Motti, Felix (Josef)

Motti, Felix (Josef), celebrated Austrian conductor; b. Unter-Sankt Veit, near Vienna, Aug. 24, 1856; d. Munich, July 2, 1911. After preliminary studies at a seminary, he entered the Vienna Cons, and studied with Door (piano), Bruckner (theory), Dessoff (composition), and Hellmesberger (conducting), graduating with high honors. In 1876 he acted as one of the assistants at the first Wagner festival at Bayreuth. In 1881 he succeeded Dessoff as court conductor at Karlsruhe, and in 1893 he was appointed Generalmusikdirektor there. He conducted Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival in 1886, led a Wagner concert in London in 1894, and conducted the premiere of part I of Berlioz’s Les Troyens à Carthage, La Prise de Troie (in German; Karlsruhe, 6, 1890). After conducting at London’s Covent Garden (1898–1900), he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. conducting Die Walküre on Nov. 25, 1903. Engaged to conduct Parsifal there, he withdrew after protests from the Wagner family over copyright violations. In 1903 he became Generalmusikdirektor of the Munich Court Opera; was conductor of the Vienna Phil. (1904–07). His long intimate relationship with Zdenka Fassbender was legalized in marriage on his deathbed. He ed. vocal scores of the works of Wagner. His own work included 4 operas, Agnes Bernauer (Weimar, 1880), Graf Eberstein (Karlsruhe, 1881), Fürst und Sänger (1893), and Rama, a String Quartet, and numerous songs. Among his arrangements, that of Chabrier’s Bourrée fantasque enjoys continued popularity in the concert hall.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire