Hermann Hans Wetzler was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1870 and died in New York City in 1943. An organist, conductor, and composer, Wetzler was the son of American parents and spent his childhood in the United States. In 1882, he returned to Frankfurt to study at the Hoch Conservatory under Clara Schumann and others. From 1897 until 1901, he was the organist at Old Trinity Church in New York, where he had settled upon his return from Germany.
In 1903, he organized the Wetzler Symphony Concerts, with which Richard Strauss appeared as conductor for the first time in the United States in 1904. In 1905 Wetzler returned to Germany, where he held various musical posts. After 1923 he was a guest conductor with different European orchestras. Wetzler retired to Switzerland, but eventually returned to the United States where he died in 1943.
Wetzler was a virtuoso in his treatment of the modern orchestra and showed a preference for symphonic program music.
The Hans Hermann Wetzler Symphony Concerts Collection consists of one file folder of material. There is correspondence with patron H. H. Vreeland, a flyer for the second subscription concert in 1902, subscription information, and a subscription proposal for the newly formed Wetzler Symphony Concerts, which took place at Carnegie Hall.
Carnegie Hall Archives 2011
881 Seventh AvenueOpen to researchers.
For permission to publish material please contact the Carnegie Hall Archives:
Email: archives@carnegiehall.org
Phone: 212-903-9629
Material donated by Sandra Robbins and Elmar Oliviera to the Carnegie Hall Archives on May 18, 1995.
Material arranged and described by Kathleen Sabogal, 2011.
Program for a Wetzler Symphony Orchestra concert at the Wanamaker store on April 18, 1904 removed from a scrapbook and added to the collection.