Leo Borchard

Lew Ljewitsch "Leo" Borchard (March 31, 1899 – August 23, 1945) was a Russian conductor and briefly musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic. He was born in Moscow to German parents, and grew up in Saint Petersburg where he received a solid musical education, as well being a regular visitor to the Stanislavsky theatre. In 1920, after the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to Germany. Otto Klemperer engaged him as his assistant at the Kroll Opera... more

Lew Ljewitsch "Leo" Borchard (March 31, 1899 – August 23, 1945) was a Russian conductor and briefly musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic. He was born in Moscow to German parents, and grew up in Saint Petersburg where he received a solid musical education, as well being a regular visitor to the Stanislavsky theatre. In 1920, after the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to Germany. Otto Klemperer engaged him as his assistant at the Kroll Opera in Berlin (Klemperer, lacking confidence in his own abilities, expected Borchard to critique his conducting technique). He conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for the first time in January 1933. In 1935, he was banned by the Nazi regime as politically unreliable. He continued teaching at his apartment and received his friends including Boris Blacher and Gottfried von Einem. During World War II he was a Resistance activist, (name: Andrik Krassnow), remaining in Berlin, during which time his duties included contact with Ludwig Lichtwitz, a... less