Josef Stránský

Josef Stransky (1872- March 6, 1936) [cite book
first=Dan
last=Rottenberg
title=Finding Our Fathers: A Guidebook to Jewish Genealogy
location=Baltimore, MD
publisher=Genealogical Pub. Co
year=1986
pages=p. 350
isbn=0806311517] was a Czech conductor and composer. Born in Bohemia, he worked as a conductor in Prague [cite book
first=James
last=Huneker
title=Variations
location=New York
publisher=C. Scribner's Sons
year=1921
pages=p. 196
oclc=397819
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Hc_6LBCXiZAC&dq] and Berlinbefore being selected by the New York Philharmonic to replace Gustav Mahler on Mahler's death in 1911. Some commentators did not see Stransky as a worthy successor to Mahler: the periodical "Musical America" wrote: cquote|After much upheaval, search and negotiation, the New York Philharmonic Society ... has engaged Josef Stransky... Without disrespect to Mr. Stransky, there are reasons which cause this circumstance to remind one of Aesop's fable of the mountain in labor which finally brought forth a mouseHorowitz (2005), p. 195] An article in the "New York Times" about the appointment began, "The financial backers of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra will be interested to learn that the German artistic world is filled with astonishment over the engagement of Josef Stransky of Berlin as the successor to the late Gustav Mahler.", before going on to allege that Stransky was chosen over other candidates such as Oskar Fried and Bruno Walter because of his low financial demands.cite journal
title=JOSEF STRANSKY ATTACKED.; German Review Criticises New Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor.
journal=New York Times
date=1911-07-04
url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D0DE2DC1E3EE033A25757C0A9609C946096D6CF
accessdate=2008-02-20]

During his tenure with the Phiharmonic, Stransky received praise for his interpretations of Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. [ cite book
title=Richard Strauss, the Man and His Works
first=Henry Theophilus
last=Finck
location=Boston
publisher=Little, Brown and Co.
date=1917
oclc= 645950
pages=p 130
quote=With Joseph Stransky, the Philharmonic acquired a leader who is the greatest Liszt specialist since Seidl, and who also performs the tone poems of Strauss more glowingly, brilliantly, and convincingly than any one else except Strauss himself
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=uAEtAAAAMAAJ] However, Daniel Gregory Mason expressed his dissatisfaction with what he referred to as "the Wagnerian, Lisztian and Tschaikowskian pap ladled out to us by ... Stransky of the Phihamonic Society", and even went as far as to call the conductor "a total musical incompetent". [cite book
first=Nancy
last=Toff
title=Monarch of the Flute: The Life of Georges Barrere
location=New York
publisher=Oxford University Press
year=2005
isbn=0195170164
pages=p. 237
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ezX9sAjNMOMC] In an even more biting critique published in H. L. Mencken's "American Mercury Magazine", critic D. W. Sinclair wrote cquote|Succeeding one of the greatest figures in modern music, the late Gustav Mahler, Stransky maintained himself for so long, not so much by his musical abilities as by his social charm and personal cleverness. [cite journal
first = D. W.
last=Sinclair
year=1924
month=March
title=Six Orchestral Conductors
journal=The American Mercury
volume=1
issue=3
pages=p. 285
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ObUPmX07AZ0C&pg=RA2-PA185&vq=%22six+orchestral+conductors%22&source=gbs_search_s&cad=5&sig=8E9qIS-N9MyRxanNsZ0Ii2kS8-A]

Mahler scholar Henry-Louis de la Grange has characterized Stransky as a "conscientious but uninspiring" leader, who allowed the high performing levels achieved by Mahler to fall. [citation
first=Henry-Louis
last=de la Grange
contribution=Mahler and the New York Philharmonic, the Truth Behind the Legend
editor1-first=Philip
editor1-last=Reed
editor2-first=Donald
editor2-last=Mitchell
title=On Mahler and Britten: Essays in Honour of Donald Mitchell on his Seventieth Birthday
location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, England
publisher= Boydell Press
year=1995
isbn=0851156142
pages=p. 77]

From his installation in 1911 until the end of the 1919-1920 season, Stransky conducted every single Philharmonic concert.Horowitz (2005), p. 278] In 1921 the Philharmonic merged with the National Symphony, conducted by Willem Mengelberg. For the 1922-1923 season, Stransky conducted the first half of the season and Mengelberg the second: it turned out to be his last season at the Philharmonic.

Stransky ultimately left the musical profession to become an art dealer, specializing in Picasso's Rose Period. [cite book
title=Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth Century Art'
isbn=0520206533
first=Michael C
last=FitzGerald
location=Berkeley, CA
publisher=University of California Press
year=1996
pages=p. 224
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=fj2wtVCWkMoC&pg=PA224&vq=%22Their+presence+was+facilitated+by+Wildenstein+and+an+associate,+Josef+Stransky,+who+had+developed+a+specialty+in+these+pictures+to+serve+the+American+market%22&source=gbs_search_r&cad=0_1&sig=Hw4fESeia9v540KiS6onBxzg6ao]

References

Bibliography

* cite book
title=Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall
first=Joseph
last=Horowitz
year=2005
publisher=W.W. Norton and Company
location=New York
isbn=0393057178