Born in
Dresden, Pittrich attended the
Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber from 1884 to 1890, whose curriculum included theoretical subjects and keyboard, string and wind instruments. In addition, the students were taught oratory and singing. The curriculum also included stage training. The conservatory was founded in 1856 as a private teaching institution and on its 25th anniversary in 1881 the King of Saxony awarded it the title of "Royal Conservatory". His teachers at the Conservatoire were Ferdinand Braunroht (1856–1913) for
harmony,
counterpoint and piano;
Felix Draeseke (1835–1913) for theory of form and higher composition; Adolf Hagen (1851–1926), for orchestral, compositional and directorial theory and practice in direction;
Emil Robert Höpner, (1846–1903) from 1885 (retired in 1902) and teacher at the Conservatory for piano since 1874 and since 1 November 1885 for organ,
Theodor Kirchner (1823 - 1903) for score-playing,
Emil Naumann (1827–1888) for music history, and
Bertrand Roth (1855–1938) for piano as a special subject. Pittrich received an organ prize donated by the Dresden City Council in 1888 after six months of organ lessons with Emil Höpner. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the assumption of patronage of the Dresden Conservatory by the Crown Prince of Saxony, in 1898, in the presence of the now King
Albert of Saxony, two songs composed by Pittrich were performed at the festive event, among others:
Hoffnung and
Du allein. At a concert given by the Conservatoire in the autumn of 1888, Pittrich played the
Prelude and Fugue for Organ in B minor by
Johann Sebastian Bach and the
Sonata for Organ, for Four Hands, in D minor by
Gustav Merkel together with his fellow pupil Paul Claußnitzer from , who had also attended Höpner's organ lessons and also received the school-leaving certificate as an organist. In July 1890, Pittrich took part in a song recital in
Schandau. He played at the grand concert the
Sonata in A flat major, Op. 110, 1st movement by
Beethoven and an
Etude in C minor by
Chopin, as well as a work composed by himself, a
nocturne in F sharp major. After his musical training, which he completed with distinction, Pittrich obtained a position as
répétiteur at the
Semper Opera in Dresden in 1890. At theatre rehearsals, he had to
accompany the actors by playing the piano instead of the orchestra. Outside of his full-time occupation, the young pianist was temporarily active in 1892 as director or conductor of the Dresden male choral society "Liedergruß" in "Meinholds Säle" with practice hours once a week. He also filled the position of music teacher at the Saxon Court from 1895 to 1898. In this capacity, George Washington Pittrich was temporarily the teacher of the then Crown Princess at the Saxon Royal Court,
Archduchess Louise of Austria.
Collaboration in the Tonkünstler-Verein Pittrich joined the
Tonkünstler-Verein zu Dresden, founded in 1854, as a pianist and composer after completing his studies at the
Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in 1890, which also had members from outside. He became acquainted with musical works there that had not been rehearsed before, educated himself by making music together and presented his own compositions. The
Fantasy for Pianoforte and String Orchestra, composed by him and at that time only available as a manuscript, was performed by Pittrich for the first time in 1893 at a practice session of the association. Songs composed by him were performed in 1898 with his participation at the piano. As a singer,
Ernst Wachter (1872–1931) from the
Semperoper in Dresden made himself available to the Tonkünstler-Verein as a singer. As
Kapellmeister in Hamburg and Frankfurt, Pittrich is named in the reports on the Tonkünstler-Verein as a foreign member, after he was still listed as
répétiteur and composer in the membership directory among the Dresden artists in the reporting year 1897/98.
Awards Pittrich was awarded the certificate of maturity as a pianist, composer and conductor by decision of the teaching staff of the Conservatory on 16 March 1890, having already received the certificate as organist the year before. As a composition student from the class of the Conservatoire's teacher
Felix Draeseke, he received an award from the Frederick Pudor Foundation in the 1889/90 school year for the
sheet music of the
Mass in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bach and the music ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream'' by
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy to
William Shakespeare's eponymous play. He received a prize certificate for excellent performance as a piano player from the piano class of
Bertrand Roth. In 1894, the composer and répétiteur at the Court Theatre was awarded the Royal Saxon Order of Merit, the
Albert Order. It was the year in which the opera
Marga, composed by Pittrich, was performed in Dresden at the beginning of February and "achieved a complete success".
Accident Pittrich was bitten by a poisonous snake on the Baltic Sea near
Lohmen on Rügen in August 1894. This caused his hand and arm to swell dangerously up to the armpit. He had to travel to
Greifswald, "where a university professor was able to counteract the blood poisoning with effective remedies", the German-language American newspaper the
Indiana Tribune reported promptly from Saxony on 23 August about the "Correpetitor der Königl. Hofoper Georg Pittrich" in
Dresden. "It would not have taken much for the young artist to meet an untimely end," wrote the Dresden writer and editor Roeder on the accident of Pittrich, then a member of the "Königliche musikalische Kapelle" and a young composer. Philipp Ernst Roeder (1862–1897) also mentioned in the biographical sketch that it was the bite of a
viper on the island of Rügen, which the
Greifswald University Hospital successfully treated. A year earlier, Pittrich was introduced to the newspaper readers of the
Indiana Tribune as a "young composer" in connection with the announcement of his one-act opera "Mara" presented as the "first new production at the Dresden Court Opera". In doing so, the news from Dresden highlighted the first-class cast, e.g. with the
Kammersängerin Therese Müller (1850–1930), called
Malten. At the piano, Pittrich accompanied Dresden singers at out-of-town performances, such as the Royal Saxon Court opera singer
Maria Bossenberger (1872–1919) on 29 March 1898 when she performed Lieder in
Leipzig as part of the
Liszt-Vereinskonzerte.
Kapellmeister at several German theatres Following his musical activity as a répétiteur at the Dresden Court Theatre, Pittrich became a conductor at various German theatres, including Hamburg (from 1898), Frankfurt (from 1901) in Dresden at the
Central-Theater (from 1904). Pittrich first stood at the conductor's podium in Berlin in 1911, when the operetta
Der verbotene Kuss was performed in the ancient
Alte Komische Oper Berlin, reported the Berlin journalist (1876–1941). In the spring of 1912, the "Central-Theater" in Dresden hosted the "farewell benefit" in favour of the "long-time popular Kapellmeister", who went "as conductor to Berlin's Wintergarten". During his time as 1st
Kapellmeister at the
Berlin Wintergarten theatre and composer, Pittrich lived in the then rural community of
Zehlendorf just outside the capital. From 1914, Pittrich worked in Nuremberg. There, he was
Kapellmeister at the
Stadttheater from 1922. He also worked as a teacher of role studies at the Nuremberg Conservatory. In Nuremberg, Pittrich called himself by his first names
George Washington, as the official address book in Dresden already recorded him by name. With his
Christian name "George Washington", Pittrich became known as a composer in the US as well as in England. The
Einwohnerbuch Nürnberg 1928 identifies "G. Pittrich" as a
Kapellmeister as well as a conductor, in particular he was active at that time as a "choral director" at the local
Alten Stadttheater. Pittrich's birthday coincided with that of the first American President
George Washington on 22 February and so it happened that his father Carl Gottlob, later Gottlieb, Pittrich (1831–1908), who at that time was "employed by the American Club", gave him the president's name as his first name.
Creations The composer earned his first fee with the commission to create music for Schiller's
The Maid of Orleans. The 21-year-old rehearsed his composition with the court orchestra and conducted the orchestra himself when the drama was first performed in Dresden in 1891. The composer dedicated two of his songs, the "Wiegendlied" and the song
Mägdlein, nimm dich in Acht to the Royal Saxon Chamber Singer
Clementine von Schuch-Proska (1850–1932) which appeared in autumn 1891 and became "immediately popular". Pittrich wrote music for operas and plays. For example, under the name Georg Pittrich, he composed the music belonging to the plot for the play
Das Märchen vom Glück, whereby the right to perform and the sheet music could be obtained from the author,
Adele Osterloh through the mediation of E. Pierson's Verlagsbuchhandlung in Dresden and Leipzig. The music critic and writer Friedrich Adolf Geißler (1868–1931) judged Pittrich to be a "highly gifted and energetic Kapellmeister" and referred to his "musically excellent" preparation of the performance of
Franz Lehar's operetta '''' at the Central-Theater Dresden. Previously, the music critic Geißler attested to
Kapellmeister Pittrich that he had "proved himself as a finely sensitive, secure and spirited conductor in the best possible way", referring to the first performances of
Die Dollarprinzessin by
Leo Fall and
Heinrich Berté's operetta
Der kleine Chevalier in Dresden in 1907 by the Zentraltheater. Among the successful compositions of Pittrich's Dresden period was the music for the Christmas fairy tale
Die Mäusekönigin or
Wie der Wald in die Stadt kam, for which F. A. Geißler wrote the text. The play saw its 25th performance at the Dresden Central Theatre on 4 January 1906. The music critic
Ludwig Hartmann (1836–1910) praised Pittrich as a "talented conductor" who "worked discipline and delicacy out of the original vaudeville orchestra" of the Dresden Central Theatre, and he referred to the quality of the conducting of Leo Fall's (1873–1925) operetta
The Merry Farmer in 1909.
Portrait A portrait of the composer Georg Pittrich was published in the official journal of the
Deutscher Bühnenverein Bühne und Welt in 1899/1900.... He is characterised there by Goby Eberhardt as "a talented young musician whose opera
Marga met with great acclaim in
Dresden." As a young musician, Pittrich – dressed in tailcoat and white dress shirt with black bow tie, resting his left hand on a dresser and touching his waistcoat with his right hand on the pocket watch chain – was portrayed by the Royal Saxon and Royal Prussian court photographer
Wilhelm Höffert. A bust portrait of this motif was published in 1896 in the biographical-critical sketches of the Dresden Court Theatre. Court supplier Höffert advertised with the coats of arms of the Saxon and Prussian ruling houses as well as that of the
Prince of Wales on the cabinet photo. A hip picture of Pittrich, photographed in 1902 by the court photographer Arthur Marx in Frankfurt, has been in the collection of the Stadt- und Universitäts-Bibliothek there since 2003. At that time, Pittrich worked as 2nd
Kapellmeister of the united municipal theatres in Frankfurt, especially from 1901 at the opera house. The contemporary Theatre Memorial printed a portrait photo of him and it called the
Kapellmeister by his first and family name "Georg Pittrich" while in the address book for 1902 he was entered with the name "Pittrich George W." The portrait in the "Theatre Memorial" shows Pittrich with a
moustache in a dark suit, standing in front of a round table while leaning with his right hand on a book lying there. In May 1901, when Pittrich was still working in Hamburg as
Kapellmeister, he had a print of the original of the soprano
Bianca Bianchi, actually widowed
Pollini († 1897),
née Bertha Schwarz, (1855–1947) on the occasion of her farewell from the stage with a handwritten dedication on the back. == Legacy ==