Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt

Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt (5 May 1900 – 28 May 1973) was a German conductor and composer.

Born in Berlin, he studied music in Heidelberg and Münster. He was also a composition student with Franz Schreker at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, and received a doctorate in 1923.

He was a repetiteur at the Wuppertal Opera starting in 1923. He held conducting positions at the opera houses of (1928 - 1931) and Darmstadt (1931 - 1933). He had the post of first conductor at the Hamburg State Opera from 1935 to 1943. In 1944, he was named music director at the Berlin State Opera.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, the British military authorities invited Schmidt-Isserstedt (who had avoided joining the Nazi Party) to found an orchestra at the North German Radio in Hamburg. Six months later, he assembled the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra and conducted its first concert in November 1945. He was subsequently the orchestra's first principal conductor. During his years in this role, he became an advocate of music by composers whose music had been outlawed in Germany during the Third Reich: such as Bartók, Stravinsky and Hindemith. His favorite composer, however, was Mozart, and he made several recordings and gave many notable performances of his works. In particular his recordings of Mozart's operas Idomeneo and La finta giardiniera are greatly admired.

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