Books › Musical Courier 1926-05-20: Vol 92 Iss 20, 1926 › scan 20
Scan 20
Musical Courier 1926-05-20: Vol 92 Iss 20, 1926
62 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 21. See the scan on archive.org.
1May 20, 1926
3Introducing Robert Heger
4VIENNA.—Some of the young conductors of present-day Germany and Austria may have had a quicker and more meteoric rise than Robert Heger, at present first conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper. It is not, as a matter of fact, so difficult to have a quick career in post-war-Europe as it was in the days of the great desk giants, of Richter, Mottl, Mahler, Nikisch, and Weingartner, who is today the sole surviving member of that great family. Today the German opera houses and concert halls are populated with young people of whom each is readily proclaimed a genius within his own locality, often merely on the strength of daring programs and frequent ventures into musical radicalism.
6Robert Heger, who has recently come into great prominence in Europe, is not a man of this type. He is a product of the pre-war period, and has laid his solid foundation for his present career at a time when reputations were made less quickly and less easily. It must be with some satisfaction that Mr. Heger reflects on the fact that his career (for the present at least) has been consolidated in the city which saw his beginning as a conductor: Vienna. It was here that a certain unknown Robert Heger began his career at the Volksoper (just at the moment, incidentally, when Maria Jeritza plucked her first metropolitan laurels after many provincial disappointments at the same house). That was in 1911. Today, sixteen years later, Heger is firmly installed at the Staatsoper as its most prominent conductor besides director Franz Schalk himself.
8Not that Vienna has welcomed Mr. Heger with open arms. He came from the Munich Opera where Bruno Walter had quickly recognized his great gifts and entrusted Heger with the most difficult tasks. But Mr. Heger struck Vienna at a critical moment: the city was even then in the throes of a real uproar over the retirement of Strauss from the Staatsoper. The new man, it was announced, came to fill the conductor's post left vacant by the withdrawal of the world-famous composer and Viennese demi-god. The pro-Straussian critics (and they are in the majority here) were only too willing to make the new conductor the scapegoat of their grievances against director Schalk, who had expelled Strauss and called Heger in to replace him. The young conductor had a hard stand here for several months, even though the most adverse critics had to admit his excellent directing of Rienzi and the Nibelungen Ring—his first deeds here. Heger carried his task with dignity and nobility. He waited patiently, he toiled hard and honestly, firmly convinced that the day was not far when every man and woman in Vienna would realize his worth. And his day came. Today, sixteen months later, Heger is acknowledged at Vienna as a conductor of the first rank and unanimously admired by the entire Viennese press and public.
10Nor is Vienna alone in her appreciation of Mr. Heger's excellent qualities. London enthusiastically endorsed him at last year's German season, and he was immediately re-engaged for the 1926 season. And only lately contracts have been signed whereby Mr. Heger will make his first appearance as a symphonic conductor at London in February, 1927, at the head of the London Symphony Orchestra.
12Mr. Heger is also one of the few orchestral leaders who hold their own equally in opera and concert. He has appeared as symphonic conductor at Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Karlsruhe, in fact throughout Germany, and always with unfailingly great success. Only recently he has had his signal concert success at Vienna with Gustav Mahler's Ninth symphony. To Mr. Heger fell the distinction last year of giving the Berlin premiere of Hans Hermann Wetzler's Assisi. His programs are always interesting; they comprise all the classics, the most important modernists, and Mr. Heger's own works.
14As a composer, Heger attracted attention early. His trio was chosen for the Tonkünstler Fest of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Tonkünstler Verein, and had a fine reception which was only recently duplicated at Vienna. Heger's symphonic poem, Hero and Leander, had a successful premiere at Strassbourg and his Symphony No. 1 has been heard in no less than twelve German cities, following its successful productions at Munich and Berlin. Heger's maiden opera, Das Fest zu Hadersley, saw many performances at the Nuremberg Opera, and his first violin concerto, as yet unfinished, has already been acquired for performance by several leading violinists of Germany.
16Mr. Heger's chef d'oeuvre as a composer, however, is his big work for chorus, soloists and orchestra, entitled A Song of Peace. No less a personage than Siegfried Ochs produced it at Berlin; other German cities have received it with enthusiasm, and Vienna, Nuremberg, Brünn and other places will follow suit next season. But most important of all: I am in a position to reveal the secret that a performance of A Song of Peace at the 1927 Ann Arbor Festival is well nigh assured; and in all probability Mr. Heger will be present to conduct this important event. M. L.
18Ljungkvist to Sing for Royalty
19The Swedish Crown Prince has consented to honor the graduation exercises of Upsala College, East Orange, N. J., with his presence, on which occasion a musical program will be given, featuring Samuel Ljungkvist, well known Swedish tenor.
21During a concert tour in Sweden in 1921, Mr. Ljungkvist was the guest of the Crown Prince at his castle, Sohro, when he also had the privilege to appear in a vocal program for other members of the Royal House of Sweden.
23ROBERT HEGER,
24principal conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper, and this year in his second season as conductor of German opera at Covent Garden. It is possible that Mr. Heger will visit America next spring to conduct his big chorus work, A Song of Peace, at the Ann Arbor Festival.
26GALLI-CURCI
27SCHIPA
28RETHBERG
29TIBBETT
30Management
31Evans & Salter
32527 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK
34MUSICAL COURIER
36More Than 1,000 Concerts in 6 Years!
37SALVI
38World's Greatest Concert Harpist
40His record proves him the greatest living virtuoso of this beautiful instrument.
42100 concert managers have testified in writing that he created a sensation.
44Toronto—10th appearance May 8, 1926—"Salvi stands alone."
46"He is the only harpist who ever built up an audience of his own here. He is, perhaps, the last who will do it for many years to come"—Toronto Daily Star, May 10, 1926.
48"DELIGHTFUL RECITAL BY PEERLESS HARPIST—
49"To Alberto Salvi can be given the credit of having proved that the harp may be a most delightful solo instrument. When first he began coming to Toronto, skeptical people would hardly credit the reports of their friends who had heard Salvi that he had found hitherto unsuspected variety and tonal loveliness in the harp. They regarded it as an instrument that could add a peculiarly romantic quality to an orchestral number, but felt it to be very limited when played alone. They have learned that Salvi is unique among musicians because he can give an entire recital on the harp without becoming monotonous or ceasing to please.
51"Nobody present had too much of Salvi, who stands alone as the peerless master of his own instrument. When you can spend two hours in the presence of the apotheosis of harpists, even a finished artist using some other medium would seem out of place."—The Mail and Empire, Toronto, May 10, 1926.
53"Mr. Salvi is an artist whose work is always commendable and whose playing bears the real marks of genius. He is to the harp what Kreisler is to the violin."—The Hartford Daily Times, April 12, 1926.
55"Salvi is a player of faultless technique, and he brought from his instrument tone effects of such variety and beauty that the audience demanded encore after encore."—The Providence Journal, April 19, 1926.
57NOW BOOKING SEASON 1926-1927
58Management: METROPOLITAN MUSICAL BUREAU
5933 West 42nd Street, New York City
60VICTOR RECORDS
61WURLITZER HARP
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.