Friedrich (Fritz) Leopold Cassirer, (29 March 1871 – 26 November 1926) was a German conductor. He was one of the early proponents of the music of

Frederick Delius Delius, photographed in 1907 Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...

, and conducted the premiere of Delius's first opera.

Biography

Cassirer was born into a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish family in Breslau. His father,

Julius Cassirer Julius Cassirer (February 2, 1841, in Schwientochlowitz – June 18, 1924, in Berlin) was a German Jewish industrialist and art collector and principal shareholder of Kabelwerke Dr. Cassirer & Co. in Berlin. An artwork from his collection is the ...

, was one of nine children; Julius was distantly related to his wife, Julcher (Julie) ''née'' Cassirer, through a common great-grandfather.Falk, Jim
"Cassirer and Cohen: histories, relatives and descendants"
accessed 7 January 2012 Fritz Cassirer studied music with

Hans Pfitzner Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 – 22 May 1949) was a German composer, conductor and polemicist who was a self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera ''Palestrina'' (1917), loosely based on the life of the ...

and Gustav Holländer, after which he was appointed to conducting posts in a succession of German opera houses:

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

, Posen,

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is ...

and

Elberfeld Elberfeld is a municipal subdivision of the German city of Wuppertal; it was an independent town until 1929. History The first official mentioning of the geographic area on the banks of today's Wupper River as "''elverfelde''" was in a doc ...

.Blyth, Alan
"Cassirer, Fritz."
Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, accessed 6 November 2010 While Cassirer was in charge of the Elberfeld opera, his colleague

Hans Haym Hans Haym (29 November 1860 – 15 February 1921) was a German conductor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As musical director in the town of Elberfeld he championed the works of the then unknown English composer Frederick Deli ...

introduced him to the music of

, which was little known in Germany and hardly known at all anywhere else.Carley, Lionel
Hans Haym: Delius's Prophet and Pioneer"
''Music & Letters'', Vol. 54, No. 1 (January 1973), pp. 1-24, accessed 6 November 2010 Cassirer, like Haym, became a strong advocate of Delius's music. He conducted the première of Delius's opera '' Koanga'' at Elberfeld in 1904, helped Delius choose the

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

text for his secular choral work, ''

A Mass of Life ''A Mass of Life'' (German: ''Eine Messe des Lebens'') is a cantata by English composer Frederick Delius, based on the German text of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical novel ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (1883-1885). In 1898, Delius had written a m ...

'' and organised the premiere of another Delius opera, ''

A Village Romeo and Juliet ''A Village Romeo and Juliet'' is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story "''Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe''" by the Swis ...

'' at the Berlin Komische Oper in 1907. Cassirer was a member of the Komische Oper company that visited London in 1907, playing Offenbach's ''

The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died i ...

''. While in London he conducted concerts, at one of which, with

Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...

's New Symphony Orchestra, he presented Delius's ''Appalachia''. Beecham, who had hitherto known nothing of Delius's music, expressed his "wonderment" and was from then on a lifelong devotee of the composer's works. Beecham praised Cassirer for having "naturally good if slightly fastidious taste".''Quoted'' in Blyth (Grove Online) After turning down an offer to appear at the

Manhattan Opera House The Manhattan Center is a building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1906 and located at 311 West 34th Street, it houses Manhattan Center Studios, the location of two recording studios; its Grand Ballroom; and the Hammerstein Ballroo ...

, New York, Cassirer retired to Munich, and devoted himself to philosophical and literary studies. He died in Berlin at the age of 55.

Family life

Fritz Cassirer was married to Lilly Dispecker. They had one daughter, Eva Charlotte Cassirer, who married her father's cousin, Friedrich Wilhelm Cassirer (also known as Fritz); he was for a time managing director of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and

Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he is regarded as one of the most pro ...

's business manager.

Notes

References

*Beecham, Sir Thomas (1944). ''A Mingled Chime – Leaves from an Autobiography''. London: Hutchinson. OCLC 592569600

External links

*
Cassirer family tree
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cassirer, Fritz 1871 births 1926 deaths German conductors (music) German male conductors (music) 19th-century German musicians 19th-century German male musicians German Jews