The 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.