Bruno Walter (Schlesinger)

[1876-1962]

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"Bruno Walter Schlesinger was born in Berlin on 15 September 1876.  At eight years old he was admitted to a conservatory, where a teacher proclaimed that 'every inch of this boy is music'.  While he showed an early facility at the piano, when he heard Hans von Bülow conduct he decided that this was to be his musical future.

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At 19 he was offered a position in Breslau as a musical theatre director, where it was suggested by Theodor Loewe, the theatre's current director, that he change his name, Schlesinger, because it was too common in Breslau — hence he became Bruno Walter. Several years later he moved to Vienna, where he worked with Gustav Mahler, and his next move was to Munich. By the early 1920s Munich was coming increasingly under the influence of the Nazi party.  As the director of the Bavarian state opera, and thus a central figure in the city’s musical world, Walter was increasingly singled out in vicious and libellous attacks, and in 1922 he was finally replaced."

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-Excerpt from "Bruno Walter", ORT Music and the Holocaust website

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For more information, please visit: 

https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/walter-bruno/