Max Thurn (Conductor)

Born: 1897 - Germany
Died: 1969

The German conductor, Max Thurn, was choirmaster from 1946 to 1965 at the Hamburg State Opera. For the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) programme, he performed since 1953 with his Norddeutschen Rundfunk Chor, the Norddeutschen Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester and various former nationally known soloists (as Erich Wenk, Lotte Wolf-Matthäus, Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, Margot Guilleaume, Ursula Zollenkopf) including a large number of cantatas by J.S. Bach. The mono recordings are now played only rarely due to their anachronistic style.

In 1960 Max Thurn founded together with Horst Sellentin the Knabenchor des NDR. He also took over the choir rehearsing for a number of recordings. His radio broadcasts were later released on LP’s and CD’s, for example, from 1953 the Ariola complete recording of Tosca with Rudolf Schock (released 1981) or in the same year recorded performance of Lohengrin , in whicj next to Schock oarticipated also Gottlob Frick (released 1995).

Despite his historical significance, especially for the reproduction of Bach's cantatas (about 80 recordings from 1953 to 1962 in the NDR), Max Thurn's work is almost forgotten today.

Source: German Wikipedia Website (August 2009), English translation by Aryeh Oron (May 2010)
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (May 2010)

Max Thurn: Short Biography | NDR- Chor | NDR Sinfonieorchester | Recordings of Vocal Works

Links to other Sites

Max Thurn (Wikipedia) [German]