1948-1958   Ferenc Fricsay, First Chief Conductor of the RIAS Orchestra,
                                 today’s “dso” (Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin )


             


1948            Elsa Schiller, in charge of the sector Serious Music of the RIAS, is in search of a                      chief conductor for the RIAS-Symphony Orchestra. At the Salzburger Festspielen                      she meets the young Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay and is able to convince                      him to accept an appointment . A parallel contract as Chief Conductor ties Ferenc                      Fricsay to the RIAS-Symphony Orchestra and to the Städtische Oper (today                      Deutsche Oper Berlin), which at the time is still residing in the Theater des                      Westens.

12.12.1948   First concert with Ferenc Fricsay in the Titania Palast.

Sept. 1949   The first recording, Tchaikowsky’s Violin Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin and Ferenc                      Fricsay is produced in the Jesus-Christus Kirche in Berlin-Dahlem.

1951            Contract between Fricsay and the Deutsche Gramophon Gesellschaft

1951            First tour in West Germany. As an ambassador of culture, coming from the divided                     Berlin, the RIAS-Symphony Orchestra is often received as a guest at Festivals for                     contemporary music. In choosing his programs, Ferenc Fricsay’s favourites are:                     Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. In nearly all his con-                     certs, he introduces a contemporary composer or he conducts concerts entirely                     with new music. Names such as Bartók, Berg, Blacher, Hindemith, Schönberg or                     Stravinsky are not yet common in concert life, and so the orchestra gives many                     works a première or even a world première. This is how it establishes its specific                     tradition as one of the world leading ensembles for contemporary music. The                     instrumental soloists are, among others, the pianists Géza Anda, Claudio Arrau,                     Walter Gieseking, Friedrich Gulda, Margrit Weber and Clara Haskil; the violinists                     Yehudi Menuhin, Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Tibor Varga, as well as the cellist                     Pierre Fournier. A particularly close working relationship develops between Fricsay                     and the singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Josef Greindl, Maria Stader und Ernst                     Haefliger.

28.2.1952   Première in West Germany of of Alban Berg’s violin concerto with the violinist Rudolf                    Schulz (World premiere at the ISCM Festival in Barcelona 1936 on April 19th                    conducted by Hermann Scherchen, soloist Louis Krasner).

1952           Concert tour to Paris

1953           Americans cancel their financial support for the RIAS-Symphony-Orchestra. Musicians                    establish a Civil Law Company and appoint solo flautist Heinz Hoefs as the director.

1954          Fricsay terminates his contract as musical director of the RIAS-Symphony-Orchestra,                   but he keeps his close ties to the orchestra. In the 1950s the orchestra plays under                   such famous conductors as Karl Böhm, Georg Solti and Otto Klemperer. Besides,                   conductors of a new generation, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Bernhard Haitink and Lorin                   Maazel are now at the conductor’s desk.

1956         The RIAS is re-named to Radio-Symphonic-Orchestra. The Studio Free Berlin signs a                   production contract with the orchestra, but stipulates the change of name. The short                   form RSO is kept. Wolfgang Streseman becomes the first RSO Director (until 1959).


1957/58     Several recordings are made under Ferenc Fricsay (a.o. Bártok "Konzert  für                   Orchester" and "Herzog Blaubarts Burg", Mozart: "Don Giovanni"), and are awarded                   the Grand Prix du Disque.

1959          Ferenc Fricsay returns to the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester and, as Wolfgang Strese-
                 mann is called to the Berliner Philharmoniker, Heinz Hoefs takes over the                   directorship of the RSO (until 1974).

28.9.1959  The first concert after Fricsay's return coincides with the re-inauguration of the big                    broadcasting hall of the Studio Free Berlin in the Masurenallee. This is, at the same                    time, a historic media event, because the broadcast of the concert with                    Kodálys "Psalmus hungaricus" and Mozarts "Messe in c-moll" is the first                    stereophonic broadcast on German Radio.

16.12.1959 First concert in the series of „Contemporary Music“ (MdG) arranged by the SFB, with                    the participation of the RSO.

1961          Extensive orchestra tour with Ferenc Fricsay and Yehudi Menuhin: they visit ten                    cities in West Germany, as well as Copenhagen, London and Paris.

In November 1961, the first of a series of workshops, showing rehearsals and performances with the RSO, conducted by its chief conductor, is recorded for television. In 1986, 25 years later, the critic Ulrich Schreiber calls Ferenc Fricsay „ Germany’s first media artist“