The following obituary appeared in The Australian newspaper on 14 October:
Uncompromising conductor dedicated to art
Georg Tintner
Conductor. Born Vienna, May 22, 1917. Died Halifax, Nova
Scotia, October 2, aged 82.
Georg Tintner was a musician of international standing and one
of Australia's finest postwar resident conductors, though his
uncompromising nature did not always endear him to the musical
establishment.
This was to the detriment of his career but it did imbue Australian
audiences and two generations of young musicians with some
insight into the great Viennese performing tradition and displayed
an extraordinary depth of scholarship, appreciation and skill.
Tintner was the only son of Major Alfons Tintner of the Imperial
Balloon Corps and Marie (nee Horowitz). His parents were not
musical, although his grandmother had once faced an adjudication
by Brahms, who admired her looks rather than her playing.
He began the piano at six years old and three years later joined
the Vienna Boys Choir. The choir then consisted of only 14 boys,
so it was an honour to be chosen, but as a Lutheran of Jewish
ancestry among Catholics it was not an easy one. Under the
direction of Franz Schalk, himself a pupil of Anton Bruckner,
he sang all of the Bruckner masses and often performed with
members of the Vienna Opera. He remained there four years,
occasionally conducting the choir.
He recalled this time as of "profound and positive value to me".
The sight of the imperious Schalk halting during a Bruckner mass
with tears streaming down his face was one of two moments that
influenced his decision to dedicate his life to music. The
other was hearing renowned German soprano Lotte Lehmann sing.
He studied conducting under Felix von Weingartner and composition
under Joseph Marx, graduating from the Vienna State Academy in
1938. At 19, he was coach and assistant conductor of the Volksoper
in Vienna, but dismissed after the Anschluss.
In an extraordinary act of defiance, he sued the Volksoper and
was summoned by manager; when he arrived, the man-ager had a
leading SS officer beside him. Tintner was offered 100 schillings
by way of compensation but rejected it out of hand. Somehow he
survived, fled to Yugoslavia, then - via England and Australia
(where he was mistakenly arrested as a spy) - went on to New
Zealand, "because it was the only country that would take me".
As an enemy alien he was unable to do paid work, but gave piano
lessons and worked on a cattle and poultry farm bought by his
first wife.
In 1946, he took New Zealand citizenship and entered the mainstream
of musical life then. He founded the Auckland String Players,
and conducted the Auckland Choral Society and occasionally the
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
In 1954, he moved to Australia to join the National Opera of
New South Wales (it became the Elizabethan Opera in 1955). His
initial tasks were menial ones. He recalled: "I told them when
to lift the curtain."
His chance came in Newcastle when the chief conductor was
indisposed just before a matinee performance of La boheme.
Conducting without rehearsal and from memory, Tintner caused a
sen-sation. With the Elizabethan Opera he Introduced television
opera, with nine productions for the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation.
He also took his exacting standards to the bush, touring the
outback with a troupe of singers including Donald Smith and Neil
Warren Smith - and a piano.
In 1966, encouraged by his friend Hephzibah Menuhin, he accepted
an appoint-ment as musical director of the Cape Town Municipal
Orchestra, but he found apartheid abhorrent and stayed in South
Africa only 14 months.
He spent three years at Sadler's Wells but with his aversion to
concert agents, he only had a few guest engagements with the
London Symphony and Bournemouth Symphony before returning to
Australia in 1971 to lead the ailing West Australian Opera
Company which, with his energy and erudition, he revived and
enhanced.
In 1973, he joined the Australian Opera as resident conductor
and achieved some outstanding successes. His Messiah in 1974
was highly praised, while the following year his Fidelio was a
triumph, for which he was toasted as the new Arturo Toscanini.
A devout vegan, agnostic, pacifist and a passionate cyclist, he
did not fit the image of the grand maestro but once on a rostrum,
with an orchestra before him, he was transformed. He conducted
with-out a baton and in a manner that communicated the essence
of the music rather than the mere beating of time. He usually
conducted without a score and knew 50 operas from memory.
In 1977, unhappy with the process of appointment of another
conductor to the Australian Opera, he resigned to become director
of music at the Queensland Theatre Orchestra, a 28-member chamber
group. This was to be his longest engagement, from which
Queensland benefited greatly. He had a particular genius for
inspiring gifted young musicians with his knowledge and enthusiasm.
Some highlights of his time in Queensland include performances
of Mahler's Second Symphony, Schubert's Ninth and Beethoven's
Choral Symphony. His series of Beethoven's Piano Concertos with
Roger Woodward also met with critical arid popular success.
In 1987, In the absence of any offers from leading Australian
orchestras, Tintner accepted the position of musical director
of Canada's youngest orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia. He
continued his role as a visiting conductor on most continents
and regularly returned to Queensland.
He memorably conducted the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra
last year with David Helfgott, whom he had known since Helfgott's
darkest days in Perth. Helfgott played Rachmaninov's Third and
throughout rehearsals would embrace Tintner, saying: "George,
George - you're wonderful, wonderful." International fame eluded
him until his ninth decade, with the release by Naxos of all of
Bruckner's symphonies. The series was universally praised; he
was hailed as the greatest living Bruckner-meister and compared
favourably with Wilhelm Furt-wangler and Herbert von Karajan.
That he did so at this great age and with orchestras not
previously thought of as first rank makes the achievement even more
remarkable. He had known and loved the music of Bruckner since
he was a chorister and said in an interview last year, "Personally,
I couldn't imagine living without his music."
Intensive treatment for encroaching cancer and the prospect of
not being able to perform filled him with despair and so he took
his own life, ending three-quarters of a century of music making.
Tintner married three times. He mar-ried Rosa Muriel Norman in
1941, with whom he had three sons and a daughter; Cecilia Gretel
Lawrence in 1965, with whom he had three daughters; and, In
1978, writer and critic Tanya Buchdahl, who survives him.
Mark McGinness (a Sydney lawyer and writer).
Note: The outback: the remote areas of Australia.
Richard Pennycuick
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