RUDOLPH HEROLD
HE FIRST famous orchestra leader in San Francisco was Rudolph Herold, born in Prussia, Germany, March 29, 1832, and died in San Francisco, July 25, 1889. He received his musical education at Leipsic Conservatory with Plaidy and Moscheles, his teachers on the piano, and Mendelssohn, teacher of the theory of music and composition.
He arrived in San Francisco in 1852 as solo pianist and accompanist with the famous Catherine Hayes. He saw opportunities in this young city for fostering and cultivating good music and remained here until his death. He was closely identified with every important musical event up to the time when he was stricken with paralysis three years preceding his death.
In the early fifties he organized, under the patronage of Harry Meiggs, who was an ardent lover of music, the San Francisco Philharmonic society and rendered such important works as Elijah, St. Paulus, by Mendelssohn, Mass Requiem, by Mozart, The Desert, by Felician David, etc., etc. He also organized the famous San Francisco Harmonie, a singing society for male voices. He was organist at St. Mary's Cathedral and the First Unitarian Church for over twenty years and Temple Emanuel for twenty-five years. He had full charge of the great musical festival in 1870, given by Camilla Urso in aid of the Mercantile Library fund and conducted at the second festival given by Sumner Bugbee in conjunction with Carl Zerrahn of Boston. He conducted all the earlier Italian opera seasons given by Bianchi at the old Metropolitan, Maguire's opera house. In 1874 he organized his Symphony orchestra and continued his concerts without financial backing up to the time of his illness, producing the standard symphonic works of the old masters and also those of the more modern composers, such as Schuman, Rubinstein, Raff, Brahms and St. Saens.