Günter Wand was a middle-class, Catholic Rhinelander whose musical enthusiasm, talent and ambition were obvious from a young age.

In the early 1980s, Wand became principal conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg and principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was not especially well known in London in the early days, but the BBC concerts, especially at the Proms, soon acquired legendary status as, in his eight and decades, Gunter Wand finally won the acclamation his technical brilliance and profound musicality had always merited.