The Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay (1914–1963) studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán

Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leo Weiner. His debut conducting the Budapest Opera was in

1939 and in 1945 he was appointed the company's music director, taking the parallel appointment

with the Budapest Philharmonic. At the 1947 Salzburg Festival, when conductor Otto Klemperer

was forced to withdraw from conducting the premiere of Gottfried Von Einem's opera Dantons Tod,

Fricsay stepped in, receiving international accolades for a sterling performance. He became music

director of the then newly formed RIAS Symphony Orchestra in Germany in 1949. He was

musical director of the Houston Symphony in 1954. He spent much of his time from the 1950s

onward in Germany as music director of the Bavarian State Opera (1956–1958) and as conductor

of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Fricsay's approach to conducting was influenced heavily by Toscanini, whose relationship with the

NBC Symphony he used as a model for his own work with the RIAS Symphony Orchestra. He

emphasized strict tempos and precise playing, with a close adherence to the score. Fricsay's

recordings have a significant cult following among classical music devotees.