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Born on March 12, 1888, in Elberfeld, Hans Knappertsbusch had studied philosophy at the University of Bonn. From 1909 through 1912 the young Knappertsbusch studied with Fritz Steinbach and Otto Lohse at the Cologne Conservatory. His graduation thesis was on the character of Kundry in Parsifal. He was an assistant at the Bayreuth Festivals and came into contact with Hans Richter who had been in charge of the festivals since 1876 and was chosen by the Wagner to take over after his death. This early association with the music of Wagner left a profound impression on the aspiring conductor. This early association with Bayreuth was directly responsible for the 50 year relationship Knaperstbusch had with the Festival. Knappertsbusch's conducting career began with his appointment to the post at Muhlheim on Ruhr in 1910. He became the director of the Oberfeld Opera in 1913. In 1914 he directed a Wagner festival in Holland. He was engaged to conduct at the Leipzig State Theatre in 1918 and in 1919 he went to Dessau. Before long he had established himself as one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was called to lead the Munich Opera in 1922 as successor to Bruno Walter where he remained until 1936. His debut was with a performance of Tristan. Knappertsbusch went on to become a life-long fixture in Munich's musical life and was the chief conductor of the Bavarian State Opera. In 1936 he was dismissed from his Munich post by the Nazi author ties and Vienna became the centre of his activities through the war years, though he continued to share conducting at the Salzburg Festival with Bohm until 1942, when Clemens Krauss took over. From 1938 on he appreared at the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festivals. On 29 August 1929. that he was first engaged to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in a concert at the Salzburg Festival, this marked the beginning of an association that was to last thirty-five years. and was one of the happiest in that illustrious orchestra's history.'Kna', as he was affectionately known by players and audiences shared duties in Salzburg and Vienna with the likes of Furtwlngler, Toscanini and Walter. He had a long relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic where he was regarded as the foremost conductor of Wagner, as well as Bruckner, Beethoven and Strauss during the last decades of his life. After WW II Knappertsbusch returned to Bayreuth where he was director of the Festival from 1951 till 1956. He was at the helm of the Bavarian Opera from 1954 till his death in Munich on October 26, 1965. When the strict terms of Wagner's will made it possible to produce Parsifal on stages outside of Bayreuth, Hans Knappertsbusch received the honor of being the first German conductor to perform it on a stage outside of Germany. His repertoire was a wide one running the gamut from the lesser known operatic works the symphonies and even ligher works (Nutcracker suite was one of his favorites). He was a guiding force in rebuilding Bayreuth after WW II with the composers grandson Wieland Wagner. He was known for the slow broad sound he obtain from many orchestras thru his almost mystical conducting style. Erich Deiber once gave this exaggerated description of the Maestro's method of conducting: "Knappertsbusch is the only conductor who can transform a pianissimo into a fortissimo by moving his cuff links." Kna once said: "I am neither gymnast or breastsrroke swimmer, oarsman nor carpet beater. I endeavour ro be a conductor."' As well as a profound knowiedge and love of music, thec qualities that endeared Knappertsbusch was his dry wit, respect for his players, and a reluctance to rehearse. His aversion to rehearsing was born not our of laziness or a casual approach to the music but out of view that the players he worked with knew the tradition in which he himself was nurtured, and also a belief that inspiration of the moment was half the joy of making music. During a performance he never lost site of the the musical architecture. Knappertsbusch was a firm believer in musical tradition , ho only worked with orchesrras he knew well and almost always avoided the grind of conducting on the internarional circuit. He has been called a master of improvisation who could produce unexpected and overwhelming moments during his readings. His spontaneity at live concerts made him a difficult artist to capture in the recording studio. In "Ring Resounding", DECCA producer John Culshaw wrote,'The truth was that Knappertsbusch took very badly to recording conditions, and, no matter what we did, the genius which he so certainly revealed in the theatre refused to come alive in studio conditions. He never complained. He told the funniest obscene stories I have ever heard. Everybody loved him. But the essence of Knappertsbusch simply refused to show itself. He needed the smell of greasepaint, and the waft of air from backstage... We tried to drag him, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth century of the gramophonerecord, the theater of the listener-at-home who hears without any visual aid and without the community of the theatre. It was an alien world for him. He was a nineteenth-century professional, and to the end of his life the gramophone was a new-fangled toy." During his distinguished career he has been made a Chevalier of the French legion of Honor and and Honary Citizen of Bayreuth and Munich. His famed LP recordings of the 1950's and early 1960's on London (Decca), Westminster and Philips are highly treasured.
The name of Hans Knappertsbusch awakens a connotation with "Bayreuth" as no other does. During a long musical life, Knappertsbusch has explored the works of the great classical composers more profoundly than most but as he says himself, it is to Wagner's music-dramas that he devotes "his most and his deepest." This is scarcely surprising. Knappertsbusch's association with Bayreuth began in the period 1909-1912 when as a student of musicology ·his thesis was written on the character of Kundry in Parsifal. He became assistant to that most illustrious of Wagner conductors, Hans Richter. Richter, under Wagner's personal supervision, had conducted the very first Bayreuth Festival (1876) and by the time Knappertsbusch appeared was uniquely qualified to transmit to some younger man an authentic view of the Master. It was Knappertsbusch who earned the right to become custodian of this developing tradition. As much was recognised when, in 1914, Knappertsbusch was entrusted with the supervision of the Wagner Festival in Holland. From here, after appointments at Leipzig and Dessau, Knappertsbusch succeeded Bruno Walter as conductor of the Munich Opera, where he launched a life-time's work with that company by a performance of Tristan und Isolde on October 5, 1922. Yet his spiritual home was Bayreuth. Here, as elsewhere, he proved Wagner's warmest advocate and most perceptive interpreter. His conducting at Bayreuth constitutes the kind of respect for tradition which only those who have shared in its creation fully comprehend. Wieland Wagner, struggled to find words of praise sufficiently strong to express his appreciation of one Knappertsbusch performance, was helped by a significant but wholly typical suggestion. "I think," said Knappertsbusch, "that Richter would have been quite pleased, don't you?"
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