Ferenc Fricsay (; 9 August 1914 – 20 February 1963) was a Hungarian
conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.
Biography
Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
,
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education.
...
,
Ernst von Dohnányi, and
Leó Weiner. With these and other faculty at the
Budapest Academy of Music he studied piano, violin, clarinet, trombone, percussion, composition and conducting.
Fricsay made his first appearance as a conductor at age 15, substituting for his father at the podium of the Young Musicians Orchestra of Budapest. In 1930, at the age of 16, he succeeded his father as conductor of the Young Musicians Orchestra.
On graduating in 1933, Fricsay became
répétiteur for the chorus of the
Budapest Opera;
then, from 1933 to 1943, he was music director of the
Szeged
Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...
Philharmonic Orchestra in the third largest city in Hungary; he also served as director of its military band from 1933. In 1942, he was court-martialed by the government of
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957) was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who was the Regent of Hungary, regent of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Kingdom of Hungary Hungary between the World Wars, during the ...
for wanting to employ Jewish musicians, and for having "Jewish blood" himself (according to reliable reports, his mother was Jewish).
When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944, the chief editor of the Szeged daily newspaper warned Fricsay that the
Gestapo
The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...
planned to arrest him; he and his wife, Marta (''née'' Telbisz) and three children Marta, Ferenc and Andras, avoided this fate by going underground in Budapest.
In 1945, secret emissaries offered him the co-directorship of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Budapest (later
Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra); he also became principal conductor of the Budapest Opera. He conducted opera at the
Vienna Volksoper and at the
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival () is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer, for five weeks starting in late July, in Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart's operas are a focus of ...
in the late 1940s, including world premieres in Salzburg of operas by
Gottfried von Einem ("Dantons Tod" in 1947) and by
Frank Martin ("Zaubertrank" in 1948). The enthusiastic reception of Fricsay's work on this international stage led to his being appointed Chief Conductor of the Berlin
RIAS Symphony Orchestra and General Music Director of the
Deutsche Oper Berlin, from 1949 to 1952, performing then in the
Theater des Westens. He made his United Kingdom debut at the 1950
Edinburgh International Festival, conducting
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...
's ''
Le Nozze di Figaro'' at the
Glyndebourne Festival. He made his
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
debut that year with
Carmina Burana. In 1951 he made his debuts in Italy and with the
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. In 1953 he made his debuts in Paris, Milan, Lucerne, and the US, where he conducted the
Boston Symphony Orchestra and
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley, San Francisco, Hayes Valley ne ...
. He was appointed musical director of the
Houston Symphony in 1954, but resigned halfway through the season over "disagreements on musical policy."
He made his debut with the
Israel Philharmonic in 1954. He spent much of his time from the 1950s onward in Germany as music director of the
Bavarian State Opera (1956–1958) and as conductor of the
RIAS Symphony Orchestra, the
Deutsche Oper Berlin and the
Berlin Philharmonic. Also in 1956, he was appointed General Music Director of the
Bavarian State Opera, a position he held until 1958.
Fricsay gave his last concert on 7 December 1961 in London, conducting the
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a riv ...
in the UK premiere of
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education.
...
's Symphony,
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...
's
Violin Concerto (with
Wolfgang Schneiderhan), and
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.
He suffered from repeated illnesses throughout his life and finally succumbed to cancer of the stomach on 20 February 1963 at the age of 48 in
Basel
Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
.

Fricsay found his final resting place at the cemetery of
Ermatingen
Ermatingen is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen (district), Kreuzlingen in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Thurgau in Switzerland.
History
The Stone Age Westerfeld and Büge shoreline settlements w ...
in the Swiss
canton of Thurgau, where the family settled in 1952. His mother Berta, née Lengyel (1876-1963), died less than a month after Fricsay and was buried in the same grave. His grandson Dominic-Ferenc Dobay (1972-1992), his first wife Martha Fricsay-Telbisz (1915-1997) and Herta Stein (1912-2005) were buried in the same site as well. In 2015, the grave was declared by the municipality as a memorial which is protected from dissolution.
Repertoire and recordings
Fricsay was known for his interpretations of the music of Mozart and Beethoven, as well as that of his teachers
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...
and
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education.
...
. According to the entry in "New Grove", he conducted without a baton, but "confounded the adverse critics of this technique by the extreme clarity and precision of his performances," to which "New Grove" ascribes "a dynamic spirit" and "vividness of character in familiar classics."
From the 1950s until his death, he recorded for
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...
. He led the inauguration of the rebuilt
Deutsche Oper Berlin with a performance of ''
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; full title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legen ...
'' on 24 September 1961.
Notes
References
External links
Ferenc Fricsaywebsite
*
Short biography and his years in Switzerland (German)International Ferenc Fricsay Conducting Competition (IFFCC) (Hungary)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fricsay, Ferenc
1914 births
1963 deaths
Hungarian male conductors (music)
Hungarian expatriates in Germany
Hungarian expatriates in the United States
Hungarian Jews
Deutsche Grammophon artists
Music directors (opera)
Musicians from Budapest
Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Jewish classical musicians
Hungarian emigrants to Austria
Pupils of Béla Bartók
Pupils of Ernő Dohnányi
20th-century Hungarian conductors (music)
Deaths from stomach cancer in Switzerland
Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor people
Civilians who were court-martialed
20th-century Hungarian male musicians
Music directors of the Bavarian State Opera
Music directors of the Houston Symphony
Chief conductors of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin