Wilhelm Pitz

Wilhelm Pitz was born in Breinig in western Germany on 25 August 1897. He was a violinist in the Städtisches Orchester at Aachen from 1913, and in 1933 became chorus master of the Aachen State Opera – with Herbert von Karajan as musical director. He was also director of the municipal choir. In 1947 he was appointed first conductor at the opera, a post he held until 1960. On Karajan’s recommendation, he was appointed chorus master of the Bayreuth Festival for its postwar reopening in 1951. He undertook the selection and training of the choir, a task he continued to undertake at all the annual festivals until his retirement twenty years later. In addition to his work at Bayreuth, Pitz was chorus master of the Vienna State Opera, and in 1957 at the request of the proprietor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, Walter Legge, he selected and trained the Philharmonia Chorus, which made its début under Otto Klemperer in Beethoven's Choral Symphony. At first Pitz reinforced the amateur choir with a few professional singers, particularly for recordings, but the reinforcements were soon found unnecessary. Pitz would fly in from his home in Aachen for Wednesday and Thursday evening rehearsals and fly back on the Friday. At rehearsals and recording sessions, seated behind a star conductor, he would often surreptitiously give signals to the chorus. When the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus reformed themselves as self-governing bodies in 1964 Pitz remained the chorus master, and continued in that capacity until his retirement in 1971. In 1967 he marked his seventieth birthday by conducting the New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis at the Royal Festival Hall. He also conducted the chorus and orchestra in performances of Handel's Messiah. With the Bayreuth Festival chorus and orchestra he recorded a set of choruses from Der fliegende Holländer, Götterdämmerung, Lohengrin, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Parsifal and Tannhäuser, released on LP in 1960 and subsequently reissued on CD, but as Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians puts it, "his special fame arose from the quality of his choral preparation for the concerts and recordings of Klemperer, Giulini, and others, and for Bayreuth". His Bayreuth, Vienna and Philharmonia choruses feature on many recordings, singing under conductors including Sir John Barbirolli, Daniel Barenboim, Karl Böhm, Pierre Boulez, André Cluytens, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Carlo Maria Giulini, Herbert von Karajan, Rudolf Kempe, Hans Knappertsbusch, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and Sir Georg Solti. Pitz died in Aachen on 21 November 1973, aged 76.