Artur Rodziński (2 January 1892 – 27 November 1958) was a Polish-American conductor of orchestral music and opera. He began his career after World War I in Poland, where he was discovered by Leopold Stokowski, who invited him to be his assistant with the Philadelphia Orchestra. This engagement led to Rodziński becoming music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also prepared the NBC Symphony Orchestra for Arturo Toscanini before the Italian conductor's debut with them. A dispute in Chicago led to Rodziński's dismissal in 1948, whereupon he shifted his career to Europe, eventually settling in Italy, although continuing to maintain a home in Lake Placid, New York. In November 1958, beset by heart disease, he made his professional return to the United States for the first time in a decade, conducting acclaimed performances of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Exhausted, he checked into Massachusetts General Hospital where he died 11 days later. Biography Early years Rodziński was born in Split, Kingdom of Dalmatia, on 2 January 1892. Soon afterward his father, of Polish descent and a general in the Austro-Hungarian Army, returned with his family to Lemberg, Austrian Galicia, where Artur first studied music. Under pressure from his father, enrolled in the University of Vienna to study law, where he eventually earned his diploma, but he was also simultaneously enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music and the Performing Arts where his teachers included Joseph Marx and Franz Schreker (composition), Franz Schalk (conducting), and Emil von Sauer and (piano). As a young man during World War I, Rodziński fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army; upon Poland's independence, he enlisted in the Polish Land Forces, where he was wounded in action. He returned to Lemberg, which after the war had been granted to newly independent Poland and renamed Lwów. He was first engaged as répétiteur at the Lwów Opera, eventually making his debut as a conductor in 1920 with Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani. The following year he conducted the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and was appointed director of the National Opera of Warsaw. It was there that while visiting Poland Leopold Stokowski heard Rodziński conduct a performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Impressed, Stokowski went to meet Rodziński back stage and invited him to guest conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra. He made his American debut at Philadelphia's