George Szell
(Budapest, 1897-Cleveland, 1970) Hungarian American pianist, composer and conductor.A child prodigy, he gave his first concert at the young age of ten with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.He studied in Vienna under Richard Robert, Eusebius Mandyczewski and Karl Prohaska, and in Leipzig under Max Reger.
At age 17 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance in which one of his symphonic poems, Till Eulenspiegel , was performed.Richard Strauss took him to the Berlin Opera as his assistant; He stayed there between 1914 and 1917, when Strauss recommended Szell to succeed Otto Klemperer as the first conductor of the Strasbourg opera; He held this position from 1917 to 1919.
Subsequently, Szell was director in various centers, such as the German Theater in Prague, between 1919 and 1921, the Berlin Broadcastin Company, between 1921 and 1929, Darmstadt between 1921 and 1922, and Düsseldorf, where he was from 1922 to 1924; later he was appointed principal conductor of the Berlin Opera, a position he held between 1924 and 1929.At the same time he was conducting the Radio Symphony Orchestra and teaching at the Berlin School of Music (1927-1930).
In 1930 he conducted the San Luis Symphony Orchestra, and also attended as a guest conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra of Glasgow (Great Britain) and the Residential Orchestra of The Hague (Holland).When World War II broke out, Szell was in Australia.He returned to the United States invited by Arturo Toscanini to conduct the famous NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York.His performance attracted so much attention that he was soon showered with offers to conduct other orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra.He combined this activity with the teacher, at the Mannes School in New York.Between 1940 and 1942 he performed chamber music with Paul Hindemith and Rudolf Serkin.
Between 1942 and 1946 he was one of the regular conductors of the Metropolitan Opera House, before taking the leadership of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1946, a position in which he continued until 1971; in this period he managed to turn this orchestra into one of the best in the world.In 1946 he adopted American citizenship.As a conductor, his authoritarian character was not well received by the members of the orchestras, but he brought extraordinary results to some of them.He was a guest conductor at the main European music festivals, including those of Vienna, Salzburg, Milan, Paris, Florence and Lucerne.Among his compositions are the Variations for Orchestra, the Symphony in D Minor, the Lyric Overture and several pieces of chamber music.
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