Mottl, Felix (Josef)
- Malcolm Miller
Extract
(Josef)
(b Unter-St Veit, nr Vienna, Aug 24, 1856; d Munich, July 2, 1911). Austrian conductor, arranger and composer. He entered the Löwenburg Seminary in Vienna as a boy soprano in 1866, and from 1870 studied theory with Bruckner and conducting with the elder Joseph Hellmesberger at the Vienna Conservatory, composing symphonies, overtures and several operas. Fuelled by Bruckner's enthusiasm for Wagner, he attended many Wagner performances and became choral director of the Akademischer Wagnerverein. In 1876 Mottl was invited by Hans Richter to join the élite ‘Nibelungen-kanzlei’ who, along with Seidl, Zumpe, Lallas and Fischer, assisted in the first season at Bayreuth. His experiences of Wagner's conducting and interpretations led him to become one of Bayreuth's most dedicated interpreters in the immediate post-Wagner period. He conducted the Bayreuth premières of Tristan und Isolde (1886), Tannhäuser (1891), Lohengrin (1894) and Der fliegende Holländer...
