Wand, Gunter

▪ 2003

      German conductor (b. Jan. 7, 1912, Elberfeld, Ger.—d. Feb. 14, 2002, Ulmiz, Switz.), was notable for his rigorous rehearsals and his strong interpretations of the Austro-German Romantic repertory, notably the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Schubert. Wand spent most of his career in Cologne, as principal conductor of the Cologne Opera from 1938 until 1944, when the opera house was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid, and again from 1945 to 1948 and as music director of the Gürzenich Orchestra from 1947 until he officially retired in 1974. He was also the city's general music director and, from 1982, director of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg. Wand, who recorded extensively, only occasionally conducted outside Germany; his American debut was in 1989.

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