Karl Böhm - Biography
Karl Bohm the great Austrian conductor was born on August 28th 1894 in Graz Austria and died on August 14th 1981. His father Leopold Bohm was a prominent attorney and in deference to him Karl Bohm earned a doctor of law degree. Bohm was privately musically educated and by 21 was a vocal coach and in 1917 made his debut as an opera conductor at the Graz Opera. During a trip to Graz the famed conductor Karl Muck spotted Bohm and was asked to assist him in Muck’s Wagner productions (Muck was one of the great Wagner conductors and even bore a resemblance to the .composer).In 1921 Bohm become an assistant to the famed Bruno Walter at Munich Opera and would remain there for six years. Walter was in his mid forties at the time at but already an international star and when Walter toured Bohm was given the opportunity to conduct many productions. He then became the chief conductor of the Darmstadt Opera in 1927 where among his triumphs was producing Alban Berg’s new and controversial opera Wozzeck (Bohm and Berg became friends and was to become a famed Berg interpreter). Bohm in 1931 became conductor of the Hamburg Opera a prestigious post held for many years by his mentor Muck.
With the arrival of Hitler and the Nazi’s in 1933 we come to a point of controversy that has marred Bohm’s posthumous reputation. Bohm was not a member of the Nazi Party and except for the 25 year old Herbert von Karajan very few prominent musicians were Nazi’s in 1933. Evidently Bohm refused to become a Nazi in Hamburg. Unfortunately Bohm willingly replaced the anti-Nazi and non Jewish Fritz Busch at the Dresden Opera in 1934. Bohm was criticized after the war for this and his supposed enthusiasm to the German annexation of Austria. Part of this may be due to gossip or professional jealousy or getting back at Bohm for his difficult and caustic personality that created resentments. Bohm like many musicians who remained in Nazi Germany hat to go through a De-Nazification process and though acquitted was not allowed to conduct for a year and a half in Germany and Austria. While at Dresden he became close to Richard Strauss whose opera Die Schweigsame Frau (The Silent Women) he premiered in Dresden in 1936 to a huge scandal because Strauss’s librettist Stefen Zweig was Jewish and Strauss had to personally appeal to Hitler to allow it to be performed.. Two years later Strauss dedicated his next opera Daphne to Bohm. Bohm made his first recordings in Dresden with the Saxon State Orchestra that include first recordings of Bruckner’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies along with recordings of Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven and the final scene from Daphne. His most famous pre recording was the complete third act of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger with the Dresden Opera. In 1943 he became the director of the Vienna Opera a position he held to the end of the war. The highlight of the Vienna war years was a festival he put on to celebrate Richard Strauss’s 80th birthday in 1944. We have a souvenir of a wonderful performance of Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos that Bohm conducted and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon during the festival.
After the war and his rehabilitation Bohm often conducted in Vienna and Berlin and Buenos Aires. Bohm was unexpectedly chosen in 1954 to become the conductor of the reopened Vienna Opera in 1955 that sustained heavy damage during the war. He won the position over his rival the dashing Viennese conductor Clemens Krauss who died in 1954 (some sentimentalists say of heartbreak).The reopening, a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio received international attention. The sensation of the opening season was a production of Strauss’s very complex Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Women Without a Shadow) that was recorded by Decca/London. Bohm by the next year was forced to resign the Vienna post over frequent absences during his worldwide touring. Bohm also made his American debut in 1956 with the Chicago Symphony. Bruno Walter who remained a friend vouched to Rudolf Bing Met Opera General Manager that Bohm didn’t have Nazi sympathies (according to Bing) and started a conducting career at the Met. Bohm began in 1956 to make his famous series of recordings for Detusche Grammophon starting with the Strauss tone poems Alpine Symphony, Ein Heldenleben and Also Sprach Zarathustra soon to be followed by the Strauss opera’s Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra made in Dresden. Bohm after the retirement and death of conductor Hans Knappertsbusch became the favored conductor of Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival. His fiery Tristan und Isolde of 1966 and the Ring the following year with their fast and urgent tempos were highly praised and they were wore fortunately recorded. Bohm conducted a performance of Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the new Met’s opening season in 1967 was a sensation and established his and mezzo’s Christa Ludwig’s popularity in America. Bohm’s Deutsche Grammophon went from success to success and include all the mature Mozart Operas along with all his Symphonies; also Beethoven’s, Schubert and Brahms Symphonies, more Richard Strauss and great recordings of Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons and Berg’s Wozzeck and Lulu with soprano Evelyn Lear. In his eighties he collaborated with the young pianist Maurizio Pollini on superb Mozart and Beethoven Concerto recordings. Bohm now old and physically enfeebled carried on to the end which occurred in Salzburg on August 14th 1981
Bohm was a severe looking medium sized man who glared at orchestras and singers through thick spectacles. As he grew old and beloved his grouchiness was now looked at by formerly intimidated artists as a form of eccentric charm. None could ever dispute his absolute mastery of the scores he conducted. He was also the father of German Cinema heartthrob from the fifties and sixties Karlheinz Bohm. Bohm was a superb conductor of all that he performed but his name will be always especially associated with the works of Mozart and Richard Strauss.
