Günter Wand
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Günter Wand (born January 7, 1912 in Elberfeld, Germany; died February 14, 2002 in Ulmiz near Bern, Switzerland) was a German orchestra conductor and composer.
Wand was born in Elberfeld and studied in Wuppertal, Allenstein and Detmold. He studied composition with Philipp Jarnach and piano with Paul Baumgartner, but was largely self-taught as a conductor.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Cologne
Wand started his career in Cologne, where he was to stay for several decades, as a conductor of the Cologne Opera in 1939. After World War II his position in Cologne was consolidated as he became Generalmusikdirektor in charge of both the opera and the Gürzenich Orchestra, which he conducted until 1974.
In 1948 he also started teaching conducting at a music school in Cologne. From the early 1950s he guest-conducted a number of orchestras, making his London debut in 1951 with the London Symphony Orchestra. Other orchestras who invited him included the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
After a string of recordings of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven with the Gürzenich for a French subscription collection in the mid 1950s, he made no studio recordings for about three decades with the exception of an appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on Decca Records, accompanying Wilhelm Backhaus in Robert Schumann's piano concerto (his only recording with that orchestra).[1] In the 1970s he recorded the complete symphonies of Franz Schubert and Anton Bruckner with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.
[edit] Hamburg
In 1982, Wand became chief guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra. With the latter ensemble, he was able to record the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms as well as works by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Schubert and Schumann. He also remade Bruckner's symphonies 3 to 9.
[edit] Late years
The highlights of Wand's late career were his annual guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which he conducted in Schubert's "Unfinished" and "Great" symphonies (1995) and Bruckner's Fifth (1996), Fourth (1998), Ninth (1998), Seventh (1999) and Eighth (2001) symphonies. He also made one recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, of Brahms's First symphony.
[edit] Repertoire
In his late years, Wand restricted his repertoire almost exclusively to the symphonies of Anton Bruckner (which he had never conducted until he was over 60), Schubert, Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart. Earlier in his career, however, he was a devoted interpreter of the contemporary music of such composers as Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Olivier Messiaen, Frank Martin, György Ligeti, and Edgard Varèse.
[edit] Compositions
Wand also composed music, mostly songs with orchestral accompaniment and music for ballet.
[edit] Awards
He was awarded the German Record Award, the German Record Critic's Prize, the Echo Award, the Diapason d'Or and the Hans von Bülow Medal.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Günter Wand's website (German)
- Günter Wand on the Immortal Bruckner site
- Obituary for Wand in The Guardian
| Preceded by Eugen Papst |
Kapellmeister, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne 1945–1974 |
Succeeded by Yuri Ahronovich |
| Preceded by Klaus Tennstedt |
Chief Conductor, North German Radio Symphony Orchestra 1982–1990 |
Succeeded by John Eliot Gardiner |
