Alfred Schulz-Curtius
Encyclopedia
Alfred Schulz-Curtius was a classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...

 who was active primarily in continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....

 and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 from the 1870s until the 1920s.

In 1876, he founded the eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

ous Alfred Schulz-Curtius music and artists management agency in the West End of London
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...

 at 44 Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...

, Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly...

. He is most well known for his popularization of the music of Richard 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...

. In 1882, he arranged the first British staging of the epic Ring Cycle
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...

,
conducted by Anton Seidl
Anton Seidl
Anton Seidl was a Hungarian conductor.-Biography:He was born at Pest, Hungary. He began the study of music at a very early age, and when only seven years old could pick out at the piano melodies which he had heard at the theatre...

 and directed by Angelo Neumann.

During his four or more decades of professional activity, Schulz-Curtius organized dozens of concerts at concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

 and recital
Recital
A recital is a musical performance. It can highlight a single performer, sometimes accompanied by piano, or a performance of the works of a single composer.The invention of the solo piano recital has been attributed to Franz Liszt....

 venues such as St. James's Hall, Queen's Hall
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...

, the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

 in Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

, Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

, which was then known as Bechstein
C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik
C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik AG is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein.-Before Bechstein:...

 Hall, and collaborated
Collaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...

 with other impresarios as well such as Robert Newman
Robert Newman (impresario)
Robert Newman was an English businessman and musical impresario. He is most celebrated as the founder of the series of classical music concerts that are now known as The Proms....

, founder of The Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...

.

Alfred Schulz-Curtius had great enthusiasm for the string instrument
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

s designed by Dr. Alfred Stelzner
Alfred Stelzner
Alfred Stelzner was a composer and designer of string instruments.Alfred Stelzner was born in Hamburg, Germany and educated in music, physics and mathematics. He produced string instruments of his own design in Wiesbaden and then in Dresden. Two instruments of his invention were the violotta and...

  and went to great lengths to encourage their use by soloists
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

, ensembles
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

s.

The conductors with whom Schulz-Curtius worked include Hermann Levi
Hermann Levi
Hermann Levi was a German Jewish orchestral conductor.Levi was born in Gießen, Germany, the son of a rabbi. He was educated at Gießen and Mannheim, and came to Vinzenz Lachner's notice...

, Felix Mottl
Felix Mottl
Felix Josef von Mottl was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which Agnes Bernauer was the most successful, as well as a string quartet and numerous songs and other music...

, Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt
Percy Pitt was an English organist and conductor.A native of London, Pitt studied music at the conservatory in Leipzig, also working in Munich with Josef Rheinberger...

, Hans Richter
Hans Richter (conductor)
Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...

, and Henry Joseph Wood. Others among the many artists whom he represented include pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni
Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík was a Czech violinist and composer.-Biography:He was born in Michle . His father, a gardener by occupation, was an amateur violinist. He taught his two sons the violin and after discovering the talent of Jan, who was aged five at the time, arranged for him to study with Karel Weber and...

, soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 Dame Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...

, and cellist Guilhermina Suggia
Guilhermina Suggia
Guilhermina Augusta Xavier de Medim Suggia Carteado Mena, known as Guilhermina Suggia, was a Portuguese cellist. She studied in Germany with Pablo Casals, and built an international reputation. She spent many years living in England, where she was particularly celebrated...

.

In the 1910s, early in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Lionel Powell was taken on as a partner in the agency (renamed Schulz-Curtius Powell) when Schulz-Curtius, a German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 national, was interned as an "enemy alien." Powell continued to manage the agency through the 1920s after the death of its founder.

From the early 1930s, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n Harold Holt managed the agency as Harold Holt Ltd until the early 1950s. In 1956, Sir Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter (impresario)
Sir Ian Bruce Hope Hunter was a British impresario of classical music. Known as ‘Mr. Festival’ to many in the arts world, Hunter was one of the most important figures in a post-World War II cultural renaissance in the United Kingdom...

 joined the agency and, in 1969, by which time Harolt Holt Ltd was owned by Ibbs and Tillett
Ibbs and Tillett
Ibbs and Tillett, “one of the legendary names in classical music artist management,” was a London-based classical music artist and concert management agency which flourished from 1906 through 1990 in the United Kingdom....

, purchased it.

In the late 1990s, the agency which Alfred Schulz-Curtius had founded more than one hundred twenty years earlier merged with the Lies Askonas agency to form Askonas Holt.
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