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FRITZ REINER Each era in music develops its monstres sacrés against whom the rest are judged, not to say always justly or accurately. In the 20th century, these have increasingly been conductors. The 19th century - in addition to all those singers, pianists, violinists, and Pablo Casals - had already bequeathed to the world Nikisch, Mahler, Muck, Richard Strauss, Weingartner and Toscanini (a transitional colossus who lived long and eventfully enough to epitomize the word maestro). These giants of the podium were either united with or challenged by Stokowski, Furnwängler, Mengelberg, Koussevitzky, Beecham, and Bruno Walter. How many potential successors were slaughtered in two global carnages during our century we can only suppose. But, significantly, the field today has narrowed down to Karajan, Solti, Bernstein, Maazel, Haitink, perhaps Boulez, and irregularly the Giulini treasured 25 years ago. In the determinable future, these lords of the manor (manner, too) may be joined by - alphabetically - Abbado, Colin Davis, Gielen, Carlos Kleiber, Levine, Muti, Ozawa, Temirkanov, and Tennstedt as Meistermusikanten. Not to denigrate the substantial merits of all, however, the latter currently rank as contestants rather than arch-competitors - a category notably more populous, and individualistic, a generation ago. By this I mean such worthies (again alphabetically) as Beinum, Boult, Cantelli, De Sabata, Fricsay, Erich Kleiber, Klemperer, Clemens Krauss, Marinuzzi, Mitropoulos, Monteux, Mravinsky. Munch, Onnandy, Paray. Rodzinski, Rosbaud, Szell, Talich, and the subject of this appraisal, Fritz Reiner (born Reiner Frigyes, on December 19, 1888) - still celebrated as the conductor's conductor by colleagues en tout, a legend in his own time who has re-emerged as one in ours. Whether or not he originated the "vest-pocket beat" (evidence points to Nikisch imitated by Strauss), this became Reiner's trademark, although neither an accurate nor an insightful phrase. His beat, rather than miniscule, was meticulous and wholly functional. As players who worked for him have testified, "Only a moron couldn't follow, or not know exactly what he wanted." Yet Reiner never had a conducting lesson because there was no teacher, then or after, at the Music Academy in his native Budapest. To reinforce what was innate (at age 12 he first led an orchestra of peers), Reiner studied by observation: Istvan Kerner in Budapest, later on Nikisch and Strauss in Berlin. From them he learned the bottom-line basics of precision and economy, the need for total musical preparation, and the obligation of absolute control. During his 11 years at the Academy, from 1898 to 1909, piano was his instrumental major and percussion his orchestral minor. Although teachers included an older, former fellow-student, Béla Bartók, whose name is signed first on his diploma, Reiner always cited Leo Weiner, with whom as a pre-teen he played all the repertory transcribed for piano four-hands, as having "taught me music." When Reiner graduated, the Komische Oper in Budapest engaged him as chorus director and coach. A year later its doors closed forever; but by then he had been signed by Laibach (Ljubliana today), where Mahler first apprenticed in 1881, as the conductor of everything. In the provinces Reiner proved so successful that Budapest called him back in 1911 as conductor of the new People's Theatre. In that house, starting at 00:01 hours on January 1 1914, he undertook the first authorized performance of Parsifal outside of Bayreuth, stealing a march by many hours on Eduard Mörike in Berlin and Andre Messager in Paris. However, it was his singers - notably those brought from Dresden to Budapest for Igioelli della Madonna - who, back home, spoke excitedly of the magnetism and musical authority of their chubby young conductor. And so, when Ernst von Schuch died in 1914, Dresden chose Reiner (not yet 26) as Hofdirigent of the Königliche Oper und Kapelle over the candidacies, among others, of Muck and Weingartner. As the protege of Count Nikolaus von Seebach, Reiner was given a "lifetime contract" and immediately assigned to lead the entire Ring (which he stayed up nights to master, and days to rehearse). Dresden had been a favorite city of Richard Strauss before Reiner came, and continued to be so during the latter's seven-year tenure, although first performances of Ariadne auf Naxos (revised) and Die Frau ohne Schatten were given by the composer to Vienna, in exchange for codirectorship of the Staatsoper and a residence there. However, Reiner got to conduct the German premiere of Die Frau in Dresden, along with revivals of Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier. At the same time, Strauss warmly acknowledged them "mit Dankbarkeit gewidmet," and in 1949 remembered them as "marvelous" in a letter congratulating Reiner on his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Salome. Theirs was the friendship of master and disciple, generously reciprocal although by no means exclusive (Szell, Fritz Busch, Karl Böhm, and Krauss were other favorites of Strauss, either before or after Reiner)... Excerpt from the sleevenotes ©1981, revised 1988, Fanfare
Restorer's note, 2007: The original release of this recording, as Music and Arts CD-219 in 1988, contains a technical note which refers to two drop-outs in the original tape which 'could not be digitally eliminated'. I'm pleased to report that, thanks to the onward march of computer-based audio restoration techniques, I have been able to deal with these problems and eliminate the drop-outs referred to on the cover and in the sleevenotes.
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