Orchestra Conductor. He is best remembered for his tenure as the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born Frederick Martin Reiner to a non-observant Jewish family, he was raised in Pest and studied piano and composition at the Franz Liszt Academy where one of his teachers was noted composer Béla Bartók. He held posts in Budapest and Dresden, spending time early in his career with Richard Strauss whose works he was to conduct often. Universally considered a very good maestro, many feel that he was prevented from being a great one by his minimalist baton technique, which was difficult to follow, and by his abusive manner toward his players. Indeed, a number of musicians were to comment that while conductors, as a group, can be difficult people Reiner was the rudest and most unpleasant man with whom they ever had to deal. Immigrating to the United States in 1922, he headed the Cincinnati Symphony until 1931, making his first recordings along the way. Becoming an American citizen in 1928, from that year on he held a professorship at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute where Leonard Bernstein was numbered among his students. Reiner was on the the podium of the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1938 until 1948 when he became associated with the Metropolitan Opera. While there he was to lead some much acclaimed productions including a 1949 presentation of Strauss' "Salome" starring Ljuba Welitsch and a famed 1952 reading of Georges Bizet's "Carmen" which headlined Rise Stevens and was both televised and recorded. Reiner became maestro of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1953 and his 10 years in the Windy City are commonly considered to have been the best of his career; he participated in early television broadcasts on WGN and cut a number of records for RCA which are still felt to be standards including Strauss' "Ein Heldenleben" and the Tchaikovsky "Violin Concerto" with Jascha Heifetz. Though slowed by a 1960 heart attack he remained active until the end and at his death was preparing a new production of Richard Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" for the Metropolitan. Much of his recorded legacy remains available on CD, particularly the discs dating from his time in Chicago.