Hans Lange

Hans Lange (* February 17, 1884 in Istanbul; died August 13, 1960 in Albuquerque) was a German-American conductor and musician. He was a son of Paul Lange, who had been a lecturer for music at the American College for Girls in Istanbul in the 1890s, and later was appointed the Sultan's director of music.

Lange was educated in Prague and other European cities. After assignments in several German cities, for example in Bielefeld, he entered the United States in 1925 with a German orchestra to give concerts. The orchestra was dissolved during the tour, and Lange had to re-start his career. In the 1930s he worked at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was assistant of Arturo Toscanini, and rehearsed almost all his performances. At that time he also worked on his own as a conductor: he recorded one of his Wagner concerts with the famous soprano Kirsten Flagstad.

1936-1943 he worked as "Associate Conductor" and later became "Conductor" (1943-46) of Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As he had not taken up US citizenship during the war, his contract with CSO was not extended in 1946. In 1950 he started to work with the Albuquerque Civic Symphony, which he transformed from an amateur ensemble into what is today known as New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and one of the leading professional orchestras in the United States.

External links

* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,755401,00.html TIME 25. November 1935]
* [http://www.nmso.org/About/history.php Portrait photo]
* [http://www.cso.org/main.taf?erube_fh=csocom&csocom.submit.viewProdMed=1&csocom.productid=2093 Soundclip: Hans Lange conducting the CSO] : Ludwig van Beethoven, Klavierkonzert Nr. 5 op. 73