Robert Heger

Robert Heger (19 August 1886 – 14 January 1978) was a German conductor and composer from Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine. Life and career He studied at the Conservatory of Strasbourg under Franz Stockhausen, then in Zurich under Lothar Kempter and finally in Munich under Max von Schillings. After early conducting engagements in Strasbourg he made his debut at Ulm in 1908 or 1909. He held appointments in Barmen (1909), at the Vienna Volksoper (1911), and at Nuremberg (1913), where he also conducted Philharmonic concerts. He went on to Munich and Vienna, where he recorded a magnificent version of Goldmark’s Rustic Wedding Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic; and then to Berlin (1933-1950), where a live wartime Lohengrin was preserved and afterwards issued on LP, after which he returned again to Munich. In 1932, he conducted the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein in the world premiere of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, after Arturo Toscanini had declined Ravel’s invitation to conduct the premiere. In 1937, Heger joined the Nazi Party. Heger conducted one of the final concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic on 12 April 1945 at the Berlin the P