Wilhelm Pitz

Wilhelm Pitz (25 August 1897 – 21 November 1973) was a German chorus master and conductor. He re-established the Bayreuth Festival chorus for the postwar revival of the festival in 1951 and continued as its chorus master for twenty years. He was also chorus master of the Vienna State Opera, and in 1957 he selected and trained the singers of the newly created Philharmonia Chorus in London, remaining their chorus master until his retirement in 1971.

Life and career Wilhelm Pitz was born in Breinig in western Germany on 25 August 1897. He was a violinist in the at Aachen from 1913, and in 1933 became chorus master of the Aachen State Opera – with Herbert von Karajan as musical director. He was also director of the municipal choir. In 1947 he was appointed first conductor at the opera, a post he held until 1960.

In addition to his work at Bayreuth, Pitz was chorus master of the Vienna State Opera, and in 1957 at the request of the proprietor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Walter Legge, he selected and trained the Philharmonia Chorus, which made its début under Otto Klemperer in Beethoven's Choral Symphony. At first Pitz reinforced the amateur choir with a few professional singers, particularly for recordings, but the reinforcements were soon found unnecessary. Pitz would fly in from his home in Aachen for Wednesday and Thursday evening rehearsals and fly back on the Friday.

When the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus reformed themselves as self-governing bodies in 1964 Pitz remained the chorus master, and continued in that capacity until his retirement in 1971. In 1967 he marked his seventieth birthday by conducting the New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the Royal Festival Hall. He also conducted the chorus and orchestra in performances of Handel's Messiah. but as Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians puts it, "his special fame arose from the quality of his choral preparation for the concerts and recordings of Klemperer, Giulini, and others, and for Bayreuth". Daniel Barenboim, Karl Böhm, Pierre Boulez, André Cluytens, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Carlo Maria Giulini, Herbert von Karajan, Rudolf Kempe, Hans Knappertsbusch, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and Sir Georg Solti.

Pitz died in Aachen on 21 November 1973, aged 76.

Reputation In 1967 the music critics Edward Greenfield, Philip Hope-Wallace, William Mann and Alec Robertson collectively dubbed Pitz "prince among chorus masters". The Decca producer John Culshaw wrote of him:

When Sir William Walton heard Pitz rehearsing the chorus in Belshazzar's Feast he stood listening intently and on taking the podium he asked the chorus, "Why can't you do it like that for me?" In his memoirs in 1992 Daniel Barenboim wrote that he had learned a lot from Pitz, "a rare musician and a wonderful choral conductor", and praised his ability to achieve "a huge range of expression through very detailed differentiation between legato and marcato singing, and a combination of the two".

Pitz was celebrated not only in Germany and Britain but in France also. Pierre Sabatier wrote in in 1954,"" ("The choirs directed by Wilhelm Pitz are of a perfection that cannot be surpassed; particularly in and ").