Hidemaro Konoye

Japanese conductor (1898–1973)

Viscount Hidemaro Konoye (近衛 秀麿) was a Japanese conductor and composer of classical music. He was the younger brother of pre war Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe.

Konoye was born in Kōjimachi, Tokyo. He was the younger son of Duke Konoe Atsumaro, scion of one of the Five Regent Houses of the Fujiwara clan. The Konoe clan traditionally provided gagaku musicians to the Imperial Household. Despite this, Konoye pursued music over the objections of his family, who wished for him a career in politics. His decision was supported by his older brother, Fumimaro. Konoye attended the Gakushuin Peers School, where he became a close friend of Takashi Inukai. In 1913, he entered the Tokyo University of the Arts, where he specialized in the violin. In 1915, he went to Germany briefly to study musical composition. On his return to Japan he became a pupil of Kosaku Yamada. His debut as a conductor was in 1920, with an amateur orchestra led by Tokichi Setoguchi. Konoye returned to Europe for further studies in 1923 in Paris under Vincent d'Indy and Berlin under Franz Schreker. He also studied conducting under Erich Kleiber, and Karl Muck. In 1924, he conducted at the Berlin Philharmonic, and returned to Japan in the fall of the same year. Konoye co founded the Japan Symphonic Association in 1925, and the following year became conductor of the orchestra. Konoe later founded the New Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo (the present day NHK Symphony Orchestra), and helped mold the orchestra over a 10 year period into an ensemble that was praised as competitive with many of the better orchestras in Europe. Today he is remembered for making the première recording of Mahler's Fourth Symphony, done in May 1930. It was also, aside from a cut in the third movement, the first electrical recording of any complete Mahler symphony. Additionally, Konoye made numerous guest appearances in Europe and America, conducting some 90 different orchestras in the course of his career including the orchestra of La Scala, Milan and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. He created friendships with Erich Kleiber, Leopold Stokowski, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Richard Strauss. He went to Germany and conducted Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the second half of the 1930s. In the early days of the NBC Symphony, he planned an American tour under the supervision of Stokowski, but the project was cancelled due to World War II. In 1964 he performed Mozart's Clarinet Concerto with Benny Goodman.

Konoye wrote original compositions, but was more deeply interested in arranging existing music, including, for example, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Schubert's String Quintet, which he orchestrated.

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 (Sakaye Kitasaya (soprano), New Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo; recorded by Japanese Parlophone in May 1930)