Oskar Fried (1 August 1871 – 5 July 1941) was a German conductor and composer. He was known as a great admirer of Gustav Mahler, whose works he performed many times throughout his life. Fried was also the first conductor to record a Mahler symphony. He held the distinction of being the first foreign conductor to perform in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution (1922). He eventually left his homeland in 1933 to work in the Soviet Union after the political rise of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, and became a Soviet citizen in 1940. In 1899, Fried married the amateur poet Augusta (Gusti) Rathgeber (1872–1926) and had two daughters with her, Monika and Emerentia (dates are unknown). From 1892, Gusti Rathgeber had been married to German poet Otto Julius Bierbaum but left him when she and Fried met, and fell in love with each other. Biography Born in Berlin, the son of a Jewish shopkeeper, he worked as a clown, a stable boy and a dog trainer before studying composition with Iwan Knorr (1891–92, Hoch'sche Conservatory) and Engelbert Humperdinck (as private student) in Frankfurt. He later moved to Düsseldorf to study painting and art history. After a spell in Paris, he returned to Berlin in 1898 to study counterpoint with Xaver Scharwenka. The performance in Berlin, and later in Vienna, of his composition Das trunkene Lied ("The Drunken Song") for chorus and orchestra brought Fried his first public successes and led to his appointment in 1904 as the conductor of a Berlin choral society. Fried first met Gustav Mahler in Vienna in 1905. The meeting resulted in the second complete performance of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony in Berlin on 8 November 1905, in the presence of the composer (Otto Klemperer led the offstage band during this performance). On 10 November 1906 he introduced Russia to Mahler's music when he performed the same work in St Petersburg. From 1907 to 1910, he directed the famous choral society, Sternscher Gesangverein in Berlin. On 4 February 1913 Fried conducted the German premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic of Mahler's Ninth Symphony, the second performance of the work. Between 24 September and 18 October 1920 he gave the first (almost complete) Mahler cycle in Vienna, conducting all the symphonies (except the 8th which he apparently never performed), incl. Das Lied von der Erde, Kindertotenlieder, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and some Wunderhorn songs. The same year, on 7