Nikisch Arthur, *12 October 1855 Lébényi Szent Miklós, †23 January 1922 Leipzig, German conductor of Czech-Hungarian origin. In 1866–73, he studied at the conservatory in Vienna with J. Hellmesberger (violin), W. Schenner (piano) and O. Dessoff (composition). In 1874–78, as a member of the Wiener Hofoper, he played under the baton of, among others, J. Brahms, F. Liszt, G. Verdi, A. Bruckner (premiere of the 2nd Symphony) and R. Wagner (also on the occasion of laying the foundation stone for the theatre in Bayreuth – L. van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony), which was of great importance for his later conducting career. He served as artistic director and first conductor of the Leipzig Opera House (1879–89, 1905–06), the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1889–93), the Royal Opera House in Budapest (1893–95), and in 1895–1922, he directed the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig (as the successor of K. Reinecke) and the Berliner Philharmoniker (successor of R. Strauss). In 1902–07, he was a professor and director of the Leipzig Conservatory. He performed almost all over Europe and the United States, including as a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He also gave concerts in Poland – in 1901, after the opening of the Grand Theater in Łódź (28 September), he gave two concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra, in 1902–05 and in 1907–08, he performed six times at the Warsaw Philharmonic. In his repertoire, he preferred romantic music (J. Brahms, A. Bruckner, P. Tchaikovsky, R. Wagner); he also supported and popularised the work of contemporary composers – R. Strauss, G. Mahler, M. Reger. He performed the world premiere, among others of Symphony No. 7 by A. Bruckner (1884) and Symphony No. 3 “The Divine Poem” by A. Scriabin (1905). His contemporaries emphasised the sophistication and elegance of his conducting style, his composure and economy of gestures, as well as his excellent control of the orchestra. In many respects, he is considered a pioneer of modern conducting; he was the first conductor to regularly give guest concerts, and the recording of the performance of L. van Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker (1913) is one of the first recordings of a symphonic work in its entirety. With his art and activity, Nikisch had a huge impact on concert life at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and on the next generation of conductors. The preserved discography includes works by L. van Beethoven (5th Symphony, Egmont), H. Berlioz (Roman Carnival), F. Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody in F minor), W.A. Mozart, C.M. von Weber, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, performed mainly with the Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra.
Literature: F. Pfohl Arthur Nikisch als Mensch und als Künstler, Leipzig 1900, 2nd ed. 1925; I. Lipajew Arthur Nikisch, Moscow 1903; E. Segnitz Arthur Nikisch, Leipzig 1920; A. Dette Nikisch, Leipzig 1922; Arthur Nikisch. Leben und Werke, ed. H. Chevalley, Berlin 1922; A.C. Boult Arthur Nikisch, “Music and Letters” III, 1922; A.C. Boult Nikisch and Method in Rehearsal, “The Music Review” XI, 1950; Arthur Nikisch i russkaja muzykalnaja kultura. Wospominanija i statji, ed. L.N. Raaben, Leningrad 1975.
