra (1966-67) and three years with Sadler's Wells Opera (1967-70) before returning to Australia as Music Director of the West Australian Opera. He rejoined the Australian Opera (formerly the Trust Opera) in 1974, and became Music Director of the Queensland Theatre Orchestra in 1976.
In 1987 he moved to Canada, where he became director of Symphony Nova Scotia. In 1998, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. On 2 October 1999, after a six-year struggle with cancer, he jumped to his death from the balcony of his 11th-storey Halifax apartment.
Tintner was described as "one of the greatest living Bruckner conductors." He recorded a much-praised complete cycle of Bruckner symphonies for the Naxos CD label shortly before the end of his life (recording sessions: 1995-98). Naxos is in addition releasing a "Tintner Memorial Edition" comprising re-releases of some of his earlier recordings of composers other than Bruckner.
The following, taped from an Australian ABC radio documentary, is spoken by Mirrie Hill, herself a composer, wife of composer Alfred Hill (1870-1960). Alfred addresses an audience and Mirrie relates the event:
- 'It was in New Zealand, and there was a festival of music that he was invited over for, and this was a very special concert; the governor and his wife, etc., two orchestras, various things; and Alfred, for the first time heard a semi-professional, semi-amateur orchestra, and he also heard more professional orchestras, but he was very taken with the conductorship of this semi-amateur orchestra, so they asked him to speak after the concert. He didn’t know the conductor, only by name, and asked about him and was told that this conductor was a foreigner and very interested in conducting, but he lived out of Auckland, where he and his wife kept a poultry farm. So Alfred got up and addressed this crowded audience. I [ie Mirrie] thought, 'What is he going to say. He felt very hot about it.' He began, "I want to tell you that my wife says the silliest thing on two legs is poultry. I think there are some people that are sillier. They are the people of this city that would let a man keep a poultry farm instead of conducting an orchestra." Dead silence. And that man was Georg Tintner.'
This event took place during Alfred Hill’s visit to New Zealand June/July 1952 (the concert took place on 1 July with the fully amateur Auckland String Players). In June 1953 Hill was awarded an OBE and among the letters of congratulations was one from Tintner. In 1954 Tintner went to Australia as Resident Conductor of the National Opera, a position facilitated by Alfred Hill.
