Heinz Wallberg
The conductor Heinz Wallberg was born in Herringen (Hamm), Westphalia, in 1923. He studied in Dortmund and Cologne, initially working as an orchestral musician in Cologne and Darmstadt, both as a violinist and a trumpeter. He held his debut as a conductor with Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in Münster. From 1953 to 1961, he was Director General of Music in Bremen and from 1961 to 1974 in Wiesbaden. In 1961, he conducted the premiere of Wagner-Régeny’s Das Bergwerk zu Falun at the Salzburg Festival, from 1964 to 1975 he was Principal Conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna, from 1975 to 1982 of the Munich Radio Orchestra and from 1975 to 1991 also of the Essen Philharmonic. He held guest appearances throughout the world, e.g. at the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo for four decades. He conducted more than 450 performances at the Vienna State Opera and roughly 500 concerts in the Grand Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. He made over a hundred recordings, including 16 complete operas. His recording of Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper was nominated for the Grammy Award in 1982. He died in Essen in 2004.
