 Articles and Essays
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John F. Berky
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> Articles and Essays > PseudonymsPseudonyms
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Pseudonyms: Alfred Scholz and The South German Philharmonic Orchestra
Nothing challenges the work of a discographer more than the issue of pseudonyms.
Record catalogues are filled with fictitious conductors where the record producer did not have the rights to the actual performance tape or he thought that a different name (real or otherwise) would help sell the recording.
Orchestras are often mis-labeled for the same reason although there are many cases where a producer contracts a group of musicians and gives the orchestra a name simply to be able to call it something better than a pick-up orchestra. Columbia Records used the name Columbia Symphony Orchestra for all sorts of pick-up ensembles. In the case of Bruckner recordings, it was the name used for the stereo recordings made by Bruno Walter at the end of his career. In this particular case, most of the musicians were actually members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In the music of Anton Bruckner, the pseudo-orchestra with the most performances under its belt is the Sueddeutsche Philharmonie or South German Philharmonic Orchestra.
The South German Philharmonic Orchestra was the invention of Alfred Scholz. It was "created" before 1968 and it consisted mainly of members of the Czech Philharmonic in Prague (who at that time during the "Prague Spring" were allowed to travel until the Soviet crackdown in August, 1968). Other musicians came from the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
Alfred Scholz is an interesting character. He was a conductor/producer working in Germany. In his attempt to market his South German Philharmonic recordings, he would resort to the use of fictitious conductor's names and in many cases, the name of his conducting professor, Hans Swarowsky. In fact, Swarowsky is not known to have conducted Bruckner with the orchestra. Legally there was no way to stop this mis-representation and Scholz usually sold these tapes many times over to different labels often changing the names of the performers. Erika Hitzler has prepared a listing of Bruckner performances known to have been conducted by Hans Swarowsky. That listing is available on the column to the left.
Most of the South German Philharmonic performances are analog recordings made between 1968 and 1970 for Polyband and Primaton and by the Austrian Radio prior to 1977. The recordings by the Austrian Radio were sold in 1977 to Premis, a company owned or controlled by Mr. Scholz. The catalog subsequently passed into the ownership of Musikfoerderung (Verein zur Foerderung der musikalischen Beziehungen zwischen Oesterreich und seinen oestlichen Nachbarlaendern) and is now owned by Point Productions, a company controlled by Wilhelm Mittrich until he was forced to resign in 2004. Scholz (and later Point Productions) licensed these recordings to any company looking to put out inexpensive classical recordings for the mass market or for production music. While the orchestra's name usually stayed the same, the conductors did not. Names such as Alberto Lizzio, Cesare Cantieri, Denis Zsoltay suddenly appeared, but so did real conductor's names such as Hans Zanotelli and Hans Swarowsky.
The recordings are listed in this discography under the name of the conductor listed on the cover of the recording. The recording will be underlined indicating that there is a comment present. Click on the recording to read the comment. Almost all South German Philharmonic recordings have comments suggesting that the conductor's name is a pseudonym.
Other more individual examples of pseudonyms ( Meichnen , Rubahn, etc.) are dealt with at the appropriate listing.
John F. Berky
March 12, 2003 (revised March 21, 2008)
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