Konwitschny came from a family of musicians. From 1920 to 1923 he took violin lessons at the Academy of the Music Association in
Brno, Czechoslovakia, before becoming a student of
Hans Bassermann at the
University of Music and Theatre Leipzig from April 1923 to 1925. There, the music teacher Fritz Reuter was one of his teachers. He started his career on the
viola, playing in the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under
Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1925, he moved to Vienna, where he played the viola with the
Fitzner Quartet. He also began teaching at the
Wiener Volkskonservatorium. He later became a conductor, joining the
Stuttgart Opera in 1927.
Nazi era career Konwitschny first joined the
NSDAP (Nazi Party) on July 1, 1923 in Fulnek (membership number 2,756). His political convictions at the time were also expressed in a performance of Fidelio in Freiburg in 1934, where he wanted to bring SA men and SA flags onto the stage on the occasion of
Adolf Hitler's birthday, but this was forbidden by the management. On August 1, 1937, Konwitschny rejoined the NSDAP (membership number 5,508,995). In October of that year he conducted
Anton Bruckner's patriotic cantata
Germanenzug before
Alfred Rosenberg's speech at the closing rally of the 2nd Baden Gau Culture Week, which was held under the motto "Race and Culture". On the other hand, in November of the same year he conducted the opera
Matthias the Painter by the ostracized composer
Paul Hindemith in a subscription concert. In the next year, his mentor, Bassermann, who was Jewish, fled to the United States. During the World War II years he was chief conductor in the
Frankfurt Opera. In the late war years 1943–1944 he was chief conductor of the orchestra in
Ludwigshafen, today the
Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic.
East German career In 1946 the city of
Hanover appointed him as musical director of opera and concerts, a post which he held to 1949. From 1949 until his death he was principal conductor of the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. From 1953 until 1955 he was also principal conductor of the
Dresden Staatskapelle and from 1955 onward he led the
Berlin State Opera. Like
Wilhelm Furtwängler, Konwitschny used "expansive gestures" and had a "dislike of an exact beat." His first marriage to Maria Wilhelmine Josephine Hambloch (Gieser) produced two children, Franziska Hinzte (née Konwitschny) and Dieter Konwitschny. His son from his second marriage
Peter Konwitschny is a leading opera director in Germany. Franz Konwitschny died suddenly of a heart attack during a rehearsal while on tour in
Yugoslavia. Unusual for musical figures he was given a full state funeral by the
GDR. ==Recordings==