Career summary

Kunwald studied law at the University of Vienna, taking a Dr. Juris in 1891. He studied piano with Leschetizky and composition with Hermann Graedener at the Vienna Conservatory, then with Salomon Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatory.

From 1895 he held conducting positions in a succession of cities leading to that of second conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic 1907‒12, after which he was conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra 1912‒17, in succession to Stokowski. While in the USA he was interned as an enemy alien and deported, after which he was general music director in Königsberg 1920‒27, then principal conductor of the Berlin Symphony 1928‒32. From 1933 to his death in 1939 he lived in Vienna.

He wrote a textbook on conducting (unpublished), and several published articles.

Kunwald and Schenker

The two men were personally acquainted. Kunwald is first mentioned in Schenker's diary on April 9, 1907 in the company of Fritz Wahle and Moriz Violin in a coffee-house in a discussion of Brahms's epigonism, in which Kunwald is presented as somewhat naive (OJ 1/6, p. 37). Kunwald further figures in the entry for November 11, 1911 (OJ 1/10, p. 185): an "altogether naive article" by him on the Ninth Symphony prompts Schenker to retell the story of the epigonism discussion in greater detail.

A copy of Kunwald's article "Über das Dirigieren," Neue Freie Presse Nov 4, 1934, pp. 27‒28, is preserved as OC 30/69.

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