1947 Conductor BRUNO WALTER Original HAND SIGNED AUTOGRAPH + PHOTO Edinburgh

$547.98 Buy It Now or Best Offer, $48.90 Shipping, 30-Day Returns, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,805) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 285642923910 1947 Conductor BRUNO WALTER Original HAND SIGNED AUTOGRAPH + PHOTO Edinburgh.

DESCRIPTION  :   Up for sale is s BEAUTIFULY HAND SIGNED BOLD AUTOGRAPH ( With a blue fountain pen  ) of the beloved Jewish conductor , pianist and composer of German descent BRUNO WALTER . The autograph is dated by Bruno Walter "September 1947" and located "EDINBURGH" - In 1947 , BRONO WALTER was a guest of the EDINBURGH FESTIVAL , He conducted the VIENNA PHILHARMONIC which played MAHLER'S " Das Lied Von Der Erde " with Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears and also BEETHOVEN'S Pastoral Symphony and The Unfinished Symphony of SCHUBERT.  The thrilling autograph is beautifuly and professionaly matted beneath a reproduction ACTION PHOTO of BW conducting with his baton . The original hand signed AUTOGRAPH - AUTOGRAMME and the reproduction PHOTO are nicely matted together , Suitable for immediate framing or display .  ( An image of a suggested framing is presented - The frame is not a part of this  sale  An excellent framing - Buyer's choice is possible for extra $ 80  ).  The size of the decorative mat is around 15 x 8 " . The size of the reproduction action photo is around 7 x 5 " . The size of the original hand signed autograph is around 5 x 4 " .  Very good condition of the original hand signed autograph, The reproduction photo and the decorative mat .( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images )  Authenticity guaranteed.  Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .    

PAYMENTS  :  Payment method accepted : Paypal  & All credit cards .

SHIPPMENT  : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 29  . Will be sent inside a protective packaging.  Handling around 5-10 days after payment. 

Conductor Bruno Walter at the Edinburgh festival: 'Music moved visibly on his face' From the classical archive, 13 September 1947: Neville Cardus reviews Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic in Schubert, and - with singers Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears - Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde Bruno Walter with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 8 September 1947. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images Neville Cardus Tue 16 Aug 2016 16.12 BST 0 Edinburgh, Friday This week at Edinburgh Bruno Walter has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra again after years of a separation that, not so very long ago, seemed beyond repair. The occasion has naturally been moving, and last night a poignant interpretation of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde brought the festival to an appropriately autumnal end, at least as far as the present writer is concerned. Not immediately could I share the high praise given by my critical colleagues to the Vienna Philharmonic of to-day: in the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven, played on Tuesday night, there were grave technical flaws in the horns and much of the general texture seemed without colour. Bruno Walter himself lacked the large urgeful rhythm and line; the string figuration of the first movement of the Pastoral sounded self-conscious, almost rococo. This was a very refined and sedentary conception based upon beautiful strings. But as soon as Walter came to the masters of the Austrian romantic school we were visited by an act of grace, by the felicity which is born of the feeling that this is exactly right, and created without effort or self-consciousness. The Unfinished Symphony of Schubert passed by us in a lovely dream of tone shaded by sorrow and at times shaken by terror. The blend and eloquence of all the instruments were of voices calling to voices. The conducting, so quiet, so unobtrusive, so suggestive, was that of a man for whom tone and a technical control of tone are matters that pass naturally his being, through all his experience and love, into music. Then, after the interval, we modulated to the extreme of Schubert, to Mahler, who sought with an ache that became poetic for the beauty that ran to meet Schubert more than half-way. The orchestra was as sensitive to Bruno Walter’s gentlest nuance, to the most delicate and whispering flickers of Mahler’s woodwind as a glass on a late autumn morning to the patterns woven by a brief frost. And in the reckless tumult of the opening of the Trinklied Bruno Walter so fine-tempered the restless orchestration that Peter Pears could be heard expressively - even during the terrible frustrate climax at the passage beginning “Seht dort hinab” (“See yonder in the moonlight on the graves sits a ghostly shape”). Pears has seldom sung with so much directness and aptness of tone. Contralto Kathleen Ferrier and English tenor Peter Pears sit on a hillside overlooking Edinburgh, September 1947. Photograph: Gerti Deutsch/Getty Images Kathleen Ferrier, in music which demands from an artist an imaginative experience of a complete period in the romantic history of music, a Zeitgeist in itself, as well as absolute affinity with the psychology and vocal style of Mahler, satisfied those of us who have lived in this work for years, satisfied us beyond reasonable expectations. She needed only an older, a more remote and toneless voice for the recitative phrases of the Abschied, which seem to emerge from a distance and loneliness beyond warm human power of contact. It was an achievement of much understanding for two English singers to get so close to words and music that enshrine a subtle searching unfulfilled soul in a lost world. But it was Walter who controlled and recreated. Music moved visibly on his face: he could probably write out the score from memory. The orchestra was all soloists: the strings at times whispered us to silence. The hollow, hopeless procession of the funeral march of the Abschied tolled the bell of an epoch’s sunset in the russet and black: then the woodwind fluttered again, and the voice came from the void. Such experiences cannot be written of in the terms of music criticism; indeed they are perhaps only to be indicated by the listener who knows the music so intimately that he takes the outward physical manifestation of it almost for granted and travels well beyond the symbols, like Mahler himself.****  Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876 – February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the United States in 1939. He worked closely with Gustav Mahler, whose music he helped to establish in the repertory, held major positions with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others, made recordings of historical and artistic significance, and is widely considered to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century. Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Conducting 1.3 Munich 1.4 United States 1.5 Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna 1.6 Return to the United States 1.7 Death 2 Work 2.1 Recordings 2.2 Compositions 2.3 Written works 3 Notable recordings 4 References 4.1 Bibliography 5 External links Biography[edit] The young Bruno Walter Early life[edit] Born near Alexanderplatz in Berlin to a middle-class Jewish family, he began his musical education at the Stern Conservatory at the age of eight, making his first public appearance as a pianist when he was nine; he performed a concerto movement with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1889 and a full concerto with them in February 1890.[1] He studied composition at Stern with Robert Radecke, and remained active as a composer until about 1910 (see list of compositions below). But it was hearing a concert in 1889 by the Berlin Philharmonic led by Hans von Bülow, he wrote, that "decided my future. Now I knew what I was meant for. No musical activity but that of an orchestral conductor could any longer be considered by me."[2] He made his conducting début at the Cologne Opera with Albert Lortzing's Der Waffenschmied in 1894. Later that year he left for the Hamburg Opera to work as a chorus director. There he first met and worked with Gustav Mahler, whom he revered and with whose music he later became strongly identified.[3] Conducting[edit] In 1896, he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Stadttheater (municipal opera) in Breslau, on the strength of a recommendation from Mahler to the theater's director, Theodor Löwe. However, Löwe required that before taking up this position the young conductor change his last name from Schlesinger—which literally means Silesian—"because of its frequent occurrence in the capital of Silesia".[4] In a letter to his brother, paraphrased by biographers Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky, Walter said that he had "suggested several names, which Mahler wrote down and gave to Löwe, who returned the contract with the name Bruno Walter".[5] These biographers add that Walter wrote to his parents that he found that "having to change his name was 'terrible'". They report that Mahler and his sisters "pressed" Walter to make the change of name, and add that contrary to occasional unsubstantiated reports, it "is unknown" whether Löwe's stipulation had anything to do with a desire to conceal Walter's Jewish origins.[5] In 1897, Walter became Chief Conductor at the municipal opera in Pressburg (now Bratislava). He found the town provincial and depressing, and in 1898 took the position of Chief Conductor of the Riga Opera, Russian Empire. While there, he converted to Christianity, probably Roman Catholicism.[6] In 1899 Walter was appointed music director of the Temeswar, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania) Opera, the current Banatul Philharmonic of Timișoara. Walter then returned in 1900 to Berlin, where he assumed the post of Royal Prussian Conductor at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, succeeding Franz Schalk; his colleagues there included Richard Strauss and Karl Muck. While in Berlin he also conducted the premiere of Der arme Heinrich by Hans Pfitzner, who became a lifelong friend.[citation needed] In 1901, Walter accepted Mahler's invitation to be his assistant at the Court Opera in Vienna. Walter led Verdi's Aida at his debut. In 1907 he was elected by the Vienna Philharmonic to conduct its Nicolai Concert. In 1910, he helped Mahler select and coach solo singers for the premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 8. In the following years Walter's conducting reputation soared as he was invited to conduct across Europe—in Prague, in London where in 1910 he conducted Tristan und Isolde and Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers at Covent Garden, and in Rome. When Mahler died on May 18, 1911, Walter was at his deathbed. On June 6, he wrote to his sister that he was to conduct the premiere of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde;[7] he did so in Munich on November 20, 1911, in the first half of an all-Mahler concert (the second half contained Mahler's Symphony No. 2).[8] On June 26, 1912 he led the Vienna Philharmonic in the world premiere of Mahler's Symphony No. 9.[9] Munich[edit] Although Walter became an Austrian citizen in 1911, he left Vienna in 1913 to become the Royal Bavarian Music Director and General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. While there, argue Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky, "Walter's contribution to the history of Wagner performance [was] more significant than many realize. The Bayreuth Festival was suspended after 1914 and resumed only in 1924. During those nine years, Munich was the centre of authentic Wagner performance; its Prinzregenttheather was closely patterned after the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, and its National Theatre had seen the world premieres of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Tristan und Isolde. Walter was the city's music director for most of this period, and he presided over most of the Wagnerian repertoire."[10] In January 1914, Walter conducted his first concert in Moscow. During the First World War he remained actively involved in conducting, giving premieres to Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violanta and Der Ring des Polykrates as well as Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina. In 1920, he conducted the premiere of Walter Braunfels' Die Vögel.[citation needed] In Munich, Walter was a good friend of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII).[11] Walter's close friendship with Thomas Mann seems to have begun in Munich by 1914.[12] United States[edit] Walter ended his Munich appointment in 1922 (being succeeded by Hans Knappertsbusch) and left for New York in 1923, working with the New York Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall; he later conducted in Detroit, Minnesota and Boston.[13] Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna[edit] Back in Europe, Walter made his debuts with both the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1923, and was Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Städtische Oper) from 1925 to 1929. He made his debut at La Scala in 1926, and was chief conductor of the German seasons at Covent Garden in London from 1924 to 1931.[citation needed] Walter served as Principal Conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1929 until March 1933, when his tenure was cut short by the new Nazi government, as detailed below. In speeches in the late 1920s, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had complained bitterly about the presence of Jewish conductors at the Berlin opera, and mentioned Walter a number of times, adding to Walter's name the words "alias Schlesinger."[14] When the Nazis took power, they undertook a systematic process of barring Jews from artistic life.[15] Dr. Bruno Walter, 1937 As reported by biographers Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky, when Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, Walter was conducting in New York, but the next month sailed back to Leipzig planning to conduct his previously scheduled concerts with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in March. However, Leipzig's Chief of Police informed management that he would cancel the concerts if Walter was to conduct them. Management resisted and Walter led rehearsals, but on the day that the first concert was to take place, the police, "in the name of the Saxon ministry of the interior," forbade the dress rehearsal and the concerts; Walter left Leipzig.[16] Walter was then scheduled to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic on March 20, but its management was warned by Joseph Goebbels that "unpleasant demonstrations" might occur at the concert, and the Propaganda Ministry clarified this by saying that there would be violence in the hall. Hearing of this, Walter chose to withdraw, saying to management, "Then I have no further business here."[16] The concert in the end was conducted by Richard Strauss.[17] Walter later wrote, "The composer of Ein Heldenleben ["A Hero's Life"] actually declared himself ready to conduct in place of a forcibly removed colleague."[18] A concert that Walter was scheduled to lead in Frankfurt was also cancelled.[19] Walter left Germany and was not to conduct there again until after the war.[19] External audio  You may listen to Bruno Walter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 3 in F major Opus 90 in 1936 here on archive.org Austria became his main center of activity for the next several years. He and his family moved to Vienna, where he regularly conducted the Vienna Philharmonic—with whom he made a number of momentous recordings during this period—and at the Salzburg Festival. In 1936 he accepted an offer to be Artistic Director of the Vienna State Opera, where he occupied the same office that had once been Mahler's.[20] He was also appointed Permanent Guest Conductor (eerste dirigent) of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1934 to 1939,[21] and made guest appearances such as in annual concerts with the New York Philharmonic from 1932 to 1936. When Nazi Germany annexed Austria – the Anschluss – in 1938, Walter was in the Netherlands conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra. His elder daughter Lotte was in Vienna at the time, and was arrested by the Nazis; Walter was able to use his influence to free her. He also used his influence to find safe quarters in Scandinavia for his brother and sister during the war.[citation needed] Walter's daughter Gretel was murdered on August 21, 1939 by her husband Robert Neppach, who then killed himself; his motive was jealousy over her growing relationship with the Italian bass singer Ezio Pinza.[22] Walter's wife fell into a permanent depression and died in 1945, and Walter blamed himself for the tragedy, as his daughter had met Pinza only because Walter had made special efforts to hire him to sing the role of Don Giovanni.[citation needed] Return to the United States[edit] On November 1, 1939, he set sail for the United States, which became his permanent home. He settled in Beverly Hills, California, where his many expatriate neighbors included Thomas Mann.[citation needed] While Walter had many influences within music, in his Of Music and Making (1957) he notes a profound influence from the philosopher Rudolf Steiner. He notes, "In old age I have had the good fortune to be initiated into the world of anthroposophy and during the past few years to make a profound study of the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Here we see alive and in operation that deliverance of which Friedrich Hölderlin speaks; its blessing has flowed over me, and so this book is the confession of belief in anthroposophy. There is no part of my inward life that has not had new light shed upon it, or been stimulated, by the lofty teachings of Rudolf Steiner ... I am profoundly grateful for having been so boundlessly enriched ... It is glorious to become a learner again at my time of life. I have a sense of the rejuvenation of my whole being which gives strength and renewal to my musicianship, even to my music-making."[23] External audio  You may listen to Bruno Walter conducting the New York Philharmonic in: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Juan in E major, Op. 20 with commentary in 1953 here on archive.org During his years in the United States, Walter worked with many famous American orchestras. In December 1942, he was offered the music directorship of the New York Philharmonic, but declined, citing his age;[24] then in February 1947, after the resignation of Artur Rodzinski, he accepted the position but changed the title to "Music Adviser" (he resigned in 1949). Among other orchestras he worked with were the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. From 1946 onwards, he made numerous trips back to Europe, becoming an important musical figure in the early years of the Edinburgh Festival and in Salzburg, Vienna and Munich. In September 1950 he returned to Berlin for the first time since the aborted concert of 1933; he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a program of Beethoven, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Brahms, and "gave a lecture for the students of the Municipal Conservatory – formerly his old school, the Stern Conservatory – at the students' request".[25] His late life was marked by stereo recordings with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble of professional musicians assembled by Columbia Records for recordings. He made his last live concert appearance on December 4, 1960 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and pianist Van Cliburn. His last recording was a series of Mozart overtures with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra at the end of March in 1961.[citation needed] Death[edit] Bruno Walter died of a heart attack in his Beverly Hills home in 1962.[26] He is buried in the cemetery of Gentilino in Canton Ticino, Switzerland. Work[edit] Recordings[edit] This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Caricature of Walter conducting External audio  You may listen to Bruno Walter performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor K.466 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in 1937 here on archive.org Walter's work is documented on hundreds of recordings made between 1900 (when he was 24) and 1961. Most listeners became familiar with him through the stereo recordings made in his last few years, when his health was declining.Some critics have suggested that these recordings do not fully convey what Walter's art must have sounded like in its prime. The late recordings are said to have a geniality that contrasts with the energetic, intense and mercurial performances of earlier decades. Furthermore, Walter's late recordings focus mostly on older compositions, whereas in his youth he often conducted what was then considered newer music.[citation needed] Walter worked closely with Mahler as an assistant and protégé. Mahler did not live to perform his Das Lied von der Erde or Symphony No. 9, but his widow, Alma Mahler, asked Walter to premiere both. Walter led the first performance of Das Lied in 1911 in Munich and of the Ninth in 1912 in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic. Decades later, Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic (with Mahler's brother-in-law Arnold Rosé still a concertmaster) made the first recordings of Das Lied von der Erde in 1936 and of the Ninth Symphony in 1938. Both were recorded live in concert, the latter only two months before the Nazi Anschluss drove Walter (and Rosé) into exile.[citation needed] These recordings are of special interest for the performance practices of the orchestra and also for intensity of expression. Walter was to re-record both works successfully in later decades. His famous Decca Das Lied von der Erde with Kathleen Ferrier, Julius Patzak and the Vienna Philharmonic was made in May 1952, and he recorded it again in stereo, with the New York Philharmonic, in 1960. He conducted the New York Philharmonic in the 1957 stereo recording of the Second Symphony. He recorded the Ninth in stereo in 1961. These recordings, as well as his other American recordings, were released initially by Columbia Records and later on CD by Sony.[citation needed] Since Mahler himself never conducted the Ninth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde, Walter's performances cannot be taken as documentations of Mahler's interpretations. However, in the light of Walter's personal connection with the composer and his having given the original performances, they have another kind of primary authenticity. In his other (greatly esteemed) recordings of Mahler—various songs and the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies—there is the great added interest that he had heard Mahler's own performances of most of them.[citation needed] Walter made many highly acclaimed recordings of other great Germanic composers, such as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss Jr., and Anton Bruckner, as well as of Bach, Wagner, Schumann, Dvorak, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Smetana, and others. Walter was a leading conductor of opera, and recordings of Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro from both the Metropolitan Opera and the Salzburg Festival, of Beethoven's Fidelio, and of Wagner and Verdi are now available on CD. Also of great interest are recordings from the 1950s of his rehearsals of Mozart, Mahler and Brahms, which give insight into his musical priorities and into the warm and non-tyrannical manner—as contrasted with some of his colleagues—with which he related to orchestras.[citation needed] Compositions[edit] Walter composed actively until at least 1910. As detailed in the biography by Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky,[27] his compositions include: Symphony No. 1 in D minor (composed circa 1907; premiered in Vienna, 1909; recorded by CPO #777 163–2, 2007) Symphony No. 2 in E (composed circa 1910) Symphonic Fantasia (composed 1904; premiered by Richard Strauss in 1904) String Quartet in D major (1903; premiered in Vienna by the Rose Quartet) Piano Quintet (premiered in 1905 in Vienna by the Rose Quartet) Piano Trio (premiered in 1906 in Vienna by Walter and members of the Rose Quartet) Sonata for Violin and Piano in A (circa 1908; premiered by Walter and Rose in Vienna in February 1909; recorded VAI vaia #1155, 1997) Incidental music for "King Oedipus" (1910. The production was an adaptation of the Sophocles play by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was directed by Max Reinhardt, and premiered in September 1910 in Munich, followed by performances in Berlin, Cologne, and Vienna. Numerous songs Choral Works Written works[edit] Gustav Mahler's III. Symphonie. In: Der Merker 1 (1909), 9–11 Mahlers Weg: ein Erinnerungsblatt. In: Der Merker 3 (1912), 166–171 Über Ethel Smyth: ein Brief von Bruno Walter. In: Der Merker 3 (1912), 897–898 Kunst und Öffentlichkeit. In: Süddeutsche Monatshefte (Oktober 1916), 95–110 Beethovens Missa solemnis. In: Münchner Neueste Nachrichten (30. Oct. 1920), Beethoven suppl., 3–5 Von den moralischen Kräften der Musik. Vienna 1935 Gustav Mahler. Wien 1936 Bruckner and Mahler. In: Chord and Discord 2/2 (1940), 3–12 Thema und Variationen – Erinnerungen und Gedanken. Stockholm 1947 Von der Musik und vom Musizieren. Frankfurt 1957 Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie. In: Das Goetheanum 52 (1961), 418–21 Briefe 1894–1962. Hg. L.W. Lindt, Frankfurt a.M. 1969 Notable recordings[edit] 1935: Richard Wagner, Die Walküre (Act I), with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, feat. soloists Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchior, Emanuel List, et al. (EMI Great Recordings of the Century, Naxos Historical) 1938: Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 9, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. (Dutton, EMI Great Artists of the Century, Naxos Historical) 1941: Ludwig van Beethoven, Fidelio, with the Metropolitan Opera, feat. soloists Kirsten Flagstad, Alexander Kipnis, Herbert Janssen, et al. (Naxos Historical) 1952: Gustav Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, feat. soloists Kathleen Ferrier and Julius Patzak. (Decca Legends, Naxos Historical) 1956: The Birth of a Performance: Walter's rehearsals and finished performance of Mozart's "Linz" Symphony, with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. A then-rare instance of rehearsals of a performance being issued on a commercial recording. (Sony Masterworks) 1958–1961: Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 4, Symphony No. 6 and Symphony No. 9, with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. (Sony Bruno Walter Edition) 1960: Johannes Brahms, Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3, with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. (Sony Bruno Walter Edition) ***** Bruno Walter, original name Bruno Walter Schlesinger, (born Sept. 15, 1876, Berlin, Ger.—died Feb. 17, 1962, Beverly Hills, Calif., U.S.), German conductor known primarily for his interpretations of the Viennese school. Though out of step with 20th-century trends, he was such a fine musician that he became a major figure—filling the wide gulf between the extremes of his day, Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler. He began his career as a pianist but made his debut as a conductor in 1894 at the Cologne Opera. By 1900 he was at the State Opera in Berlin, and in the following year he became Gustav Mahler’s associate in Vienna—the beginning of what was to be a lifetime spent in promotion of the master’s music. He conducted the premieres of Das Lied von der Erde (1911) and the Ninth Symphony (1912). Walter moved to the Munich Opera (1914–22) and from 1922 conducted at Salzburg, where his interest in Mozart developed. Other appointments followed: at the Berlin Municipal Opera (1925–29) and as Furtwängler’s successor in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra (1929–33). The advent of the Nazi regime in Germany forced him to leave Leipzig and his Berlin concerts; he moved first to Vienna (1936–38), then to Paris, and finally to the United States (1939). He conducted frequently at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic (musical adviser, 1947–49). **** Bruno Walter Schlesinger was born in Berlin on 15 September 1876.  At eight years old he was admitted to a conservatory, where a teacher proclaimed that 'every inch of this boy is music'.  While he showed an early facility at the piano, when he heard Hans von Bülow conduct he decided that this was to be his musical future. At 19 he was offered a position in Breslau as a musical theatre director, where it was suggested by Theodor Loewe, the theatre's current director, that he change his name, Schlesinger, because it was too common in Breslau — hence he became Bruno Walter. Several years later he moved to Vienna, where he worked with Gustav Mahler, and his next move was to Munich. By the early 1920s Munich was coming increasingly under the influence of the Nazi party.  As the director of the Bavarian state opera, and thus a central figure in the city’s musical world, Walter was increasingly singled out in vicious and libellous attacks, and in 1922 he was finally replaced.  The Party paper the Völkische Beobachter reported Walter simply was, is, and always will be of a different sensibility.  He had no sense for the German way of life; he had always promoted artists from the east; he opposed the artists living in Munich who had German style and sensibility. After a successful tour of America in 1923, the conductor was offered a position in Leipzig, where he successfully conducted for several years while also performing extensively in nearby Berlin.  Ultimately, however, he was unable to avoid the Nazi grip.  On 19 March, a scheduled concert in Leipzig was cancelled due to threats of violence.  Fearing a similar occurrence at a concert four days later in Berlin, Walter asked for police protection, but this request was rejected. After intense efforts to engage Furtwängler for the performance failed, Richard Strauss was convinced to replace the blacklisted Walter.  Although Strauss was always to insist that he accepted the position in the interests of the musicians of the orchestra, who were desperately in need of money, both Walter and the Nazis themselves saw things differently.  Walter never forgave Strauss, and the Völkische Beobachter declared that the concert was a 'salute to the new Germany'.  Realising that he was in danger, Walter initially moved to Vienna, although here too he suffered increasing threats and attacks. In 1938 he finally decided to leave Europe for the United States where he already had a strong following. Walter was a fluent English-speaker and was familiar with the American lifestyle that was to alienate so many of his fellow émigrés.  Young, healthy, and at the peak of his powers, he enjoyed a relatively smooth transition to life in the US.  There he built up a reputation as a respected conductor under whom musicians enjoyed working.  Amongst other orchestras, he frequently conducted the New York Philharmonic, and continued to travel and conduct in Europe.  He died in February 1962 in Beverly Hills, California. ****  BRUNO WALTER   (1876 - 1962) Bruno Walter was born into a modest middle-class Jewish family: his father was a book-keeper. Initially, he trained as a pianist, entering the Stern Conservatory in Berlin when he was eight years old, and making his public debut the following year in a student performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. However, after hearing Hans von Bülow conduct in 1889 and visiting the Bayreuth Festival two years later, Walter decided to pursue conducting as a career. As a student he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in 1893 in a setting of Goethe which he had composed himself, and later that year he joined the Cologne Opera as a répétiteur. It was with this company that Walter made his professional debut as a conductor, in Lortzing’s Der Waffenschmied during 1894, and the following autumn he joined the Hamburg Opera as chorusmaster. Here he worked closely with Gustav Mahler, the company’s chief conductor, who proved to be a major influence upon the young musician, and who secured for him his first conducting post, as first conductor at Breslau in 1896. At the start of the following season Walter moved to the same position in Pressburg (now Bratislava); and after a year there he went to Riga where he stayed for two seasons before taking up a conducting post at the Berlin Court Opera, the leading opera house in Germany at this time. Here Walter’s colleagues included Richard Strauss and Karl Muck; at the end of 1900, he conducted the first performance of Pfitzner’s opera Der arme Heinrich. Mahler invited Walter to join him as a conductor and assistant at the Vienna Court Opera where he was based from 1901 to 1912, composing as well as conducting: the première of his Symphony No. 1 took place in 1909. Increasingly active as a guest conductor, Walter made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1910 with Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers. Following Mahler’s death in 1911 he conducted the first performances of his Das Lied von der Erde in Munich and of the Symphony No. 9 in Vienna (1912). By now established as one of the most promising conductors in Europe, in 1913 Walter accepted the post of chief conductor at the Court Opera in Munich, where he remained until 1922. Here he conducted the first performances of Korngold’s Violanta and Der Ring des Polykrates (1916) and of Pfitzner’s Palestrina (1917). However during 1921 he became the target of anti-Semitic attacks in the Völkischer Beobachter, and he resigned from his post during the following year. Walter made his first appearances in America in 1923, conducting in New York, Detroit, Minnesota and Boston, and two years later he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival and was appointed chief conductor at the Berlin Städtische Opera, or Municipal Opera, having been a regular conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic since 1919. During the late 1920s, he continued to enjoy great success as a guest at Covent Garden; first appeared at La Scala, Milan, in 1926, where he came into contact with Toscanini; made a great impression in Paris with a cycle of Mozart operas in 1928; and conducted for the gramophone. He resigned from his Berlin post in 1929 and took up the position of chief conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, succeeding Furtwängler; but with the election of the National Socialist administration in 1933 Walter was immediately prevented from conducting in Leipzig and Berlin. As a consequence he left Germany, making Vienna the centre of operations for his activities until the Anschluss of 1938. Walter conducted several notable productions at the Salzburg Festival, served as artistic director at the Vienna State Opera between 1936 and 1938, and was recorded in concert performances of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (1936) and Symphony No. 9 (1938) with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Although he was offered and accepted French citizenship in 1938, Walter emigrated to America with his family in 1939, settling in Beverly Hills in California. During the war years Walter was active as a conductor principally in New York, appearing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (later serving as artistic adviser between 1947 and 1949) and with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, leading productions of operas by Beethoven, Mozart and Verdi. He also conducted many major orchestras such as those of Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco, and continued to record, establishing a close relationship with the American Columbia label which lasted until his death. He returned to Europe as a guest conductor after the end of World War II, his appearance at the first Edinburgh Festival in 1947 helping to establish it in the annual musical calendar. During this period Walter forged a close musical relationship with the short-lived English singer Kathleen Ferrier, whom he accompanied at the piano in recital, as well as conducting in unforgettable accounts of Das Lied von der Erde both in concert and on record for Decca. In 1950 Walter made his first appearance in Berlin since 1932, but during the 1950s gradually reduced his commitments, a process which was accelerated by a heart attack in 1957. With the commercial introduction of stereophonic records in 1957, Columbia invited Walter to re-record several major items of his repertoire in California with a hand-picked orchestra, the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, whose personnel was drawn largely from the orchestras of the major Hollywood studios. He made his final appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in 1959, conducting Verdi’s Requiem, and gave his last public concert in Los Angeles in 1960. His final recording sessions took place in March 1961 and he died of a further heart attack in the following year. Walter was a pre-eminent conductor in a period rich in musicians of stature. He sought to re-create the works which he conducted as if they were receiving their first performance, and this sense of the excitement of fresh discovery can be clearly discerned for instance in his truly historic recording of Act One of Wagner’s Die Walküre, made in 1935 with Lotte Lehmann and Lauritz Melchior with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as in many of his opera performances recorded live from the Salzburg Festival and Metropolitan Opera. He rehearsed orchestras with a seemingly gentle but firm and persuasive manner; in performance he was more concerned with intensity of expression than precise technical exactitude, and always maintained a strong emphasis upon the lyrical qualities of the music which he was interpreting. As his recordings of the Brahms symphonies with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for instance demonstrate, he was able to combine a strong sense of stylistic fidelity with a personal and highly impassioned vision. His close relationship with Mahler gives his recordings of the music of this composer especial authority: his account of the Symphony No. 9, made in concert in Vienna immediately before the Anschluss, possesses extraordinary intensity; while his account of Das Lied von der Erde with Kathleen Ferrier and Julius Patzak accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has been recognized as a classic of the gramophone ever since its initial release. Walter’s recorded accounts of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner exist on a similarly exalted plane, and represent, as does all his music-making, the very finest aspects of the nineteenth-century Austro-German tradion of musical performance. ****   EBAY5688 folder202

  • Condition: Very good condition of the original hand signed autograph, The reproduction photo and the decorative mat .( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images )
  • Modified Item: No
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom
  • Original/Reproduction: Original
  • Autograph Authentication: 100% Guaranteed AUTHENTICITY - UNLIMITED RETURN
  • Signed: Yes
  • Industry: Music

PicClick Insights - 1947 Conductor BRUNO WALTER Original HAND SIGNED AUTOGRAPH + PHOTO Edinburgh PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 0 watchers, 0.0 new watchers per day, 81 days for sale on eBay. 0 sold, 1 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 2,805+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.

People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive