Muck, Carl (1859-1940)

German conductor. He was noted for his performances of Bruckner's symphonies. He gave the first Russian performances of Wagner's Ring in 1889.

He studied at Heidelberg University and at Leipzig University and Conservatory. In 1880 he began a career as a pianist, but became a conductor at Salzburg, Brno, and Graz in succession, at Prague in 1886, and finally at the Royal Opera, Berlin, in 1892. He gave the first Russian performance of the Ring in 1889, and conducted Wagner in London and from 1901 at Bayreuth (Parsifal until 1930), also the Philharmonic concerts in Vienna. From 1906 to 1918, with an interruption, he conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Arrested as an enemy alien in 1918, he returned to Europe after World War I and conducted in Hamburg 1922-33.