Wilhelm Gericke, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWilhelm Gericke
Austrian classical music conductor
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Schwanberg, Styria, Austria
About Wilhelm Gericke
- Wilhelm Gericke was an Austrian-born conductor and composer who worked in Vienna and Boston. He was born in Schwanberg, Austria.
- Initially he trained in Graz to be a schoolmaster.
- This didn't work out, though he did get a position playing violin in a theatre orchestra.
- In 1862 he entered the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied under Dessoff.
- Leaving the conservatory in 1865, he became kapellmeister of the theatre at Linz, directing opera there and in Vienna.
- In 1874, he became second kapellmeister and chorus master at the Vienna Court Opera, where his lifelong friend Hans Richter was first kapellmeister.
- There he gave the Viennese premiere of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser.
- He also made a name for himself producing French and Italian operas.
- On the retirement of Brahms from the conductorship of the Vienna Society (German: Wiener Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde) concerts (German: Gesellschaftskonzerte) in 1880, Gericke succeeded him, and also became the conductor of its choral society (German: Singverein). His fame as a conductor, and particularly as a drillmaster, induced Henry Lee Higginson of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) to secure him as its leader after attending one of Gericke's concerts in Vienna.
- He spent two periods in the United States conducting the BSO, 1884–1889 and 1898–1906.
- During his first stay, he eliminated the lighter music that his predecessor had allowed in the programs, scheduled extra rehearsal time, and hired more foreign musicians.
- The orchestra improved noticeably in the quality of its playing.In 1884, he was made an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien.
- In 1889, for health reasons, he returned to Vienna, and to the leadership of the Gesellschaftsconcerte, but resigned again in 1895.
- He and the BSO parted company amicably in 1906 due to the BSO's failure to meet his expectations for a new contract.
- He died in Vienna.
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