Lovro von Matačić (born 14 February 1899 in Sušak, Rijeka, Austria-Hungary ) was
a Croatian conductor and composer. Raised in a musical family, he joined the
Vienna Boys’ Choir at 8 and studied piano, organ, and theory in Vienna. After a
brief stint as a répétiteur at Cologne Opera, he began conducting in the
interwar period, leading opera houses in Osijek, Novi Sad, Ljubljana, and
Belgrade, and became the first chief conductor of the Belgrade Opera. He gained
international recognition in 1954 with a London recording of Richard Strauss’s
Arabella, which secured a 5‑year contract ...