Wilhelm Gericke

Graz, Austria, 1845 - 1925, Vienna

BiographyGericke, Wilhelm (18 Apr. 1845-27 Oct. 1925), musician and conductor, was born in Graz, Styria, Austria, the son of Freidrich Gericke, a merchant and farmer, and Katharina Spitzy, neither of whom were musical. His earliest and simplistic musical schooling was provided by the master of the village school in Schwanberg. He was chiefly self-taught, however, showed early promise, and by the age of ten was playing the organ in the local church. He was sent to Graz to train to be a schoolmaster. He was generally unhappy there, did not pass his second year, and returned home to Schwanberg. His dream was to be a conductor, and he continued to teach himself the piano, violin, cello, and flute. After a year at home he returned to school at Graz and was offered a chair in the violin section of the local theater orchestra. In 1862 he entered the conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and began his studies with Dessoff. Two years later, even before graduating, he began to conduct operas at Laibach. In 1868 he was appointed first Kapellmeister of the Stadt Theater in Linz on the Danube, and in 1874 he was engaged by the Court Opera in Vienna upon the recommendation of his teacher, Dessoff. The following year Hans Richter joined the Royal Court Opera, and a lifetime friendship between Gericke and Richter began to blossom. It was there that he met Wagner and conducted the first Vienna performance of Tannhäuser.

In 1880 Gericke followed Brahms as director of the Singverein of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and began to gain experience as a symphonic conductor. It was there that he became acquainted with Brahms and conducted the music of Brahms, Bruckner, and Liszt. As a consequence of both his personal relationships and his conducting positions, Gericke became immersed in, and a major interpreter of, the fruit of late Romantic orchestral music.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, founded by Henry Lee Higginson, presented its first concert on 22 October 1881 under the direction of Georg Henschel. During the fall of 1883 Higginson was in Europe in part to engage a new conductor for the orchestra. While in Vienna he attended a concert conducted by Gericke and afterward asked Julius Epstein to arrange a meeting with the young conductor. Higginson offered Gericke both the baton of the Boston Symphony and total control over its musical activities, and he accepted.

Gericke's first Boston Symphony concert occurred on 18 October 1884. His tenure with the symphony extended over two terms; from 1884 to 1889, and from 1898 to 1906. Higginson's charge to him was to build and develop an orchestra equal to the best in Europe. Gericke toiled tirelessly to raise the standards of the orchestra, sometimes against a backdrop of local criticism. His concerts were considered by some Bostonians to be rather serious and severe. He demanded extra time for rehearsals, began importing musicians from Europe, and terminated those members who did not meet his rising standards. The repertoire became more serious, and he eliminated the lighter music that Henschel had consistently programmed. During those first years, however, it became clear to all that the orchestra was steadily improving, and Gericke enjoyed increasing respect and popularity in Boston. The symphony began to garner a favorable national reputation by both the public and the press after well-received concerts at Steinway Hall in New York in 1887.

In 1889 Gericke was suffering with a throat disease and decided to return to Vienna. In 1890 he again assumed the leadership of the Gesellschaft concerts. A romance ensued, and in 1892 he married Paula Flamm, the daughter of a court physician and a close friend of Brahms. The couple had one daughter. While in Vienna, Gericke never accepted a full-time position; and when Higginson asked him to return to Boston for the 1898 season, he accepted.

Arthur Nikisch and Emil Paur had sustained the quality and reputation of the Boston Symphony during Gericke's sojourn to Europe. Gericke, upon his return, continued to inflate the ranks of the orchestra with musicians from Europe and once again was a severe taskmaster. He rankled some of the membership of the orchestra and again was occasionally criticized for his heavy and conservative programming. But he gained a reputation as a master interpreter of the classical and Romantic repertoire. He consistently performed the works of his friend Brahms and introduced Boston audiences to Gustav Mahler and Bruckner. He was largely responsible for instituting the orchestra's pension fund and provided substantial input to the building of Boston's famed Symphony Hall, which opened in October 1900.

Gericke and the symphony management could not come to favorable terms regarding a new contract, and in February 1906 his resignation was announced. His departure from Boston was a warm one; he was showered with gifts and money after the final concert of the season. The Gerickes returned to Europe and settled in Vienna. Wilhelm's early retirement years were full ones with travel, social activities, and an agreeable family life. The First World War, however, found Gericke torn between his native and adopted countries, but his sympathies lay with Germany. Following the war his American friends came to his aid with gifts of food, money, and a benefit concert in Boston, all of which were of immeasurable help to the Gerickes as they struggled through the horrors of the postwar German and Austrian depression. Gericke suffered an attack of angina in 1924 but recovered to celebrate his eightieth birthday. He died in Vienna.

Wilhelm Gericke was also an active composer throughout his life. His compositions include orchestral, vocal, and piano works, but they have generally been forgotten. His greatest achievement, and the one for which he is remembered, was the development of the Boston Symphony Orchestra into one of the most respected orchestras in the world. As was often said in Boston, "Gericke made the Orchestra."

Bibliography

Most of Gericke's personal papers have been destroyed, but a few of them may be found in the Brown collection at the Boston Public Library and in the archives of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The best biographical sketch is John N. Burk's "Wilhelm Gericke: A Centennial Retrospect," Musical Quarterly 31, no. 2 (Apr. 1945): 163-87. Two works that detail Gericke's association with the Boston Symphony Orchestra are Mark A. deWolfe Howe, The Boston Symphony Orchestra (1914), which gives a good perspective of Gericke's tenure from a contemporary, and Bliss Perry, Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson (1921), which tells of the relationship between Gericke and Higginson. An obituary is in the New York Times, 30 Oct. 1925.

R. Nicholas Tobin

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Citation:
R. Nicholas Tobin. "Gericke, Wilhelm";
http://www.anb.org/articles/18/18-00444.html;
American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
Access Date: Fri Aug 09 2013 14:58:43 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)
Copyright © 2000 American Council of Learned Societies.

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