Leopold Damrosch

19th-Century German-American Conductor and Composer

Leopold Damrosch (born 22 October 1832 in Posen, West-Prussia, Germany [now Poznań, Poland] - died 15 February 1885 in New York City) was a German-American violinist, conductor and composer. He was the father of Walter Damrosch and Frank Damrosch and grandfather of Leopold Mannes, the son of his daughter Clara. Damrosch studied medicine at the University of Berlin, but his passion lay with music. A celebrated violinist, he was introduced to Franz Liszt in Weimar, who arranged for him to become solo-violinist at the Court Orchestra in Weimar. Later, Liszt dedicated his "Le Triomphe funèbre du Tasse", the third part of "Trois odes funèbres," to Damrosch who in 1877 conducted their first performance in New York. Starting in 1859, Damrosch turned to conducting. For three years, he led the Breslau Philharmonic; then he founded an 80-piece symphonic orchestra in Breslau that won a national reputation. In 1871, Damrosch emigrated to the United States at the invitation of New York's Arion Society. In New York City, he established the Oratorio Society of New York (1873), briefly directed the New York Philharmonic (1876), and founded the Symphonic Society (1877), whose concerts attracted between 8,000 and 10,000 visitors each time. In 1884, he was appointed General Manager and chief conductor of the then struggling Metropolitan Opera in New York, whose financial health he restored with a series of remarkable operatic performances. He died the next year of a severe cold.