Siegfried Ochs

OCHS, SIEGFRIED (1858–1929), conductor and composer. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Ochs founded the Berlin Philharmonic Choir in 1882, revived neglected works by Bach and Handel, and promoted the music of Bruckner and Hugo Wolf. He later became professor at the Berlin Hochschule fuer Musik. He wrote a comic opera, Im Namen des Gesetzes (1888); an autobiographical work, Geschehenes, Gesehenes (1922); and Der deutsche Gesangverein (4 vols., 1923–28), a history of German choral singing. His humorous piano variations on the German children's song, S'kommt ein Vogel geflogen, imitating the style of the masters, started a trend which remained popular.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2008 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.