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Karl Muck (October 22, 1859 – March 3, 1940) was a German-born conductor of classical music. He based his activities principally in Europe and mostly in opera. His American career comprised two stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He endured a public outcry in 1917 that questioned whether his loyalties lay with Germany or the United States during World War I. Though he was a Swiss citizen, he was arrested and interned in a camp in Georgia from March 1918 until August 1919. His later career included notable engagements in Hamburg and at the Bayreuth Festival. ==Early life and career== Born in Darmstadt, Germany, Muck's father, a senior court official〔Protokollisten und späteren Sekretärs am Bezirksgericht in Würzburg (MGG)〕 and amateur musician, moved the family to Switzerland in 1867 and acquired Swiss citizenship. Karl Muck acquired Swiss citizenship when he was 21.〔''New York Times'': ("Arrest Karl Muck as an Enemy Alien," March 26, 1918 ), accessed January 13, 2010〕 Muck studied piano as a child and made his first public appearance at the age of 11 when he gave a piano solo at a chamber music recital. He also played the violin in a local symphony orchestra as a boy.〔''Current Biography'' (New York) 1940, 605-6〕 He graduated from the gymnasium at Würzburg〔''New York Times'': ("Karl Muck Dies; Noted Wagnerian," March 5, 1940 ), accessed January 13, 2010〕 and entered the University of Heidelberg at 16. In May 1878 he entered the University of Leipzig, where he took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy in 1880. While there studied music at Leipzig Conservatory. He made his formal debut as a concert pianist on February 19, 1880 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in Xaver Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor with Arthur Nikisch conducting. He began his conducting career in comparatively minor provincial cities,〔For details see Peter Muck's 2003 documentary biography and ''Current Biography'' (New York, 1940), 604-6〕 starting in 1880 as Second Conductor (''Zweiter Kapellmeister'') in Zurich (Aktientheater), moving to Salzburg (k.k. Theater) in October 1881 as Principal Conductor (''Erster Kapellmeister''), where he served until April 1882. He then held appointments in Brünn (Stadttheater: October 1882 to June 1883) and Graz (1884–1886), where he married 21-year-old Anita Portugall on February 3, 1887. His first position in a major musical center came in Prague as Principal Conductor at Angelo Neumann's Deutsches Landestheater, starting with a performance of ''Die Meistersinger'' on August 15, 1886, and ending in June 1892. He also conducted Neumann's traveling opera company, appearing at Berlin and in 1888–1889 conducting Wagner's ''Ring'' cycle in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He left Prague to become principal conductor in October 1892 of the Berlin Court Opera (Kgl. Oper — today the Berlin State Opera, where he was appointed Chief Musical Director (''Kgl. preussischer Generalmusikdirector'') on August 26, 1908. He remained in Berlin until 1912, conducting 1,071 performances of 103 operas. He also conducted the Royal Orchestra in concerts there.〔Harold C. Schonberg, ''The Great Conductors'' (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1967), ISBN 0-671-20735-0, 222〕 He took other assignments during his tenure in Berlin. He was guest conductor at the Silesian music festivals in Goerlitz between 1894 and 1911. In May and June 1899 at London's Royal Opera House Covent Garden, he conducted Beethoven's ''Fidelio'' and several of Wagner's operas (''Tannhäuser'', ''Die Walküre'', ''Die Meistersinger'', ''Der fliegende Höllander'' and ''Tristan und Isolde'').〔〔Advertisements & reviews in ''The Times'', London〕 He devoted many summers to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth where he became principal conductor in 1903, after serving as a musical assistant since 1892. He succeeded Hermann Levi as the conductor of ''Parsifal'' there.〔Frederic Spotts, ''Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 20, 115-6〕 As war approached in the summer of 1914, Muck insisted on performing ''Parsifal'' on August 1, 1914 to close the Festival, which was not revived until 1924.〔Spotts, 135〕 Muck conducted ''Parsifal'' at all of the fourteen Bayreuth festivals held between 1901 and 1930, and also conducted ''Lohengrin'' there in 1909 and ''Die Meistersinger'' in 1925, becoming a close friend of the Wagner family. The American music critic Herbert Peyser (1886-1953) thought Muck's interpretation of ''Parsifal'' the greatest he had ever heard: "the only and ultimate ''Parsifal''; the ''Parsifal'' in which every phrase was charged with infinities; the ''Parsifal'' which was neither of this age nor that age but of all time."〔Schonberg, 221〕 He led the Vienna Philharmonic from 1903 to 1906〔 and the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1906 to 1918, and took visiting assignments in other cities, including Paris, Madrid, Copenhagen, Brussels.〔Schonberg, 216-7〕 Muck was offered the Metropolitan Opera House podium in New York at a reputed $27,000 a year, but declined. From 1903 to 1906 he alternated with Felix Mottl as conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. At the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition held in San Francisco May 14–26, 1915, Muck conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 13 concerts of music of all nations.〔Muck 2003, pp. 104-5 lists programmes of these concerts.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Karl Muck」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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