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Hans Richter (conductor)

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Hans Richter (4 April 1843 in Raab, today Győr, Hungary as János Richter, died 5 December 1916 in Bayreuth) was an Austrian-Hungarian conductor. Richter studied at the Vienna Conservatory with a particular interest in the horn, and developed his conducting career at several opera-houses in the Austro-Hungarian empire. He became associated with Richard Wagner in the 1860s, and in 1876 he was chosen to conduct the first complete performance of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

In 1877, he assisted the ailing composer as conductor of a major series of Wagner concerts in London, and from then onwards he became a familiar feature of English musical life, appearing at many choral festivals including as principal conductor of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival (1885-1909) and directing the Hallé Orchestra (1899-1911) and the newly-formed London Symphony Orchestra (1904-1911). In Europe his work was chiefly based in Vienna, where (transcending the bitter division between the followers of Wagner and those of Johannes Brahms) he gave much attention to the works of Brahms himself, Anton Bruckner (who once slipped a coin into his hand after a concert by way of tip) and Antonín Dvořák; he also continued to work at Bayreuth. In later years Richter became a whole-hearted admirer of Edward Elgar, and he also came to accept Tchaikovsky; once he laid down his baton and allowed a London orchestra to play the whole second movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony by itself. Never afraid to experiment on behalf of the music he loved, he lent his authority to an English-language production of The Ring at Covent Garden (1908). Failing eyesight forced his retirement in 1911.

Richter's approach to conducting was monumental rather than mercurial or dynamic, emphasising the overall structure of major works in preference to bringing out individual moments of beauty or passion. Some observers regarded him as little more than a time-beater, but others, notably Eugene Goossens, pointed out the remarkable rhythmic vitality of his work, a quality which hardly squares with the image of Richter as a rather stolid and static personality.

Notable premieres

References



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