Guenter Wand, 90; Directed German Orchestras

German conductor Guenter Wand, who directed orchestras in Hamburg and Cologne and appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has died. He was 90.

Wand died Thursday at his home in Ulmiz, Switzerland, according to Norddeutscher Rundfunk, the German broadcasting company whose symphony orchestra he was associated with for the last two decades. It did not give the cause of his death.

Born Jan. 7, 1912, in the western Germany town of Elberfeld, Wand studied philosophy in Cologne before turning to music. At age 20, the opera in the city of Wuppertal took him on as composer and director.

Wand led the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg in 1944 and 1945, and in the months after the end of World War II arranged a revue with the orchestra for American troops. He returned to Germany in fall 1945 and the following year was appointed musical director for Cologne, focusing on the city’s Guerzenich Orchestra.

Wand, whose repertoire centered on Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Schubert, moved to Switzerland after retiring from the Cologne post in 1974.

But in 1982, he became head of the NDR radio symphony orchestra in Hamburg, a post he held for nine years.

Wand made his U.S. debut in January 1989, conducting four concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

He insisted on five four-hour rehearsals of every program, more than double the norm.

In recent years, his recordings had been from live performances rather than the studio, and he had not allowed retakes to be patched over troublesome spots, a common practice in classical music.

“In music, as in life, lying is the beginning of all vice,” Wand told Gramophone magazine in October.

He was made honorary director for life of the Hamburg orchestra.