Horst Förster (13 March 1920 – 30 June 1986) was a German conductor, choirmaster, violinist and university teacher. In 1952, he was appointed the youngest General Music Director of the GDR in the Landestheater Eisenach [de]. Afterwards, he was chief conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle and the Singakademie Halle [de] (1956–1964) as well as the Dresden Philharmonic (1964–1966), and of Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985-1986.
Förster was born in 1920 in Dresden, the son of Willibald Förster and his wife Martha Ziesche.[1] From 1936 to 1940, he underwent his musical training at the orchestral school of the Staatskapelle Dresden.[1] His teachers included among others Jan Dahmen (violin), Lothar Köhnke[2] (piano, theory and composition), Kurt Striegler (conducting) and Alfred Stier (choral conducting).[3] For a time he was a member of the Dresden Philharmonic under Paul van Kempen.
After the Second World War, he was the second violinist of the same orchestra until 1950.[3] In 1947, he founded a chamber orchestra there,[1] which he conducted for three years.[4]
He then went to the Landestheater Eisenach in Thuringia.[5] On 1 January 1951, he succeeded Peter Schmitz Director of the Stadtorchester Eisenach [de].[1] This was then subordinated to the theatre as a theatre and concert orchestra under the name Landeskapelle Eisenach.[6] In 1952, he was appointed as the youngest General Music Director of the GDR at the time.[1]
After initially being a guest conductor, he succeeded Werner Gößling as chief conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle and the Singakademie Halle from 1956 to 1964.[7] He repeatedly took part in the Handel Festival, Halle.[8] According to Gilbert Stöck, he struck "a rather independent path in the programme conception" in the Saale city, which met with criticism in the East-German Ministry of Culture [de].[7] In coordination with the Halle-Magdeburg Association of Composers and Musicologists of the GDR [de] ('VDK'), he founded the contemporary music series "Musica Viva" in the 1956/57 season, in which works by living composers from the region were to be performed.[9] Thus, as late as 1956, on the occasion of the Hallische Musiktage, which he had helped to initiate,[10] Walter Draeger's Violin Concerto.[9]
Förster's refusal to join the VDK, however, resulted in a public controversy with Walther Siegmund-Schultze.[11] Afterwards, "[Förster] adapted to certain political guidelines", aiming at "ensuring quality in performances of contemporary music" without having sustainably promoted composers of the region, Stöck says.[10] In 1962, Förster premiered the Piano Concerto by Ernst Hermann Meyer with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Dieter Zechlin as soloist.[12] He also appeared with a Mozart-Beethoven-Schumann cycle as guest conductor with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.[13] Repeatedly he was invited abroad, for example in 1963 he gave guest performances with the Riga Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic in the Soviet Union.[14] A year later he conducted the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.[15]
From September 1964 to 1966, he was principal conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra.[1] He opened the 1964-1965 season with a concert with the US violinist Ruggiero Ricci.[16] After Förster had been criticised by the state in Halle for his too Western repertoire, he tried to serve more composers from Eastern Europe in Dresden.[17] Moreover, he continued the contemporary music cultivation of his predecessor Heinz Bongartz.[17] Thus he performed the Rhapsody for Orchestra by Johannes Paul Thilman,[18] the concerto for piano (with Annerose Schmidt)[19] and the Symphonic Concerto by Gerhard Rosenfeld as well as the cantatas Eros by Fidelio F. Finke and Schir Haschirim by Rudolf Wagner-Régeny[20] on the premiere.[21]
In 1957, he received a teaching assignment and in 1961 a professorship[22] at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler".[1] Until his Dresden appointment, he led a conducting class there.[5] After his illness, he was again active as a university teacher.[3] Among his students were Peter Aderhold, Hans-Dieter Baum, Christian Ehwald, Helmut Gleim, Hartmut Haenchen, Christian Kluttig, Volker Rohde and Jörg-Peter Weigle. In Eisenach, he promoted the young Kapellmeister Rolf Reuter.
Also during his years of office in Dresden it took him abroad as a guest conductor, as in 1965 to Chile.[23] Together with Bongartz, he undertook an extended orchestral concert tour to West Germany in the same year.[24] More and more, however, Förster's strength dwindled due to illness.[17] Until 1965 he was still supported by the second conductor Gerhard Rolf Baue, then by the guest conductors György Lehel, Klaus Tennstedt and Heinz Rögner as well as Dieter Härtwig.[17] Förster's successor in leading the Dresden Philharmonic was Kurt Masur.
Förster died in Dresden at the age of 66.[25]
From 1943 he was married to Liesbeth Förster, née Schuriczek.[1]