Alfred Hertz a German conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. As a child, he contracted infantile paralysis and walked with a cane after that.

In 1898, Hertz met the Bradford-born Frederick Delius, who was then living in Paris, and on 30 May 1899, at the age of 36, Hertz conducted the first-ever concert of Delius's music, in The St James's Hall in London.

Hertz first came to prominence conducting Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

 at the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Some of the performances he conducted were experimentally recorded by the Met's librarian Lionel Mapleson on what are now known as the Mapleson Cylinders

Mapleson Cylinders

The Mapleson Cylinders are a group of more than 100 phonograph cylinders recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera, primarily in the years 1901–1903, by the Met librarian Lionel Mapleson ....

 and later issued on LP. He later became music director of the San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...

, from 1915 to 1930, receiving praise and a cover story in Time for his leadership and accomplishments. Longtime San Francisco violinist David Schneider noted, in his history of the orchestra, that Hertz returned as a guest conductor of the orchestra after 1930.

Hertz led the San Francisco Symphony's first recordings, for the Victor Talking Machine Company

Victor Talking Machine Company

The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....

, released from 1925 to 1930. The initial recordings were made with the old acoustical process in Victor's Oakland plant, where the orchestra's first electric recordings were also made; the 1927 recordings were made in the Columbia Theater, which was renamed the Geary Theater, in San Francisco, and the 1928 sessions took place in Oakland's Scottish Rite Auditorium. The recordings have been digitally remastered and issued for the first time on CD by Pristine Classical

Pristine Audio

Pristine Audio was founded in 2002 by Andrew Rose, then a BBC Radio sound engineer, as an audio transfer and restoration business.Following its relocation from the United Kingdom to France in 2004, the company began to concentrate on the restoration and remastering of historic classical music...

, as the San Francisco Symphony celebrates its centennial during the 2011-12 season.

Hertz also conducted the orchestra in its first radio broadcasts, beginning in 1926. After 1930, Hertz guest conducted the orchestra, including The Standard Hour

The Standard Hour

The Standard Hour was a weekly radio broadcast by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Opera carried on NBC radio stations on Sundays at 8:30 p.m. Pacific time. Like The Standard School Broadcast, the program was sponsored by Standard Oil of California...

radio broadcasts on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. Hertz spent much of later years in Berkeley, California

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

, but died in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

at age 69 from heart disease.

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