Bruno Walter Quotes

Bruno Walter was born near Alexanderplatz in Berlin. He was a German-born conductor, pianist, and composer. He left Germany in 1933 to escape the Third Reich, settling finally in the United States in 1939. He began his musical education at the Stern Conservatory at the age of eight, making his first public appearance as a pianist when he was nine; he performed a concerto movement with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1889 and a full concerto with them in February, 1890. He studied composition at Stern with Robert Radeke, and remained active as a composer until about 1910. He made his conducting début at the Cologne Opera with Albert Lortzing's Der Waffenschmied in 1894. In 1897, Walter  Chief Conductor at the municipal opera in Pressburg. He found the town provincial and depressing, and in 1898 took the position of Chief Conductor of the Riga Opera, Latvia.