Meinhard Von Zallinger
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Meinhard von Zallinger-Thurn (25 February 1897 – 24 September 1990) was an Austrian conductor.


Life

Born in Vienna, von Zallinger came from an old
South Tyrol it, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano â€“ Alto Adige lld, Provinzia Autonoma de Balsan/Bulsan â€“ Südtirol , settlement_type = Autonomous province , image_skyline = , image_alt ...
family. He was the son of the legal historian Otto von Zallinger, professor of German and Austrian legal history and of German private law at the
University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...
and a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. His marriage to the journalist Maria Ziegler produced two daughters: Ursula von Zallinger, long-time Secretary General of , and Monika Fürstin Rohan, stage and costume designer. After reluctantly abandoning his law studies in
Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...
, Zallinger began his musical education as a private student of piano and conducting at the Mozarteum University Salzburg. His mentor was
Bernhard Paumgartner Bernhard Paumgartner (born 14 November 1887 in Vienna; died 27 July 1971 in Salzburg) was an Austrian conductor, composer and musicologist. He is most famous for being Herbert von Karajan's composition teacher at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where ...
, director of the Mozarteum, who developed the Mozarteum into a conservatoire. Between 1920 and 1922 von Zallinger conducted the
Mozarteum Orchestra The Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg is an Austrian orchestra, based in the town and state of Salzburg. The orchestra gives concerts in several Salzburg venues, including the ''Großes Festspielhaus'', the Great Hall of the Stiftung Mozarteum. I ...
several times. He then began his career as a répétiteur, first at the opera school of the
University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, abbreviated MDW) is an Austrian university located in Vienna, established in 1817. With a student body of over three thousa ...
until 1926, then on the recommendation of
Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich until 1929, combined with his first conducting engagements. From there, he moved to the Cologne Opera as ''
Kapellmeister (, also , ) from German ''Kapelle'' (chapel) and ''Meister'' (master)'','' literally "master of the chapel choir" designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term ha ...
''. In the summer of 1935, he was called back to Munich as ''Kapellmeister'', later as first Staatskapellmeister, where he remained until 1944. Zallinger was apparently a member of the
NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
. Along the way, he directed the opera school of the Mozarteum from 1940 to 1944. In the spring of 1944, Zallinger became generalmusic director of the Duisburg Opera, which by then had already been relocated to Prague, a post he was unable to take up fully due to time constraints. In the immediate post-war period, the rhythm of changes of station accelerated until the ' returned for the second time to Munich. The first station was as director of the opera school of the Mozarteum and the Mozarteum Orchestra (1947-1949). In Graz, von Zallinger lasted only one season as opera director (1949–1950). Then he made the step to Vienna as opera director of the Volksoper, which belonged to the State Opera. His next station caused a great stir and controversy. Almost to the day, two months after the uprising of 17 June 1953, he took up his post as musical director of the Komische Oper in East Berlin, fascinated by its artistic director and director Walter Felsenstein. In mid-1956, his path led him to Munich for a third time, this time as "first state conductor", a position that included permanent representation of the general music director. In this function he had several musical interregnums. The external highlights of Zallinger's last conducting period were the reopening of the Cuvilliés Theatre (1958) and the National Theatre (1963). On 25 June 1973, he conducted '' Le nozze di Figaro'' for the last time at the Munich National Theatre, thus not only retiring from the Bavarian State Opera, of which he had been a member for 29 years, but also ending his conducting career after more than 50 years and retiring to Salzburg. Zallinger died in Salzburg at the age of 93 and was buried in the . Zallinger's career as a conductor was not preceded by any systematic training. He was a "pure autodidact", he himself confessed.Memoirs - Meinhard von Zallinger-Thurn (private print, Salzburg 1975) The focus of his conducting, which the US musicologist and Haydn expert
H. C. Robbins Landon Howard Chandler Robbins Landon (March 6, 1926November 20, 2009) was an American musicologist, journalist, historian and broadcaster, best known for his work in rediscovering the huge body of neglected music by Haydn and in correcting misunderstand ...
described as highly professional, was on the works of Mozart, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Mozart was his musical idol, which made him a conductor filled with the Mozartian spirit. His repertoire ranged from Monteverdi's '' L'incoronazione di Poppea'' to Orff '' Prometheus'' and the American composer John Alden Carpenter, whose ballet music he recorded with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The actual vocation of conducting was an ''arcanum'' for him. Something inexplicable and above all unlearnable characterised the profession of conducting. He had a very decidedly negative view of "realistic-naturalistic scene design". It was no substitute for imagination, which created real atmosphere even without precious decorative effort. The spectator, he said, must be educated to activate his own imagination and not be inhibited by visual barriers. Music theatre must always be illusion, because that is the only way to create enchantment. Zallinger stood at the podium in Munich on more than 2,500 evenings. He was the "calming influence in the madhouse of the opera business" (Karl Schumann, important music critic of the ''
Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. History ...
'') and the "indispensable one" with the qualities of "settled, unpretentious, available at any hour".''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' from 26 September 1990


Awards

* 1964: Bavarian Order of Merit * Ehrensenator der Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München * Ehrenmitglied der Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Mozarteum Salzburg


References


Further reading

*
Alexander Rausch Alexander Rausch (born in 1971) is an Austrian musicologist. Life Born in Vienna, Rausch studied musicology and Romanistic at the University of Vienna from 1989 to 1996. In 1994 he completed an Erasmus Programme semester abroad at the Bavarian ...

Zallinger, Meinhard von
In '' Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon''. Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ; Print edition: vol. 5, Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften press, Vienna 2006, .


External links


Zallinger, Meinhard von
on BMLO.
Performances
at the Vienna State Opera. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zallinger, Meinhard von Austrian conductors (music) Music directors Nazi Party members 1897 births 1990 deaths Musicians from Vienna