Felix Mottl was born on 24 August in Unter-St. Veit near Vienna. He studied harmony and counterpoint at the Vienna Conservatory with Anton Bruckner, among others, before founding the Academic Wagner Society and working as a répétiteur at the Vienna Opera. In 1876, he worked as a copyist and assistant at the first Bayreuth Festival, where he conducted over 70 performances between 1886 and 1906. After working as General Music Director of the Philharmonic Society in Karlsruhe and as a guest conductor in Paris, Brussels, London and New York, he came to Munich in 1904 as Court Kapellmeister. In 1907, he was appointed director of the Munich Court Opera, where he worked until his death. Felix Mottl died as a result of a heart attack suffered on 21 June 1911 during a performance of Tristan in Munich. The corresponding passage in the second act is recorded in the performance material of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and is a reminder of the tragic event at every performance to this day.

Photo credit: By J. Hartmann, Bayreuth – http://www.rgrossmusicautograph.com/60/089-60.jpg, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46867254

Hermann Zumpe was born in Oppach on 9 April 1850 and died in Munich on 4 September 1903. He took composition lessons with Albert Tottmann in Leipzig, and in 1872 he became the conductor of a Leipzig vaudeville theatre. In the same year, he went to Bayreuth, where he assisted Wagner with the completion of his Ring scores and prepared a piano reduction of Götterdämmerung. After positions as Kapellmeister in Salzburg, Würzburg, Magdeburg, Frankfurt and Hamburg, he was appointed Court Kapellmeister in Stuttgart in 1891. From 1895, he conducted the Kaim Orchestra, which later became the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, before moving to Schwerin as Court Kapellmeister in 1897. In 1901 he moved to the new Prinzregententheater in Munich in the same position and in 1902 he was appointed General Music Director.

Photo credit: From unknown - edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de, PD-alt-100, https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5002963

Bernhard Stavenhagen was born in Greiz on 24 November 1862 and died in Geneva on 25 December 1914. After the family moved to Berlin, he became a pupil at the Royal Academy of Music before studying piano, music theory and composition from 1878. His C major piano concerto won him the Mendelssohn Grand Prize for the Performing Arts. From 1885, he was a pupil of Franz Liszt in Weimar, whom he accompanied on his travels and whose funeral oration he delivered. In 1890, he was appointed Grand Duke of Saxony’s court pianist in Weimar, where he worked as court conductor from 1894. After Richard Strauss gave up his position in Munich to move to Berlin, Stavenhagen took over as Court Kapellmeister in 1898. He was engaged here until 1902, when he once again devoted himself increasingly to soloist and chamber music activities.

Photo credit: https://www.tripota.uni-trier.de/portraits/385/2/385_0966_p_900.jpg

Hugo Röhr was born in Dresden on 13 February 1866 and died in Munich on 7 June 1937. He studied in Dresden with Franz Wüllner, the conductor of the world premieres of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, who was engaged as First Court Kapellmeister in Munich from 1871. From 1886 he worked as a solo repetiteur at the Court Opera in Dresden, then as a conductor at the Augsburg City Theatre, the Kassel Court Theatre and the German State Theatre in Prague and Breslau. From 1892 to 1896 he held the post of First Kapellmeister at the Mannheim National Theatre before being appointed to the Munich Court Theatre in 1896. His secular oratorio Ekkehard was premiered at the Musikalische Akademie, followed by his opera Das Vaterunser in 1904 at the Munich Court Theatre. He held his post until 1918.

Photo credit: Musikalische Akademie Mannheim

Max Carl Christian Erdmannsdörfer was born in Nuremberg on 14 June 1848. He studied music theory, piano and violin at the Leipzig Conservatory between 1863 and 1867 before training as a conductor in Dresden in 1868/1869. In 1871, he became court conductor to the Prince of Schwarzburg in Sondershausen, and between 1881 and 1889 he conducted the concerts of the Russian Music Society in Moscow, where he also taught at the conservatory. From 1889, he conducted the philharmonic concerts and the Singakademie in Bremen before moving to Munich in 1895. One year later, he was appointed Bavarian court conductor. He also conducted the Academy Concerts and taught at the Academy of Music until 1898. Erdmannsdörfer died in Munich on 14 February 1905.

Photo credit: Wilhelm Höffert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From 1894, the 30-year-old Richard Strauss conducted the Munich Court Orchestra for two years, first as Royal Kapellmeister and then as Court Kapellmeister. Alongside Wagner, Mozart’s operas were a particular focus of his work in Munich. His symphonic poems Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra and Don Quixote were also composed during this time, although they were premiered in Cologne and Frankfurt rather than Munich.

Photo credit: Portrait photograph of Richard Strauss (cabinet format). Atelier Hertel; Weimar (Friedrich Hertel † 1918), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Hindemith’s opera in five acts Die Harmonie der Welt was premiered at the Prinzregententheater on 11 August 1957 – the composer himself conducted. The astronomer and physicist Johannes Kepler is at the centre of the plot, which spans several decades and takes place in Prague, Linz, Sagan in Silesia and Regensburg. Other historical figures such as Wallenstein, Emperor Rudolf II and Emperor Ferdinand II also appear.

Photo credit: Bavarian State Opera Archive

Franz Fischer was born on 29 July 1849 in Munich, where he also died on 8 June 1918. He took part as cellist in the Munich premiere of Wagner’s Rheingold, but also played his instrument as principal cellist at the Pest National Theatre and in the first festival orchestra at the Bayreuth Festival. As Hofkapellmeister at the Mannheim National Theatre, he conducted Wagner’s Tannhäuser before being appointed to the same position in Munich under General Music Director Hermann Levi. He conducted the posthumous Munich premiere of Wagner’s Die Feen in 1888 and several concerts as part of the Musikalische Akademie. He worked in Munich between 1880 and 1913.

Photo credit: Franz Fischer, photographed around 1880 by Egon Hanfstaengl Source: Portrait collection of the Munich City Museum

1653: The first opera in Munich, Giovanni Battista Maccioni’s L’arpa festante, is premiered in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz. This is followed in 1657 by L’Oronte by court conductor Johann Caspar Kerll, which marks the inauguration of the first free-standing theatre building north of the Alps: the opera house on Salvatorplatz. A string ensemble together with the continuo group formed a prefiguration of today’s orchestra, which was to grow steadily.

Photo credit: Nösselt, Hans-Joachim: Ein ältest Orchester.

Meyer was born in Altenburg on 2 March 1818 and died in Munich on 30 May 1893. After working in Trier and Stettin, Meyer became court conductor in Munich in 1869, where he worked until 1882. The young Richard Strauss studied with Meyer from 1875 and later dedicated his Serenade in E flat major op. 7 to him, which was the 17-year-old composer’s first work to be premiered outside of Munich in 1882.

Alexander Zemlinsky’s opera Sarema, based on Rudolf Gottschall’s story The Rose of the Caucasus, was written between 1893 and 1895 and won the 25-year-old composer the Luitpold Prize in 1896. The premiere followed on 10 October 1897 under Hugo Röhr at the Munich National Theatre, thus marking the Austrian composer’s first years of success. Zemlinsky received the Beethoven Prize of the Tonkünstlerverein for his Symphony in B flat major composed in 1897, and by 1899 he had written his opera Es war einmal, …, which was acclaimed in Vienna in 1900 under Gustav Mahler’s direction.

Photo credit: Bavarian State Opera Archive

Franz Lachner’s opera Benvenuto Cellini was premiered on 7 October 1849. Lachner used the French libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri-Auguste Barbier as a model, which was also the basis for the opera of the same name by Hector Berlioz, which was first performed in Paris in 1838. The plot centres on the historical figure of the goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, who lived in Florence in the 16th century and whose autobiography was translated into German by Goethe. Three years after the premiere of his opera, Franz Lachner became General Music Director in Munich.

Photo credit: Archive Bavarian State Opera

On 22 September 1869, the first part of Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen was premiered at the National Theatre in Munich. Contrary to Wagner’s wish not to show the entire Ring until after its completion, Ludwig II pushed through the premiere of Das Rheingold in Munich ahead of schedule. Countless letters document the dispute between the composer and his patron; in the end Wagner stayed away from the premiere by Franz Wüllner and concentrated on founding his own festival at which the entire Ring cycle was to be shown. This did not happen until August 1876, when the first Bayreuth Festival opened.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger was born in Valduz (Liechtenstein) on 17 March 1839 and studied at the Hauser Conservatory in Munich, where the twelve-year-old was then considered the youngest and most talented student at the institute. In 1859 he was employed as a piano teacher at the Munich Conservatory and as organist at the church of St. Michael. Rheinberger’s first compositions were published by Peters from this time onwards. From 1864 he was solo répétiteur at the Munich Court Opera, where he took part in the world premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, among other works. In 1876 he was appointed professor of composition and organ playing at the newly founded Royal School of Music. Just one year later he took up the post of court conductor in Munich, succeeding Franz Wüllner, which he gave up in 1894 in order to devote himself fully to his compositions. Rheinberger died in Munich on 25 November 1901. He left behind numerous works, including masses, songs, symphonic instrumental music and operas. His Wallenstein Symphony, the opera The Seven Ravens, his Requiem in B flat minor and his Florentine Symphony op. 87 were particularly successful during his lifetime.

Photo credit: By Atelier Müller-Hilsdorf, Munich – own (Münchner Stadtmuseum), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99154084

Hermann Levi was born in Giessen on 7 November 1839 and quickly made a name for himself as a musical prodigy. After early studies in Mannheim and Leipzig, he held posts as music director and Kapellmeister in Saarbrücken, Mannheim and Rotterdam from 1859 onwards. From 1864 to 1872 he worked as Hofkapellmeister in Karlsruhe, where Wagner became aware of him during his Meistersinger conductions. In 1872 Levi finally came to Munich as court conductor. He worked as assistant in Bayreuth, among other places, where he conducted the first performance of Parsifalin 1882. In Munich, he championed works by Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, but also Hector Berlioz and Engelbert Humperdinck. He also had a decisive influence on the so-called Mozart Renaissance with his translations that were used until the 1930s. Two years after being appointed General Music Director, Levi retired in 1896 due to illness. He died in Munich on 13 May 1900. Because of his importance for music and especially his pioneering work at the National Theatre in Munich, the Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, founded in 2002, has borne his name since 2021: Hermann Levi Academy.

Photo credit: Andrea1903 (scan); photographer unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The opera in one act Friedenstag was written to a libretto by Joseph Gregor with the collaboration of Stefan Zweig and the composer, based on the comedy El sitio de Bredá by the Spanish poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig exchanged plans about an opera project when the composer was in Salzburg in August 1934 during the festival season. After initial sketches, Zweig insisted that the libretto should be written by a third person, since as a Jew he considered the work impossible under the National Socialist regime. Joseph Gregor was suggested by Zweig, and a first meeting between the latter and Richard Strauss took place in Berchtesgaden in July 1935. Strauss repeatedly sought Stefan Zweig’s advice while working on the libretto and reworded verses himself, sometimes even replacing them with his own text passages. Strauss finally completed the score on 16 June 1936, and Friedenstag was premiered at the Munich National Theatre on 24 July 1938. Clemens Strauss conducted, Rudolf Hartmann directed, and the stage design was by Ludwig Sievert.

Photo credit: Friedenstag score. Vienna 1938.

Franz Wüllner was born in Münster on 28 January 1832 and already toured with Beethoven’s late piano sonatas between 1850 and 1854. In 1854 he moved to Munich, where he worked as a piano teacher from 1856. After positions as municipal music director in Aachen and as director at the Lower Rhine Music Festival, he was appointed court conductor of the Royal Vocal Orchestra in Munich in 1864. Wüllner conducted the premieres of Wagner’s Rheingold and Walküre in Munich and was finally appointed 1st Court Kapellmeister in 1871. He worked in this position until 1877, when he took over the direction of the conservatoire in Dresden as well as the Court Kapellmeister’s office there. In 1884 he went to Cologne as municipal Kapellmeister and conductor of the Conservatory. He died in Braunfels on 7 September 1902.

Photo credit: Dresden, Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library (SLUB), shelfmark/inventory no.: MB.gr.2.2

Hans Richter was born in Raab (in present-day Hungary) on 4 April 1843; his father was a cathedral conductor and his mother an opera singer. After his father’s death, he received his further education in Vienna, first as a choirboy, then at the conservatory. From 1862 to 1866 he was horn player with the orchestra of the Kärntnertortheater, before coming to Tribschen in October 1866 to join Richard Wagner, where he copied the score of his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. As musical assistant, he took part in the rehearsals for the Munich premiere of the same opera and was eventually appointed royal music director here. As early as the following year, however, i. e. 1869, he gave up this post again because he refused to premiere Das Rheingold against the composer’s wishes. Instead, Franz Wüllner was to conduct the first performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in Munich, which King Ludwig II had longed for. From June 1870 Richter worked as Wagner’s secretary in Tribschen, where he also copied the score of Siegfried. From 1871 he was Kapellmeister at the National Theatre in Pest, and from 1875 he worked at the Vienna Court Opera, conducting, among other things, the concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic between 1875 and 1898. He was the conductor of the first complete Ring performances in 1876 in Bayreuth, where he conducted a total of 77 performances, and conducted the German opera performances at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden between 1903 and 1910. Richter died in Bayreuth on 5 December 1916.

Photo credit: By Herbert Rose Barraud, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29443729

Photo credit: Archiv der Musikalischen Akademie

Hans von Bülow was born on 8 January 1830 in Dresden, where he received his first lessons in music theory and where the premiere of Richard Wagner’s opera Rienzi left a lasting impression on the then twelve-year-old. He studied law in Leipzig and Berlin before the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin in Weimar on 28 August 1850 finally persuaded von Bülow to devote himself entirely to music. Hans von Bülow completed his pianistic training with the conductor of the Lohengrin premiere and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt, while Wagner himself supported von Bülow in his musical plans and arranged his first engagements as a conductor. Liszt’s daughter Cosima finally married Hans von Bülow in 1957, after he had already completed his first concert tours and taken up a permanent position as a piano teacher at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. In 1864, von Bülow was appointed to Munich by King Ludwig II at Wagner’s suggestion: initially as royal prelude player, then as head of the Munich Music School to implement Wagner’s reforms there, and finally as Court Kapellmeister from 1867. Despite his wife Cosima’s relationship with Richard Wagner, von Bülow remained loyal to the composer and conducted the premieres of his operas Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Munich. Cosima eventually moved to Switzerland to live with Wagner, whom she married in 1870. After this finality of separation, Hans von Bülow devoted himself to his career as a pianist, giving concerts in London, Russia and the USA. In 1877 he became first court conductor in Hanover, in 1880 court music director in Meiningen, and from 1885 he conducted, among other things, the Hamburg subscription concerts and events of the Berlin Philharmonic. Plagued by severe headaches and no longer able to undertake the extensive travels of his touring life, Hans von Bülow sought relief from the Egyptian climate in Cairo, where he died on 12 February 1894. Hans von Bülow not only composed songs, symphonic poems and piano music, but in addition to his activities as a conductor and piano virtuoso, he also appeared as an educator and music writer.

Photo credit: By author unknown – Carte de Visite Woodburytype – Print (Repro by/of Günter Josef Radig), Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6783959

On July 9, 1978, Aribert Reimann’s opera Lear was premiered at the National Theatre. Claus H. Henneberg wrote the libretto based on Shakespeare’s drama of the same name, Gerd Albrecht was the musical director, and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle directed. See photos from the production at the time, which featured Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role.

Photo credit: Sabine Toepffer

On July 6, 1991, Krzysztof Penderecki’s satirical opera Ubu Rex received its world premiere at the Nationaltheater, opening the Opera Festival of that year. The libretto in German was written by the composer together with Jerzy Jarocki, based on the play Ubu roi by the French writer Alfred Jarry from 1896. In the two acts with five scenes each, the captain Ubu plans a conspiracy against the Polish king Wenceslas, who is murdered in the process. Subsequently, Ubu must wage war against Russia and finally flee across the Baltic Sea after a defeat. August Everding, then artistic director of the Bavarian State Opera, directed the production, and Michael Boder was the musical director.

Picture credits: Sabine Toepffer

Even though the composer had intended otherwise and wanted his monumental Ring tetralogy to be premiered in his own festival theatre in Bayreuth, this second part was already heard on June 26, 1870, at the Munich Hof- und Nationaltheater. King Ludwig II did not want to wait until the Bayreuth Festival Theatre was completed and therefore arranged for the premature premiere of Die Walküre against the composer’s will. To this day, this opera about the love of the twin couple Siegmund and Sieglinde, which breaks all social norms, and the banishment of his favorite daughter Brünnhilde by Wotan, the father of the gods, enjoys enormous popularity.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Johann Caspar Aiblinger was born in Wasserburg am Inn on February 23, 1779, and received his education at the Benedictine Abbey at Tegernsee and at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Munich. At Landshut University he studied philosophy and theology before going to Italy, where he worked as a composer and music teacher in Vicenza and Venice. In 1819 he became Kapellmeister of La Scala in Milan and in the same year moved to Munich as director of the Italian Opera, after whose dissolution in 1825 Aiblinger was given the post of Vice-Kapellmeister. From 1826 to 1864 he was finally engaged in Munich as Hofkapellmeister. He composed sacred music, numerous works for choir, but also operas and ballets. Aiblinger died in Munich on May 6, 1867.

Bildnachweis: Johann Kaspar Aiblinger, Photolithographie um 1850, Museum Wasserburg a. Inn, Inv. Nr. 2259a

On June 10, 1865, Richard Wagner’s “plot in three acts” Tristan und Isolde was premiered at the National Theatre in Munich. After previous attempts to stage the work failed at several opera houses – including the Vienna Court Opera after nearly 80 rehearsals – the unconditional support of Ludwig II in Munich finally made the project possible. The myth about the unperformability of this opera was nevertheless perpetuated after the premiere Tristan Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld died at the age of 29 only a few weeks after the first performances. Conductors Felix Mottl and Josef Keilberth also suffered breakdowns while conducting Tristan in Munich, leading to the deaths of both. To this day, Tristan und Isolde is a risk for every theatre – because of the immense musical demands on the performers (especially in the title roles), but also because of the outward lack of action with all the more existential themes that are dealt with in the opera. The longing for death of the two lovers pervades all three acts, until the ambivalent harmonic course of the music is resolved with Isolde’s transfiguration at the end. The “Tristan chord” with which the musical prelude begins advanced in music history to become a tonal cipher for a modern tonal language that would culminate in the atonality of the 20th century.

Photo credit: Joseph Albert: Ludwig and Malwine Schnorr von Carolsfeld as “Tristan und Isolde” in the Munich premiere, 1865, Munich, State Administration of Palaces. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Albert_-_Ludwig_und_Malwine_Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_-_Tristan_und_Isolde,_1865e.jpg#/media/Datei:Joseph_Albert_-_Ludwig_und_Malwine_Schnorr_von_Carolsfeld_-_Tristan_und_Isolde,_1865e.jpg

Franz Lachner was born in Rain am Lech on April 2, 1803, and after other stations in Munich, Vienna and Mannheim, he conducted opera performances, the concert series of the Musical Academy and church music as Court Kapellmeister from 1836 to 1868. Lachner’s appointment as Court Kapellmeister marked the beginning of the venerable series of Bavarian General Music Directors. Now it was no longer the concertmaster who was in charge, but a conductor with a baton leading an ever-growing ensemble. The orchestra included excellent virtuosos such as the clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, the horn player Franz Strauss and members of the Moralt family, who thrilled all of Europe on their travels as a string quartet. New instruments entered the orchestra, valves expanded the range of horns and trumpets, and the Munich solo flutist Theobald Böhm developed a new key system for woodwind instruments that is still in use today.

Photo credit: Franz Lachner. Lithograph by Andreas Staub. Public domain photograph, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4372774

One opera was also premiered in Munich by the pioneer of German-language opera Carl Maria von Weber, whose Freischütz still enjoys particular popularity today. The libretto for the Singspiel in one act Abu Hassan was written by Franz Karl Hiemer and is based on a story from One Thousand and One Nights. Weber was private secretary to Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg, who was in debt and considered corrupt, when he planned the adaptation of a debt story together with Hiemer, a theater poet from Stuttgart. The premiere, however, took place during Weber’s stay in Munich, or more precisely: on June 4, 1811, the first performance of the opera went over the stage at the then Munich Court Theater. In the years that followed, the work enjoyed great popularity and found its way onto the stages of Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Copenhagen and London, among others. However, as the common combination of shorter plays with opera acts slowly disappeared, performances of Abu Hassan also became more sparse. Nevertheless, in the 20th century there were performances conducted by Bruno Walter in Berlin, Felix Mottl in Munich, and Richard Strauss in Vienna, for example.

Image credit: By Caroline Bardua - 1. umnofil.ru2. GalleriX, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22630453

Joseph Hartmann Stuntz was born in Arlesheim near Basel on July 23, 1793, and after receiving his first music lessons from his father, he composed a Te Deum for the Strasbourg Cathedral at the age of 14. He joined the Munich court orchestra in 1808 and studied with Peter von Winter, later also in Vienna with his teacher Antonio Salieri. From 1816 to 1818 Stuntz was Kapellmeister of the Italian Opera in Munich, and in the following years he composed several operas for the theaters in Venice, Milan and Turin. At the Teatro alla Scala, his opera La rappressaglia was so successful that he was awarded the title “maestro di cartello.” In 1823 Stuntz became Vice-Kapellmeister of the Munich Hofkapelle and in 1825 first Hofkapellmeister, succeeding Peter von Winter. As the “national composer and festive conductor” of Bavaria, Stuntz’s music was played at major inauguration ceremonies – for example, the opening of the Valhalla or the laying of the foundation stone of the Befreiungshalle and the unveiling of the Bavaria. He is also considered the founder of male choral singing in Munich. He died in Munich in 1859.

Photo credit: Etching by Joseph Hartmann Stuntz circa 1830. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ausstellungskataloge, 38.

Peter von Winter was born in Mannheim on August 28, 1754, and began his career as a violinist in the court orchestra there, where he also played double bass in the meantime. During his participation in the orchestra, he became intensively acquainted with Italian and German opera before composing his own operas. In 1778 he moved to Munich when a large part of the Mannheim orchestra was called there. During a stay in Vienna, he studied for several months with Antonio Salieri, and in 1787 he was appointed vice kapellmeister of the Munich court orchestra, then kapellmeister in 1798, when he directed mainly church music and Italian opera. His own operas were celebrated at that time in Naples, Venice and Vienna, later also in London. Together with Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute, Winter created a sequel to Mozart’s popular opera entitled The Labyrinth or The Struggle with the Elements. Mozart himself, however, referred to Winter as his “greatest enemy” in a letter to his father in 1781. Along with Carl Maria von Weber, Peter von Winter’s Singspiele were significant pioneering works in the field of German opera before Richard Wagner. In addition, in 1811 Winter, together with members of the Munich Hofkapelle, was involved in the founding of the Musikalische Akademie: the Munich Concert Association, which still exists today. Winter worked in Munich until his death in 1825.

Image credit: Johann Nepomuk Haller, The Composer and Kapellmeister Peter von Winter (1754-1825), 1825, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek Munich, URL: https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/de/artwork/ZKGPvAyxgA

for 3rd and 4th grade students

MUSICAL ACADEMY – DACAPO

DACAPO is the music education project of the Musikalische Akademie des Bayerischen Staatsorchesters e. V. It was developed by musicians of the orchestra for a 3rd and a 4th grade class at elementary schools in the Munich area. Within a few weeks, musicians visit the selected classes of the school. In workshops they present their instruments and their profession. The final event is a concert for all students at the school, if possible. DACAPO combines the encounter with artists as well as getting to know and trying out orchestral instruments in the workshops with the experience of a concert situation.

Applications for the DACAPO project are sent through the Bavarian State Opera’s school program to jugend@staatsoper.de.
With the kind support of the Friends and Sponsors of the
Musical Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Munich e.V.

for 3rd and 4th grade students

The violinist, Kapellmeister and composer Paul Grua was born in Mannheim on February 1, 1753 and received his musical training from his father Carlo Pietragrua, who as Kapellmeister at the Electoral Palatinate Court under the Electors Carl Philipp and Carl Theodor had been responsible for all areas of court music. Paul Pietragrua worked in the Mannheim court orchestra before being sent to study in Bologna and Parma in 1777. After the Mannheim court moved to Munich, Paul Pietragrua was appointed vice kapellmeister in 1779 before serving as Kapellmeister of vocal music at the Munich court from 1784. In 1780 Paul Pietragrua’s carnival opera Telemaco was premiered at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, after which the composer concentrated on church music. He held his post of Kapellmeister in Munich until his death in 1833, a total of nearly half a century.

Photo credit: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00054636?page=6,7 Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Slg.Her 1725

Hans Werner Henze’s opera in three acts Elegie für junge Liebende was premiered on May 20, 1961, at the Schlosstheater in Schwetzingen by the ensemble of the Bavarian State Opera. The opera was commissioned by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk for the Schwetzingen Festival, and Henze approached librettists Wystan Hugh Auden and Chester Simon Kallman with the idea of “a psychologically highly nuanced chamber opera”. A German translation of the libretto was prepared by Ludwig Landgraf with the collaboration of Werner Schachteli and the composer. The action is set in the Austrian Alps in 1910, more precisely in the mountain inn “Schwarzer Adler”. At the center are the two young lovers Toni Reischmann and Elisabeth Zimmer, whose tragic death together in a snowstorm serves as material for the jealous poet Gregor Mittenhofer’s poem “Elegy for Young Lovers”. The music is characterized by a transparent and differentiated sound as well as by reminiscences of Italian opera and Schoenbergian Sprechgesang. The premiere, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Mittenhofer and Heinrich Bender as conductor, in a set by Helmut Jürgens, was praised as Henze’s “breakthrough to a musical language of his own”.

Photo credit: Archive Bavarian State Opera

Andrea Bernasconi was probably born in 1706 in Marseille and composed several operas before coming to Munich. He also worked in Venice at the Ospedale della Pietà as “maestro di capella”. In 1753 he was appointed vice kapellmeister at the Munich court by the Elector Maximilian III Joseph in Munich, to whom he also gave music lessons. After the death of the Hofkapellmeister Giovanni Porta, Bernasconi took over his position in 1755. Bernasconi’s operas were performed in numerous European cities, but most of them in Munich: for example, La clemenza di Tito in 1768, before Mozart was to compose an opera of the same name, or Agelmondo in 1760 and Demetrio in 1772. Bernasconi remained in office until his death in Munich in 1784.

Image credit: From Pietro Metastasio, Andrea Bernasconi – Demetrio. Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Bavar. 4015-4,1/4 http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10381988-6,

Giovanni Porta was born around 1675 in Venice, where he was a pupil of Francesco Gasparini, before working at the court of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome between 1706 and 1710. Other places of activity were in Vicenza and Verona and at the Conservatorio della Pietà under Antonio Vivaldi. From 1716 he devoted himself mainly to the composition of operas and sacred works. From 1726 to 1737 he was “maestro di coro” at the Ospedale della Pietà as a colleague of Vivaldi. In 1737, after the death of Pietro Torri, he took over his position as Kapellmeister at the Munich court. Porta died in Munich in 1755.

Image credit: By Heinrich Eduard Winter - This image is from the Gallica Digital Library and is available under ID btv1b8423665z, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13401583

for 3rd and 4th grade students

MUSICAL ACADEMY – DACAPO

DACAPO is the music education project of the Musikalische Akademie des Bayerischen Staatsorchesters e. V. It was developed by musicians of the orchestra for a 3rd and a 4th grade class at elementary schools in the Munich area. Within a few weeks, musicians visit the selected classes of the school. In workshops they present their instruments and their profession. The final event is a concert for all students at the school, if possible. DACAPO combines the encounter with artists as well as getting to know and trying out orchestral instruments in the workshops with the experience of a concert situation.

Applications for the DACAPO project are sent through the Bavarian State Opera’s school program to jugend@staatsoper.de.
With the kind support of the Friends and Sponsors of the
Musical Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester
Munich e.V.

for 3rd and 4th grade students

Photo creddit: Ars Produktion https://www.ars-produktion.de/Pietro_Torrica1650_1737_La_Baviera/topic/SACDs/shop_art_id/132/tpl/shop_article_detail

The singer, composer and organist Pietro Torri was born around 1650 in Peschiera del Garda. He was organist and Kapellmeister at the court of the Margrave of Bayreuth, before serving as organist at the court of Elector Max Emanuel in Munich from 1689. When the latter was appointed governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Torri followed the Elector to Brussels in 1692, where he took up the post of “maître de chapelle” in the Brussels court orchestra and conducted the opera performances. After a change of power, Max Emanuel returned to Munich in 1701, where Torri served for the time being as chamber music director, since the office of court conductor was still held by Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the Elector resided again in Brussels from 1704 to 1714, where Torri also followed him. Back in Munich, Torri held the title of court conductor in 1715 until he was finally appointed court conductor in 1732 after Bernabei’s death. Torri died in Munich in 1737. He left behind masses and other liturgical forms, oratorios, cantatas, and numerous operas, most of which were premiered in Munich.

There exists a CD recording of selected works by Torri by Christoph Hammer and the Neue Hofkapelle Munich: https://www.amazon.de/Baviera-Neue-Hofkapelle-München/dp/B00011MK38

Photo creddit: Ars Produktion https://www.ars-produktion.de/Pietro_Torrica1650_1737_La_Baviera/topic/SACDs/shop_art_id/132/tpl/shop_article_detail

The son of Ercole Bernabeis was born in Rome in 1649 and received his musical training from his father, who he succeeded as kapellmeister at San Luigi dei Francesi in 1672. He was ordained a priest before moving to Munich, where he was appointed vice kapellmeister in 1677 and, after his father’s death in 1687, his position as Munich hofkapellmeister. Giuseppe Antonio stopped composing operas for Munich as early as 1690 and was able to concentrate entirely on court church music when court music director Pietro Torri took over the composition of operas and chamber music. In 1704 the court orchestra was temporarily dissolved when Bavaria was occupied by Austria, and in 1708 Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei was dismissed. In 1715 the Elector returned to Munich, and Bernabei was able to devote himself again to conducting church music as hofkapellmeister in Munich until his death in 1732.

Photo credit: Unknown painter 1700 – Giuseppe Antonio Bernabei. Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna, Italy. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GA_BERNABEI.jpg

Kerll was born in 1627 in Adorf (today in the Vogtland district of Saxony) as the son of an organ builder, where he took up his first position as organist at St. Michael’s Church. He probably converted to Roman Catholicism in Vienna in the 1640s and went to Rome around 1648/49 to study with the composer Giacomo Carissimi. After the appointment of his brother Leopold Wilhelm as governor of the Netherlands by Emperor Ferdinand III. Johann Caspar became court organist in the Brussels residence. In 1655 the Brussels court was dissolved, and Kerll was appointed to the Munich court opera, where he was initially provisional vice-kapellmeister, then vice-kapellmeister and after the death of Giovanni Giacomo Porro finally in 1656 hofkapellmeister. Kerll took over the musical direction of the services, the chamber and table music as well as the court opera. Several of his operas were premiered in Munich. He resigned his post in 1673, probably as a result of intrigues by Italian musicians. In 1674 Kerll went to Vienna with his family, where he received a pension granted by the emperor and from 1677 worked as the court’s first organist. Nevertheless, he repeatedly visited Munich, for example in 1688 when the Munich engraver Carl Gustav Amling made the only known portrait of the composer. In 1692 Kerll gave up his post in Vienna to go to Munich, where he died on February 13, 1693 and was buried in the crypt of the Augustinian monastery on Kaufingerstrasse. During his lifetime, Kerll was considered the best-known German composer of operas and church music, and his works were performed internationally. He was equally famous as an organ improviser.

Photo credit: Engraving, Carl Gustav Amling, around 1680, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Inventar-Nr. 122532 D

Ercole Bernabei was born in 1622 in Caprarola, 57 kilometers northwest of Rome. In Rome he was from 1653 organist at San Luigi dei Francesi, from 1665 for two years conductor at the Lateran Basilica and from 1667 head of the chapel San Luigi dei Francesi. In 1672 he took up the position of Kapellmeister at St. Peter’s Church, which he gave up when he was called to Munich by the Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria. He was hofkapellmeister here from 1774 until his death in 1687. His works include numerous motets, cantatas and madrigals as well as several lost stage works that he wrote for Munich, possibly in the opera seria genre. In Munich, Bernabei was also commissioned by Elector Max Emanuel to train students from Bavarian monasteries and monasteries in composition.

Photo credit: By Heinrich Eduard Winter – This image comes from the Gallica Digital Library and is available under the ID btv1b8415785d, in the public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46619527

Giovanni Giacomo Porro was born in Lugano around 1590 and worked, among other things, as organist for the Duke of Savoy Carlo Emanuele, as Kapellmeister at the Roman San Lorenzo in Damaso and as a substitute for the organ virtuoso Girolamo Frescobaldi at the Cappella Giulia. In 1635 he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of Maximilian I in Munich. From there he made several trips to Italy to recruit Italian musicians for the Munich court orchestra. Porro used to be in regular contact with Galileo Galilei, by whom he set poems to music. Although no opera performance has survived under Porro’s direction, there are indications of him as a potential co-founder of the music-theatrical tradition in Munich. He worked here until his death in 1656. Almost all of his compositions, which were mostly of a sacred nature but also included madrigals and ballets, have been lost, according to a posthumous list of more than 1100 compositions.

Photo credit: By Domenico Tintoretto – http://collections.rmg.co.uk, public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=230541

The world premiere of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s two one-act plays Der Ring des Polykrates and Violanta took place on March 28, 1916 in Munich’s Hoftheater. The composer was 18 at the time and had already appeared as a child prodigy at the age of 13 with the world premiere of his ballet pantomime Der Schneemann at the Vienna Hofoper. Korngold had already completed his cheerful opera Der Ring des Polykrates in 1914, which was followed immediately by the composition of the tragic opera Violanta. The sensational success of Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt finally followed in 1920, which last premiered at the Bavarian State Opera in 2019 and caused a sensation under the musical direction of Kirill Petrenko in a production by Simon Stone and with Jonas Kaufmann and Marlis Petersen in the leading roles. This spectacle was documented on DVD and Blu-ray on the in-house label Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings. Max Reinhardt brought Korngold to Hollywood in 1934, where the composer provided the music for 19 films and thus had a lasting influence on film music.

Photo credit: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) https://www.loc.gov/item/2005689510/

The composer Giovanni Battista Crivelli was born in Scandiano (province of Reggio Emilia) at the end of the 16th century and probably studied in the cathedral of Reggio Emilia, where he worked as organist from 1614. From 1620 he was Kapellmeister at the Chiesa dello Spirito Santo in Ferrara, and from 1629 he finally worked in Munich at the court of Maximilian I, where he conducted the Court Orchestra. From 1635 he worked in Reggio Emilia, where he was appointed conductor at the Basilica della Ghiara, and at Milan Cathedral and Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Crivelli held his last post as Kapellmeister of the court orchestra of the Duke of Modena, where he died in 1652. His compositions mainly include motets and madrigals.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Classe 3l, CC BY-SA 4.0,  commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duomo_Di_Reggio_Emilia,_Facciata.jpg

Although Orlando di Lasso was the most famous offspring of his family, he was not the only composer and musician closely connected with the history of the Munich court orchestra. Because after his son Ferdinand I di Lasso, his son Ferdinand II di Lasso was also court music director in Munich: probably between 1616 and 1629 Ferdinand II conducted the orchestra of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria. A letter dated July 24, 1613 shows how intensively Maximilian I himself dealt with cultural policy. It shows that the Duke had sent Ferdinand II to Rome so that he could study there. Maximilian I was closely informed about the progress of Orlando di Lasso’s grandson, and so he wrote to Rome:

“From your letter of the 6th I have learned what progress Ferdinando Lasso is making in music there, and that he is now able to return and render services as soon as he will have stayed in Rome for three more months to write allegro compositions in a modern style, having hitherto engaged in serious ones. I can therefore tell you that I am content to leave him there for the three months mentioned, so that he can try to perfect himself as much as possible, not only in composing, but also in practicing and putting together concerts for two, three or more choirs. Then let him come back here.”

Photo credit: Wenceslaus Hollar: Maximilian I. als Herrscher. University of Toronto Wenceslaus Hollar Digital Collection. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I._(Bayern)#/media/Datei:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Compton_or_Carleton._Philosophia_universa_(State_4).jpg

More about Leonore Buff: https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/buff-leonore

Photo credit: Archive of the Musikalische Akademie

Today, the proportion of women in the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is over a third. That wasn’t always the case: in the photo from 1911, the only female member of the Musikalische Akademie can be seen in the first row, namely the harpist Leonore Kennerknecht-Buff. She was said to be related to Charlotte Kestner (born Buff), who went down in literary history as the historical role model of Lotte in Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. In 1892, Buff was accepted as a member of the Bayerisches Hoforchester, which later became the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Other orchestras took much longer to take this step: while the Berlin Philharmonic accepted the first woman as an orchestra member in 1982, the Vienna Philharmonic only followed suit in 1997.

More about women in orchestras: https://www.kulturrat.de/themen/frauen-in-kultur-medien/beitraege-publikationen/gendersrecht-in-berufsorchestern/

More about Leonore Buff: https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/buff-leonore

Photo credit: Archive of the Musikalische Akademie

About the Hofbräuhaus in München: https://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/bierzeichen/

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The Staatliches Hofbräuhaus brewery in Munich preserves the tradition of beer symbols, also known as beer marks: since the 19th century they have served as a calculating aid and have been part of almost every brewery for a long time; first made of brass, then aluminium, later made of plastic, in the post-war years after the Second World War also in the form of paper notes. Each brand has a specific value, for example “1 Maß light or dark” or “Good for 1 liter of beer”. In the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl, beer tokens can be purchased that keep the value of a beer, even if the prices on the drinks menu go up. Now there is also a beer sign from the Hofbräuhaus in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester.

Worth knowing about the beer brand: https://www.historisches-unterfranken.uni-wuerzburg.de/db/biermarken/biermarken/aufsatz.php

About the Hofbräuhaus in München: https://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/bierzeichen/

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The son of Orlando di Lasso was born in Munich around 1562 and trained by his father in the court orchestra. In 1585 he was employed as Kapellmeister at the court in Hechingen, and in 1587 a collection of motets by Ferdinand I di Lasso was published, which was dedicated to his employer Eitel Friedrich IV von Hohenzollern-Hechingen. In 1589 he returned to Munich and worked as a tenor singer there and in Landshut before he succeeded Johannes de Fossa as Kapellmeister to Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria in 1602. In 1622 he initiated the publication of the collection Apparatus musicus with eight-part works by his father. In 1609 Ferdinand I di Lasso died in Munich. The Cantiones Quinque Vocum in the cover picture is an edition published in 1597 of previously unpublished motets by his father and Ferdinand I.

Photo credit: Lasso, Orlando di: Cantiones quinque vocum. Ab Orlando di Lasso et huius filio Ferdinando di Lasso. Compositae Typis iam primo subiectae et in lucem editae. Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- 4 Mus.pr. 164. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00072000?page=2,3

Photo credit: Archive Musikalische Akademiee

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On February 22, 2010, The Tragedy of the Devil by Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös was premiered with a libretto by Albert Ostermaier in the National Theatre. Eötvös himself conducted the Bavarian State Orchestra. The Ukrainian artist couple Ilya and Emilia Kabakov designed the stage and Balázs Kovalik directed. Find out more about the work and the staging of that time in a contribution with Eötvös, Kovalik, Ostermaier and the Lucifer singer of the premiere Georg Nigl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylAsq5_dy0

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Johannes de Fossa’s date and place of birth are unknown. Up until his entry into the Munich court orchestra in 1569, de Fossa’s biography is documented incompletely. He probably comes from a Dutch family of musicians, in which his name appeared several times. In a copy he made himself, de Fossa referred to the composer Johannes Castileti – also known as Jean Guyot – as his teacher. De Fossa was probably Castileti’s pupil in the 1540s and 1550s in Liège. In 1569, de Fossa was finally appointed Vice Kapellmeister of the Munich court orchestra and held this office until Orlando di Lasso’s death in 1594. After di Lasso’s death, di Fossa took over his position as Munich court music director, although the official appointment did not take place until 1597. His merits were honored by de Fossa’s elevation to the imperial nobility. He died in Munich at Pentecost 1603, having had to resign from office a year earlier due to health problems.

Photo credit: Fossa, Johannes de: 7 Sacred songs – BSB Mus.ms. 2757. Location: Munich, Bavarian State Library Mus.ms. 2757. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00079000?page=6

Photo credit: Archive of the Musikalische Akademie

Carl Orff’s opera Der Mond was premiered on February 5th, 1939 at the Bavarian State Opera under the musical direction of Clemens Krauss in a production by Rudolf Hartmann. The composer wrote the libretto himself and in doing so took over literal text passages from the fairy tale of the same name by the Brothers Grimm. Orff’s description of this “small world theater” is based on the three scenes of heaven, earth, underworld and the view of a little boy on it. Orff thought about his opera as “a thoughtful parable of the futility of human efforts to disturb the world order and at the same time a parable of being safe in this world order”. The composer himself described the music as his “farewell to romanticism”. Critics were enthusiastic, for example the musicologist Fred Hamel: “So you encounter a creation that has been desired for the opera stage for a long time […] It’s great how Orff’s music also fully expresses this power here the elementary means of rhythm and song form […] With this economy of means, Orff’s melodic invention is so powerful, his rhythmic imagination so inexhaustible, that they evoke a sheer abundance of changing impressions of pictorial power.”

Photo credit: Hanns Holdt

Photo credit: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Signatur Slg.Her 811

On January 29, 1781, Mozart’s “Dramma per musica in tre atti” premiered in Munich’s Hoftheater, today’s Cuvilliéstheater. The libretto is based on the tragédie lyrique of the same name by Antoine Danchet with music by André Campra and was written by the Salzburg chaplain Giambattista Varesco. Five years later, a version revised by Mozart was performed in Vienna.

In 1775 Mozart’s La finta giardiniera was premiered in Munich, and in 1780 the composer was commissioned by Karl Theodor, the Elector of Bavaria, to create an opera for Munich as the highlight of the carnival season. Mozart attended the rehearsals of both operas. Idomeneo was not finished until he was there, and so Mozart was able to take special account of the vocal possibilities of the singers. A correspondence between Mozart and his father Leopold provides information about the background to the creation of Idomeneo, in which the function of scenes and arias is also discussed.

Mozart Letters and Documents – Online Edition:
https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/briefe/doclist.php

Photo credit: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Signatur Slg.Her 811

Ludwig Daser was born in Munich around 1526 and joined the Munich court orchestra as a young man, where he probably received his musical training under Wolfgang Fynnckl and Andree Zauner, perhaps also under Ludwig Senfl. Like Andree Zauner, Daser studied at the University of Ingolstadt and from 1552 was active as court conductor of the Munich court orchestra. In 1563 Daser finally resigned from his position in Munich, and in 1572 he became Kapellmeister at the Württemberg ducal court in Stuttgart, where he worked until his death in 1589. Daser was a prolific composer of masses, motets and sacred songs, much admired by his contemporaries. Recently he has again become the focus of musicology, and so the publication of the extensive book Ludwig Daser (1526–1589) – Grenzgänger Zwischen den Traditionen by Daniel Glowotz is in preparation.

Photo credit: Daser, Ludwig: 9 Masses – BSB Mus.ms. 18. Location:
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Mus.ms. 18. https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00079115?page=6,7

The first version of Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera was premiered on January 23, 1897 in Munich’s Hoftheater under the musical direction of Hugo Röhr. After the success of Hänsel und Gretel four years earlier, the composer was looking for a text for a comic opera with a popular touch, which was ultimately provided by Elsa Agnes Bernstein, daughter of Humperdinck’s Munich friend Heinrich Porges.

In the years that followed, this melodrama version found its way onto the opera stages of Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Riga, London, Dublin and New York, but disappeared from the repertoire after 1902. The composer revised his melodrama into the through-composed version of the opera known today, for which the text was thoroughly reduced and simplified. Finally, in 1910, this second version was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Photo credit: Archiv Bayerische Staatsoper / Hof-Atelier Elvira München

Andree Zauner was the successor of Wolfgang Fynnckl and conducted the court orchestra from 1550 to 1552. Zauner originally came from Landshut and was enrolled at the University of Ingolstadt from 1525, where he mainly studied the writings of Johannes de Muris, who as a late medieval intellectual with music theory busy and decisively promoted music notation. Accordingly, Zauner used the academic title “Maister” (magister), which is rare for a musician. He remained with the court orchestra as a singer after resigning and even received a grace payment until his death in 1577.

Photo credit: Coat of arms of the University of Ingolstadt 1580. Illustration from: Schrot, Martin: Wappenbuch Des Heiligen Römischen Reichs, und allgemainer Christenheit in Europa, München, 1580 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Res/2 Herald. 46).

Little is known about Ludwig Senfl’s successor: only Wolfgang Fynnckl’s name and office are known. After Senfl stopped his work at the Munich court orchestra in 1543 and before 1551, Fynnckl must have continued the work of his predecessor and thus the Munich court music. During Fynnckl’s tenure, two new instrumentalists were hired: Sebastian Hurlacher (-> tile on this website “appointment lapel of trombonist Sebastian Hurlacher”) and Bastian Behaim.

Photo credit: Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten der christlichen Zeitrechnung bis zur Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Bd. 4. Quelle: gallica.bnf.fr. Provenienz: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

On January 14th, 1823, the National Theater burned. Although the accident happened during a packed evening performance, nobody was hurt. Warm brewing water from the surrounding breweries was used to extinguish the fire, since the water used by the fire brigade froze in the syringes. The building could not be saved from the flames, but was reopened two years later.

Photo credit: Münchner Stadtmuseum, collection of graphics / paintings P-1134
Artist: unknown; Wolfgang Pulfer (repro)

500 – what a number! Five hundred years ago, the history of the ensemble began, which today, as the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, is one of the most respected opera and concert orchestras in the world and can be justifiably proud of this unique history. The orchestra’s early days are associated with names such as Ludwig Senfl and Orlando di Lasso as artistic directors, and there has never been a lack of important personalities since then. Collaborations with the greatest composers of their time – such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss – as well as with the great conductors of the past and present (the list of names is too long to mention here) have decisively shaped the orchestra and made it one of the best in the world. Not only the result but also the reason for this quality is the diversity of its activities: in opera, in ballet, in symphonic repertoire, in the cosmos of chamber music, in its commitment to musical education and outreach. This last point is represented in particular by the commitment of the Hermann-Levi-Akademie, the talent factory for the future not only of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester but of orchestral music in general. The founding of the first concert series for the Munich bourgeoisie in 1811, the Musikalische Akademie, which is still alive today, speaks of the orchestra’s deep connection with the city of Munich and its citizens, which has not dried up even after more than two hundred years. In the festival year 2023, we want to further deepen this connection with many proven and new formats. I congratulate the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, which I am honoured to preside over as chief conductor, and look forward to a musically rich 500th anniversary.

Vladimir Jurovsky
General Music Director of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester since 2021

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Photo creddits: Archiv der Musikalischen Akademie

Photo Credit: Archiv der Musikalischen Akademie

Photo Credits: Archiv der Musikalischen Akademie

What distinguishes the Bayerisches Staatsorchester especially in my opinion? For me, it is the mixture of dark, warm sound, transparent texture, individual timbre and a distinct common identity that has been continuously built up and developed over five centuries, strongly influenced by the great composers and artists associated with this house. This combination of klang and personality, which has been constantly renewed, though the flexibility, technical capacity and energy of each new generation is unique, and in the best sense a counter phenomenon to certain trends emerging from our information age.

In its 500-year history, this great ensemble has shared the priceless gift of humanism with the world, and thus it will continue to be relevant in the future. Thank you, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, and happy birthday!

Kent Nagano
General Music Director 2006–2013

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The seven years I was privileged to spend with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester as its principal conductor are but a breath in the light of its long history. But for me, these seven years as Bavarian Music Director have been an unspeakably happy time. I hope that together we have been able to leave some traces that will outlast our own work. As the Bayerisches Staatsorchester has undertaken so many new things in the five hundredth year of its existence, this event becomes less a retrospective of a glorious past than an outlook on a far-reaching and radiant future. I wish this wonderful orchestra that with all my heart – and I am very happy that we will meet again in its anniversary year.

Kirill Petrenko
General Music Director 2013–2021
Honorary Conductor of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

With Orlando di Lasso, Duke Albrecht V engaged what is probably the most important musician of his time. From 1562/63 he was the court music director, taking over the management of the table and chamber music as well as the musical arrangement of the services. The Duke enjoys close contact with his musicians and spends a lot of money on them. The Bavarian court is looking for the best singers and instrumentalists throughout Europe. At the wedding of the heir to the throne Wilhelm V in 1568, visitors raved about the artistic interplay and varied repertoire of the court orchestra.

Photo credit: Deutsch, Bildnis des Orlando di Lasso, 1580, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, URL: https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/de/artwork/ma4d3KgGrO

With most of the orchestras I conduct these days, I am half the age of these bodies. Fortunately, I can’t say that about the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. So I wish my colleagues and all their predecessors nothing but the best on their 500th birthday! My eight years with this great ensemble have been a highlight of my career, and I can’t tell you how many wonderful memories I have in both symphony and opera: our European tour with the Mahler Three; the Bruckner Eight; the trip to Kashmir and Mumbai; the Don Carlo production with Jürgen Rose; as well as the two Ring productions I was privileged to conduct, will remain forever in my heart.

Great musicians were and are gathered in the Bayerisches Staatsorchester to whom I tip my hat in admiration. I can only end these words of homage this way: Ladies and gentlemen of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, I love and adore each and every one of you all and cannot wait to make music with you again. In deep friendship and admiration

Zubin Mehta
General Music Director 1998–2006
Honorary Conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Photo creddit: Archiv der Musikalischen Akademie

Location: München, Staatliche Münzsammlung

Born in Basel or Zurich around 1490, Ludwig Senfl was probably active as a choirboy in Maximilian I’s chapel during his childhood. Presumably he completed his studies at the University of Vienna as part of an imperial scholarship as well as training as a clergyman. Senfl worked in the imperial chapel until 1520, and in 1523 he was given a permanent position by Duke Wilhelm IV in Munich, where he lived until his death in 1523. His extensive oeuvre includes sacred and secular compositions, such as masses, a large number of cycles of props, motets and songs. He maintained contacts with humanistic and Protestant circles and corresponded with Martin Luther, among others, to whom he also regularly sent compositions. Luther wrote to Senfl from Veste Coburg in 1530: “Love [of music] has also given me hope that my letter will not pose any danger to you … I really praise your Dukes of Bavaria, even if they are not in the least inclined towards me, and respect them above others for the way they promote and nurture music.”
Senfl’s immense esteem as a composer endured well after his death, as evidenced by the wide distribution and number of transmissions of his works. Since 2015, musicologists have been working on the New Senfl Edition, a new complete edition of all of Senfl’s compositions.

Hier finden Sie weiterführende Informationen zu Ludwig Senfl

Location: München, Staatliche Münzsammlung