The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra is a seasonal German orchestra based at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus for the annual summer festival Bayreuth Festival. It is reconstituted each season in order to perform Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and other of his stage works, as envisaged by the composer and festival founder. The festival occurs annually, although in some years it was cancelled because of war or other reasons.
Although otherwise entirely devoted to the works of Wagner, the inaugural festival in 1876 was opened with a performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, and this practice has often been followed subsequently. It has become something of a tradition since Wilhelm Furtwängler reintroduced it in the 1930s.
The Bayreuth Festival Orchestra does not have a permanent membership but each year the festival organisers recruit leading musicians from other German orchestras, depending on their availability. Some musicians always arrange their schedules so as to be available for the orchestra; others participate less frequently.Discography qobuz.com
Conductors Conductors of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra at the Bayreuth Festival have been: Hans Richter: 1876, 1896–97, 1901–02, 1904, 1906, 1908 Hermann Levi: 1882 (premiere of Parsifal) et al. Felix Mottl: 1896 Siegfried Wagner: 1896–97, 1899, 1901–02, 1906, 1928 : 1904 (Cosima Wagner's son-in-law) Michael Balling: 1909, 1911–12, 1914, 1924–25 Franz von Hoesslin: 1927–28, 1940 Karl Elmendorff: 1930–31, 1933–34, 1942 Heinz Tietjen: 1934, 1936, 1938–39, 1941 Wilhelm Furtwängler: 1936-37 Hans Knappertsbusch: 1951, 1956–58 Herbert von Karajan: 1951 Joseph Keilberth: 1952-56 Clemens Krauss: 1953 Rudolf Kempe: 1960-63 Berislav Klobučar: 1964 Karl Böhm: 1965-67 Otmar Suitner: 1966-67 Lorin Maazel: 1968-69 Horst Stein: 1970-75 Pierre Boulez: 1976-80 (the centenary production Jahrhundertring) Georg Solti: 1983 Peter Schneider: 1984-86 Daniel Barenboim: 1988-92 James Levine: 1994-98 Giuseppe Sinopoli: 2000 Ádám Fischer: 2001-04 Christian Thielemann: 2006-10, 2026 Kirill Petrenko: 2013-15 Marek Janowski: 2016-17 Plácido Domingo: 2018 (3 performances of Die Walküre only) Cornelius Meister: 2022 Pietari Inkinen: 2023 Simone Young: 2024-25
A number of other notable conductors have conducted the orchestra for recordings and broadcasts.
References