Rudolf Schwarz

Rudolf Schwarz (29 April 190530 January 1994) was an Austrian-born conductor. He became a British citizen and spent the latter half of his life in England.

Biography

Early life Schwarz was born in a Jewish family in Vienna and at the age of six began piano lessons followed shortly by the violin. His father was opposed to his son's ambition to become a conductor. In order to get money for music lessons and gallery tickets at the Opera, he gave lessons himself. He studied with the composers Richard Robert, Hans Gál and Richard Strauss. Schwarz also acted as director of the choral society in Rheydt.

In 1936, he became a director of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (JKB) in Berlin, a German-Jewish cultural organisation backed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry of Joseph Goebbels, While at Auschwitz, he suffered a broken shoulder-blade, which inhibited his gestures as a conductor in later life. The effects of this injury on his conducting style can be seen in a DVD of him conducting the finale of the Brahms Violin Concerto with David Oistrakh in May 1958.

It is not clear why Schwarz did not attempt to leave Germany in 1939. Possible explanations include the security of his employment with JKB and the difficulty of finding work elsewhere.

Career in Britain After the end of World War II, Schwarz went to Sweden to recover from typhoid, and there met his future second wife Greta. In 1946 he received an offer to join Berlin Opera as conductor, which he refused. The workload was immense, as Schwarz was required to lead 150 concerts in his first season.

Schwarz received praise from Thomas Beecham as an "able conductor" for his work with the Bournemouth orchestra, and subsequently held Principal Conductor positions with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1951–1957) and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. With the BBC SO, he was praised for his efforts "to reach the truth of the music". However, in the 1961-1962 season his interpretation of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 was criticised in the press as "blatant misrepresentation", and as moving "from bad to worse". In April 1961, William Glock, Controller of Music at the BBC, proposed a new scheme whereby Schwarz was to stand down as chief conductor in August 1962, and to continue subsequently as a guest conductor with the BBC SO. According to Nicholas Kenyon:

"Schwarz was delighted with the scheme – it would enable him to concentrate on the repertoire he loved, and work in the relative calm of the studio more than in the competitive atmosphere of the London concert hall where he had been uneasy ever since moving from the provinces".

In 1964, Schwarz was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Northern Sinfonia, where he served until 1973. Schwarz returned to Bournemouth as a regular guest from 1970 to 1979, and also held guest appointments in Bergen, and with the English Opera Group and National Youth Orchestra. In June 1973 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Rudolf Schwarz died in London in 1994, aged 88.

Musicianship Schwarz received much praise from Northern Sinfonia musicians who played under him. Violinist Martin Hughes said that his "sense of rhythm, structure and tempo was exceptional", According to Rattle, Schwarz never "gave any interpretation that didn’t have a real truth about it". He conducted for many concerto recordings, as well as the Dvořák Slavonic Dances (BBCSO), and Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies (Philharmonia). He started and ended his recording career with the Bournemouth orchestra: several overtures in the early 1950s and an LP of Schubert overtures in 1980 (all EMI). There are further broadcast recordings by Schwarz in the British Library Sound Archive.