) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 orchestra conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Wand studied in Wuppertal

Wuppertal

Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...

, Allenstein and Detmold

Detmold

Detmold is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, with a population of about 74,000. It was the capital of the small Principality of Lippe from 1468 until 1918 and then of the Free State of Lippe until 1947...

. At the Cologne conservatory, he was a composition student with Philipp Jarnach

Philipp Jarnach

Philipp Jarnach was considered in the 1920s to be one of the most important composers of modern music....

 and a piano student with Paul Baumgartner

Paul Baumgartner

Paul Baumgartner was a Swiss pianist.Born in Altstätten, Switzerland, he studied piano and composition with Walter Braunfels in the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and with Eduard Erdmann in Köln where he subsequently taught...

. He was a conducting pupil of Franz von Hoesslin in Munich, but was otherwise largely self-taught as a conductor. During his 65 years long career as a conductor, he was honoured with many significant awards, including the German Record Award and the internationally important Diapason d'Or

Diapason d'Or

The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine....

.

Cologne

Wand started his career in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, where he was to stay for several decades, as a conductor of the Cologne Opera in 1939. After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 his position in Cologne was consolidated as he became Generalmusikdirektor in charge of both the opera and the Gürzenich Orchestra, which he conducted until 1974.

In 1948, he also started teaching conducting at a music school in Cologne. From the early 1950s he guest-conducted a number of orchestras, making his London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 debut in 1951 with the London Symphony Orchestra

London Symphony Orchestra

The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

. Other orchestras who invited him included the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne

WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne

The WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne is a German orchestra based in Cologne. The orchestra was founded in 1947 by Allied occupation authorities after World War II, as the orchestra of Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunk . The orchestra later acquired the names of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and...

 and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra

Munich Philharmonic Orchestra

The Münchner Philharmoniker is a German symphony orchestra located in the city of Munich. It is one of Munich's three principal orchestras, along with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian State Orchestra...

.

After several recordings of Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

 and Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 with the Gürzenich for a French subscription collection in the mid 1950s, he made no studio recordings for about three decades with the exception of an appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....

 on Decca Records

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

, accompanying Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus was a German pianist and pedagogue.Born in Leipzig, Backhaus studied at the conservatoire there with Alois Reckendorf until 1899, later taking private piano lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt...

 in Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

's Piano Concerto

Piano Concerto (Schumann)

The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.54, is a famous Romantic concerto by Robert Schumann, completed in 1845.Schumann had begun several piano concerti before this one: In 1828, he had begun one in E-flat major; from 1829-31 he worked on one in F major, and in 1839, he wrote one movement of a concerto...

 (his only recording with that orchestra). In the 1970s he recorded the complete symphonies of Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

 and Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

 with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne

WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne

The WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne is a German orchestra based in Cologne. The orchestra was founded in 1947 by Allied occupation authorities after World War II, as the orchestra of Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunk . The orchestra later acquired the names of the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra and...

.

Hamburg and late years

In 1982, Wand became chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra. With the latter ensemble, he was able to record the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

 as well as works by Mozart, Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

, Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

, Schubert and Schumann. He also remade Bruckner's symphonies 3 to 9.

In January 1982, Wand conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC Symphony Orchestra

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...

 for the first time, and was appointed principal guest conductor of the orchestra that same year. Wand was noted for demanding considerable rehearsal time, a minimum of 5 to 8 rehearsals, for his London concerts. For his first appearance with a US orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

 in 1989, he asked for and received 11 hours of rehearsal time. Wand subsequently recorded the Brahms Symphony No. 1

Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)

The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876...

, part of that first U.S. program, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

.

The highlights of Wand's late career were his annual guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

The Berlin Philharmonic, German: , formerly Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester , is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. In 2006, a group of ten European media outlets voted the Berlin Philharmonic number three on a list of "top ten European Orchestras", after the Vienna Philharmonic and the...

, which he conducted in Schubert's "Unfinished"

Symphony No. 8 (Schubert)

Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor , commonly known as the "Unfinished Symphony" , D.759, was started in 1822 but left with only two movements known to be complete, even though Schubert would live for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages...

 and "Great"

Symphony No. 9 (Schubert)

The Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, known as the Great , is the final symphony completed by Franz Schubert. Nicknamed The Great C major originally to distinguish it from his Symphony No...

 symphonies (1995) and Bruckner's Fifth

Symphony No. 5 (Bruckner)

The Symphony No. 5 in B flat major of Anton Bruckner was written in 1875–1876, with a few minor changes over the next few years. It was first performed in public on two pianos by Joseph Schalk and Franz Zottmann on 20 April 1887 at the Bösendorfersaal in Vienna...

 (1996), Fourth

Symphony No. 4 (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major is one of the composer's most popular works. It was written in 1874 and revised several times through 1888. It was dedicated to Prince Konstantin of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst. It was premiered in 1881 by Hans Richter in Vienna with great success...

 (1998), Ninth

Symphony No. 9 (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 in D minor is the last Symphony upon which he worked, leaving the last movement incomplete at the time of his death in 1896. The symphony was premiered under Ferdinand Löwe in Vienna in 1903, after Bruckner's death...

 (1998), Seventh

Symphony No. 7 (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major is one of his best-known symphonies. It was written between 1881 and 1883 and was revised in 1885. It is dedicated to Ludwig II of Bavaria. The premiere, given under Arthur Nikisch and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in the opera house at Leipzig on 30...

 (1999) and Eighth

Symphony No. 8 (Bruckner)

Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor is the last Symphony the composer completed. It exists in two major versions of 1887 and 1890. It was premiered under conductor Hans Richter in 1892 in Vienna...

 (2001) symphonies.

As a conductor, Wand was a deep believer in the originality of music, aiming to perform works exactly as they were meant to be played. However, he did not take the last step to historically informed performance

Historically informed performance

Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...

. Also in other respects his art was marked by strictness.

Repertoire

In his late years, Wand restricted his repertoire almost exclusively to the symphonies of Anton Bruckner (which he had never conducted until he was over 60), Schubert, Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart. Earlier in his career, however, he was a devoted interpreter of the contemporary music

20th century classical music

20th century classical music was without a dominant style and highly diverse.-Introduction:At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of Post-Romantic Symphonic writing...

 of such composers as Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Bernd Alois Zimmermann

Bernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...

, Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, Frank Martin

Frank Martin (composer)

Frank Martin was a Swiss composer, who lived a large part of his life in the Netherlands.-Childhood and youth:...

, György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

, and Edgard Varèse

Edgard Varèse

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....

.

Wand regarded Bruckner as the "most important symphonist after Beethoven". Wand's biographer Wolfgang Seifert believes that "it is no exaggeration to say that Günter Wand has made an indispensable contribution toward the understanding of Bruckner in our time."

Compositions

Wand also composed music, mostly songs with orchestral accompaniment and music for ballet. One composition was his concertino "Odi et amo", for soprano and chamber orchestra, which Wand wrote for his wife, the soprano Anita Westhoff. Anita Wand (Westhoff) died on December 29, 2009 at Ulmiz (CH) at the age of 89 years.

Awards

During his over 65-year-long career as conductor, Günter Wand received several important prizes, including German Record Award, the German Record Critic's Prize, the Echo Award and twice the internationally significant Diapason d'Or

Diapason d'Or

The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine....

, which he received for his Schubert and Bruckner recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

The Berlin Philharmonic, German: , formerly Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester , is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. In 2006, a group of ten European media outlets voted the Berlin Philharmonic number three on a list of "top ten European Orchestras", after the Vienna Philharmonic and the...

. In 1996 Wand received the rarely-awarded Hans von Bülow Medal

Hans von Bülow Medal

The Hans von Bülow Medal is awarded by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to outstanding musicians close to the orchestra. The medal is named after its first Chief Conductor, Hans von Bülow.* Mariss Jansons, conductor. 2003...

.

Discography

• With NDR-Sinfonieorchester:
  • Bruckner Sinfonie Nr. 4. 2 CD 74321930412
  • Schubert Sinfonie Nr. 5

• With NDR-Sinfonieorchester:
  • Beethoven:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 3 & Leonoren Ouvertüre Nr. 3 CD RD60755 (03/1991)
  • Sinfonien Nr. 5 & 6 CD 09026 61930 2 (10/1993)
  • Sinfonien Nr. 1 & 2 CD 74321 66458 2 (04/2001)
  • Sinfonie Nr.4 Nr.74321897172(01/2002)
  • Sinfonie Nr.1& Nr.6 Nr.74321891082(11/2001)
  • Sinfonie Nr.2 & Nr.7 Nr.74321891072(11/2001)
  • Sinfonie Nr.3 & Nr.8 Nr.74321891062(11/2001)
  • Sinfonie Nr.4 & Nr.5 Nr.74321891052(11/2001)
  • Sinfonie Nr.9 Nr.74321891042 (11/2001)
  • Sinfonien Nr. 1-9 74321891092 (11/2001)

• • Brahms:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 1 CD 09026 68889 2 (02/1998)
  • Sinfonien Nr. 2 & 3 CD 09026 68888 2 (02/1998)
  • Sinfonien Nr. 1-4 3CD 09026 63348 2 (01/1999)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 4 CD 09026 63244 2 (01/1999)
  • Sinfonien Nr.1 & Nr.3 Nr.74321891022 (11/2001)
  • Sinfonien Nr.2 & Nr.4 Nr.74321891012 (11/2001)
  • Sinfonien Nr.1-4 Nr.74321891032 (11/2001)

• • Bruckner:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 5 (Originalfassung) CD RD60361 (06/90)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 4 „Romantische“ CD RD60784 (04/1991)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 7 (Originalfassung) CD 09026 61398 2 (03/1993)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 9 (Originalfassung) CD 09026 62650 2 (06/1994)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 8 2CD 09026 68047 2 (04/1995)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 6 (Originalfassung) CD 09026 68452 2 (06/1996)

• • Debussy:
  • Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien; CD 74321 75583 (05/2000)

• • Mussorgsky:
  • Bilder einer Ausstellung

• • Fortner:
  • Bluthochzeit – Zwischenspiele für Orchester; CD RD60827 (12/1991)

• • Martin:
  • Petite Symphonie concertante;

• • Strawinsky:
  • Concerto in Es (Dumbarton Oaks);

• • Webern:
  • 5 Stücke für Orchester, op.10

• • Mozart:
  • Sinfonien Nr. 39 & 41 „Jupiter“ CD RD60714 (12/1990)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 40;
  • Posthornserenade Nr.74321897172

• • Tschaikowsky:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 5 CD 09026 68032 2 (11/1994)

• • Mozart:
  • Sinfonie Nr.40

• • Schubert:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 8 „Unvollendete“; CD RD60826 (12/91)

• • Schumann:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 4

• • Schubert:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 9 „Große C-Dur“ CD RD60978 (12/1991)

• • Strawinsky:
  • Pulcinella Suite; CD 09026 61190 2 (10/92)

• • Tschaikowsky:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 6 „Pathétique“

• • NDR Live-Recordings 1989-1995:
  • Beethoven, Bruckner, Mozart, Tschaikowsky, Schubert 17 CD Box 74321 34162 2 (09/1996)

• • With Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester:
  • Bruckner:
  • The 9 Symphonies 10CD 09026639302 (08/1989)
  • Symphony No. 1 (Wiener Fassung) CD 09026639312 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 2 CD 09026639322 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 3 CD 09026639332 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 4 „Romantische“ CD 09026639342 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 5 CD 09026639352 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 6 CD 09026639362 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 7 CD 09026639372 (12/1989)
  • Symphony No. 8 & 9 CD 09026639382 (12/1989)

• • Schubert:
  • The Complete Symphonies 5CD 09026639402 (08/1989)
  • Symphony No. 1 & 2 CD 09026639412
  • Symphony No. 3 & 6 CD 09026639422
  • Symphony No 4 & 8 CD 09026639432
  • Symphony No 5 (Selections from Rosamunde) CD 09026639442
  • Symphony No. 9 CD 09026639452

• • With Berliner Philharmoniker:
  • Bruckner:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 5 (Originalfassung)CD 09026 68503 2 (12/1996)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 4 „Romantische“ (Haas-Fassung) CD 09026 68839 2 (08/1998)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 9 (Originalfassung) CD 74321 63244 2 (08/1999)
  • Sinfonie Nr. 7 CD 74321 68716 2 (10/2000)
  • Sinfonie Nr.8 CD Nr.743218 28662 (11/2001)

• • Schubert:
  • Sinfonie Nr. 8 „Unvollendete“ & 9 „Große C-Dur“; 2CD 09026 68314 2 (08/1995)

Literature

• Wolfgang Seifert: Günter Wand: so und nicht anders. Gedanken und Erinnerungen. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-455-11154-8

External links

• Günter Wand's website
• Günter Wand on Naxos
• Complete Stereophonic Discography on Wiener Philharmoniker