In
1950 Donald Gabor engaged Felix Guenther and sent him to Austria to
conduct the Austrian Symphony Orchestra in recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and Joseph Strauss for Remington Records.
Felix
Günther (Guenther)
was a pianist, arranger and conductor. He worked in the German film
industry in the 1920s and 1930s. He conducted the film orchestra for
several productions of the UFA (Universum-Film AG) in Berlin. He arranged
and supervised the musical scores of specific music for films and songs.
An example is Here Lies an Actor, on a text by songwriter Paul
Dresser.
Günther
was also active as a free lancer in broadcasting, the modern medium
of those days. These activities more or less stopped from 1933 on, the
year the Nazis came to power. Before that he had conducted the Berlin
Symphony Orchestra (Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester) when making recordings
for the Polydor label (Deutsche Grammophon) and other labels like Parlophon
and Homocord, already in the 1920s, well before the electrical recording
process was introduced.
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Violinist
Grete Eweler performed gems of Antonin Dvorak (Humoreske) and
Peter Tchaikovsky (Chanson triste) and was accompanied by Felix
Günther at the grand piano.
Image courtesy Björn Cloppenburg,
Hamburg.
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As
a pianist and as a conductor he accompanied various singers like Gitta
Alpar (soprano), Ria Ginster (soprano), Lotte Schöne
(soprano),
Friedrich Brodersen (baritone), Martin Abendroth (bass),
Heinrich Schlusnus (baritone). He made a recording with violinist
Grete Eweler for the Homocord label. He also was the pianist
in the recording of Schubert's Forellen Quintet (Trout) with the Nikolas
Lambinon Artist Quartet originally known as Nicolas Lambinon Künstler-Quartett.
In that recording he played a grand piano of the German piano maker
Schwechten.
Felix
Günther is best known as the conductor who accompanied the popular,
Jewish singer Joseph Schmidt. The name of Felix Günther
is hardly ever mentioned on the covers and labels of the recordings
of Joseph Schmidt. Schmidt performed in Carnegie Hall in 1937,
but returned to Germany to join his relatives. Via Holland, where he
was very popular and where he gave a last recital in the Concertgebouw
in Amsterdam, he fled to Switzerland where he was interned in a refugee
camp. But fate was far from kind. Joseph Schmidt became ill and died
there in 1942.
Felix
Günther however - already in his fifties - did not hesitate to
flee from Germany. He too went to the US in 1937 but did not return
to Europe. He found refuge - as conductor Hans Wolf, producer Marcel
Prawy, and also Don Gabor and Laszlo Halasz did before World War II
broke out. Günther obtained US citizenship. His son enlisted in
the US Army in 1942.
Right
from the day he arrived in the US, he was active in the New York music
scene. He wrote arrangements and compiled these for various publications.
He
was co-editor of "Everybody's Favorite First Position Violin Pieces",
which he prepared together with violin pedagogue 
Theodore Pashkus. The book was published by Amsco Music Publishing
Co. Inc, 1600 Broadway, New York, 1939. He compiled and edited "Anthems
of the United Nations: the inspiring national songs the Allies are singing
on the battlefields and at home", obviously inspired by the commitment
of America and the many nationalities of the troops who went to England
first in order to liberate Europe. It was published in New York by Edward
B. Marks Music Corp., 1942. Felix Gühnter was editor of the Standard
Editions department of that company. From the same company is "Liebestraum
by Liszt", piano solo edited by Felix Guenther, 1941. From his
hand is "Piano Concerto Highlights for Solo Piano" (Dover
Publications, New York); "A Treasury of the Piano Sonata from Scarlatti
to Shostakovitch"; a transcription for piano of "The Moldau"
(Smetena) - Francis Day & Hunter, 1950. Another title is "Heart
of the Waltz" edited by Felix Guenther, Heritage Music Publications,
1943. Felix Gühnter made the arrangement for orchestra of Stravinsky's
famous "Tango" which was originally written for piano.
Guenther made many
arrangements.
 Felix
Guenther was very active in the New York music scene. He gave various
lectures at gatherings organized by the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
Sciences as
The Brooklyn
Daily Eagle reported. Several years after the war had ended
he then returned to Europe on the request of Donald Gabor.
A
total of 10 symphonic standards were announced by Don Gabor in Billboard
Magazine, but only two were recorded. Felix Gunther who was born
in 1886 in Trautenau, Austria, studied in Vienna and Berlin and was
later a professor at the Humboldt Hochschule in Berlin, died May 5th,
1951 at the age of 65 in New York.
RLP-199-54
- Mozart: Two
movements of incidental music to Thamos, Koenig in Aegypten, conducted
by Felix Guenther, coupled with Sinfonia Concertante for oboe, clarinet,
horn, bassoon and Orchestra, condcuted by Kurt Wöss. These were
also released on R-149-25 coupled with Finlandia (Sibelius) conducted
by Kurt Wöss. In France issued on Concerteum TCR 273 coupled with
Mozart's Serenade 13 conducted by Fritz Weidlich.
R-199-97
- Joseph Strauss: Dynamiden, Felix Günther conducting,
coupled with Four Waltzes of Johann Strauss conducted by Kurt Wöss.
A release of November 1952. Probably the same collection was issued
one month later on Plymouth P-10-12.
Felix
Guenther also recorded Symphonies 1 and 3 of Carl Philip Emanuel
Bach and Sinfonia Concertante of Johann Christian Bach, both
for the Bach Guild label, reference 504, issued in Great Britain
on the Nixa label.
In
the Fall of 1953 Columbia RL 3073 was released. The LP contains
a selection of Strauss Waltzes performed by the Vienna Broadcasting
Orchestra conducted by Felix Günther and by the Vienna Symphony
Orchestra by Max Schönherr. The disc was later reissued
on Columbia's Harmony label, reference HL 7061. This means that he had
a few more recording dates.
Royale
LP 1247 (The Heart of the Symphony), LP 1252 (Brahms Violin Concerto),
LP 1357 (An hour with Tchaikovsky) and other records released by Eli
Oberstein, and also Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 on the King label, do
mention Felix Guenther conducting "The Berlin Symphony" or
"The Rome Symphony Orchestra".
However Felix Guenther was the moniker used by Oberstein for any conductor
of an orchestra on his Allegro-Royale label he needed a name for, as
Ernst A. Lumpe found out. And on those recordings Felix Günther's
name is a pseudonym for various conductors like Wilhelm Furtwangler,
Kirill Kondrashin, Joseph Keilberth, and Rudolf Albert. See the pseudonyms
on the
Allegro Royale label.
Text
and research, Rudolf A. Bruil. Page published July 10, 2011.
This article
- as all of my articles - is
copyrighted.
Please do not reproduce this article in whole or part, in any form,
without obtaining my written permission.
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