Testament: SBT21403

Although Schuricht’s career had started in a fairly typical manner for a future young conductor born in Wilhelmine Germany, it was now becoming clear that, despite some experience in the opera house (the traditional route to fame with the baton in Central Europe), it would be the concert hall towards which he naturally gravitated. The 1920s saw him co-conducting a Brahms Festival with Furtwängler, launching in Wiesbaden the ‘First German Mahler Festival’ and travelling to St. Louis. In the years leading up to the Second World War Schuricht spread his wings further, starting a regular relationship with Dutch orchestras and festivals (1930), making débuts with the LSO (1931) and the Vienna Philharmonic (1934) and in Berlin (1933). During the war years he held guest conductorships in Frankfurt and Dresden and managed (also like Furtwängler) to escape to Switzerland in the last months of the conflict. He maintained a home there for the rest of his life.