Eugen Jochum - Central Website (Revised)

Activities in Amsterdam - 2

1941 - 1944: Principal Guest Conductor in Amsterdam


Eugen Jochum around 1941

The main reason to contract Eugen Jochum in 1941 was rooted in political reasons. The Concertgebouw Orchestra was obliged by the occupying Germans forces to contract German conductors. The Orchestra obviously wanted a good conductor, who was not allied to and had no sympathy for the nazi-party. Jochum was known as a good Catholic and otherwise also fulfilled all requirements, as his first concerts had proven.


Program from November 1942

Above, a scan of an original program from November 1942, which my parents attended. For those days, it is a "middle of the road" program.


That Eugen Jochum was allowed to make recordings with the Concertgebouw Orchestra must have followed from the fact that he was a outstanding conductor.
The first recording with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Eugen Jochum was Mozart's Symphony no. 40, KV 550 for Telefunken. Shortly thereafter, Reger's Serenade opus 95 was recorded.

The hardest-to-find-recordings of the Concertgebouw Orchestra are the subsequently recorded "Karfreitagszauber" from Wagner's Parsifal and the Arioso from the Concert for two oboes from Alexander Voormolen. Probably, only very few copies were sold before the masters and the remaining stock were destroyed during the bombings of the Telefunken plant in Berlin.

All recordings were made in June 1943. The next recording sessions of the Concertgebouw Orchestra with Eugen Jochum would be postponed for nine years and took place in 1952.


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