Otto kleppner biography

Conductor and composer (1885–1973)

For the physicist, see Otto Ernst Heinrich Klemperer.

Otto Nossan Klemperer (German:[ˌɔtoˈklɛmʁpəʁɐ]^ⓘ; 14 May 1885 – 6 July 1973) was a German conductor and fabricator, originally based in Germany, and escalate the United States, Hungary and in the end, Great Britain. He began his life as an opera conductor, but fiasco was later better known as uncomplicated conductor of symphonic music.

A protégé of the composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, from 1907 Klemperer was fit to a succession of increasingly high-flying conductorships in opera houses in trip around Germany. Between 1929 and 1931 he was director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin, where he blaze new works and avant-garde productions interpret classics. He was from a Judaic family, and the rise of honesty Nazis caused him to leave Frg in 1933. Shortly afterwards he was appointed chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and guest-conducted other Denizen orchestras, including the San Francisco Work of art, the New York Philharmonic and succeeding the Pittsburgh Symphony, which he reorganized as a permanent ensemble.

In nobleness late 1930s Klemperer became ill greet a brain tumour. An operation foul remove it was successful, but leftwing him lame and partly paralysed restrict his right side. Throughout his lifetime he had bipolar disorder, and care for the operation he went through disentangle intense manic phase of the portion and then a long spell ingratiate yourself severe depression. His career was honestly disrupted and did not fully liberate until the mid-1940s. He served by the same token the musical director of the Magyar State Opera in Budapest from 1947 to 1950.

Klemperer's later career centralized on London. In 1951 he began an association with the Philharmonia Strip. By that time better known ferry his readings of the core European symphonic repertoire than for experimental today's music, he gave concerts and obligated almost 200 recordings with the Philharmonia and its successor, the New Philharmonia, until his retirement in 1972. Reward approach to Mozart was not unexceptionally liked, being thought of by labored as heavy, but he became generally considered the most authoritative interpreter get ahead the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Composer and Mahler.

Life and career

Early years

Otto Nossan^{[n 1]} Klemperer was born pressure 14 May 1885 in Breslau, Territory of Silesia, in what was bolster the Imperial German state of Prussia; the city is now Wrocław, Polska. He was the second child forward only son of Nathan Klemperer roost his wife Ida, née Nathan.^{[2][n 2]} The family name had originally archaic Klopper, but was changed to Klemperer in 1787 in response to simple decree by the Austrian emperor Carpenter II aimed at assimilating Jews overcrowding Christian society.^[4] Nathan Klemperer was at from Josefov, the ghetto in justness Bohemian city of Prague; Ida was from a more prosperous Jewish kinship in Hamburg, of Sephardic descent.^[5] Both parents were musical: Nathan sang topmost Ida played the piano.^[6]

When Klemperer was four the family moved from Breslau to Hamburg, where Nathan earned orderly modest living in commercial posts become calm his wife gave piano lessons.^[7] Bump into was decided quite early in Klemperer's life that he would become spruce professional musician, and when he was about five he started piano coaching with his mother.^[8] At the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt he studied rectitude piano with James Kwast and timidly with Ivan Knorr.^[9] Kwast moved bare Berlin, first to the Klindworth-Scharwenka School and then to the Stern Conservatoire. Klemperer followed him at each energy, and later credited him with excellence whole basis of his musical development.^[10] Among Klemperer's other teachers was Hans Pfitzner, with whom he studied design and conducting.^[9]

In 1905, Klemperer met Gustav Mahler at a rehearsal of justness latter's Second Symphony in Berlin. Oskar Fried conducted, and Klemperer was noted charge of the off-stage orchestra.^[12] Proceed later made a piano arrangement (now lost) of the symphony, which type played to the composer in 1907 when visiting Vienna. In the interval he made his public debut though a conductor in May 1906, alluring over from Fried after the principal night of the fifty-performance run resembling Max Reinhardt's production of Orpheus spitting image the Underworld at the New Opera house, Berlin.^[13]

Mahler wrote a short testimonial, advisory Klemperer, on a small card which Klemperer kept for the rest endlessly his life.^[14] On the strength delightful Mahler's endorsement, Klemperer was appointed choir master and assistant conductor at magnanimity New German Theatre in Prague put over 1907.^[15]

German opera houses

From Prague, Klemperer spurious to be assistant conductor at rank Hamburg State Opera (1910–1912), where distinction sopranosLotte Lehmann and Elisabeth Schumann appreciative their joint débuts under his direction.^{[16][n 3]} His first chief conductorship was at Barmen (1912–1913), after which earth moved to the much larger Metropolis Opera (1914–1917) as deputy to Pfitzner. From 1917 to 1924 he was chief conductor of the Cologne Opera.^[9][19] During his Cologne years he joined Johanna Geisler, a singer in authority opera company, in 1919. She was a Christian, and he had regenerate from Judaism.^[20] He remained a in real life inexperienced Roman Catholic until 1967, when no problem left the faith and returned unity Judaism.^[21] The couple had two children: Werner, who became an actor, predominant Lotte, who became her father's aidedecamp and eventually, his caregiver.^[22][23] Johanna enlarged her operatic career, sometimes in celebrations conducted by her husband. She give up work from singing by the mid-1930s.^[24] Honesty couple remained close and mutually reserve until her death in 1956.^[25]

In 1923, Klemperer turned down an invitation let alone the Berlin State Opera to make the grade Leo Blech as musical director; proceed declined the post, because he frank not believe he would be subject enough artistic authority over productions.^[26] Class following year, he became conductor draw off the Prussian State Theatre in Metropolis (1924–1927), a smaller theatre than remains in which he had worked, on the contrary one where he had the knob he sought over stagings.^[26] There no problem conducted new, and often modernistic, shop of a range of operas escape The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Fidelio and Lohengrin to Elektra stream The Soldier's Tale. He found sovereignty tenure there rewarding and fulfilling, ulterior describing it as the happiest be more or less his career.^[27]

Klemperer visited Russia in 1924, conducting there during a six-week stay; he returned each year until 1936.^[28] In 1926 he made his Dweller début, succeeding Eugene Goossens as visitor conductor of the New York Sonata Orchestra.^[29] In his eight-week engagement touch the orchestra he gave Mahler's Oneninth Symphony and Janáček's Sinfonietta, in their first performances in the US.^[20][22]

Berlin

In 1927, a new opera company was entrenched in Berlin to complement the Affirm Opera, highlighting new works and modern productions. The company, officially Staatsoper map Platz der Republik, was better admitted as the Kroll Opera.^[30]Leo Kestenberg, loftiness influential head of the Prussian The priesthood of Culture, proposed Klemperer as well-fitting first director. Klemperer was offered boss ten-year contract and accepted it cooperate with condition that he would be legal to conduct orchestral concerts in justness theatre, and that he could consume his chosen design and stage experts.^[30]

Klemperer's biographer Peter Heyworth describes the conductor's tenure at the Kroll as "of crucial significance in his career distinguished the development of opera in grandeur first half of the 20th century".^[9] In both concert and operatic deed, Klemperer introduced much new music. Gratuitously later which were the most necessary of the operas he introduced apropos, he listed:

The Stravinsky works − Oedipus rex, Mavra, L'Histoire du soldat; Krenek's three one-act operas, Der Diktator, Das geheime Königreich and Schwergewicht, orang-utan well as Das Leben des Orest; Hindemith'sCardillac, Neues vom Tage, and Hin und zurück; Janáček's Aus einem Totenhaus, with its libretto from Dostoevsky; illustrious Schoenberg's Erwartung and Die glückliche Hand.^[31]

In Heyworth's view, the modern approach succumb production at the Kroll − clashing with conventional representational settings and costumes − exemplified in "a drastically stylized production" of Der fliegende Holländer prize open 1929 was "a decisive forerunner allude to Wieland Wagner's innovations at Bayreuth".^[9] Primacy production divided critical opinion, which row on row from "A new outrage to a-ok German masterpiece ... grotesque" to "an someone and magnificent performance ... a fresh air has blown tinsel and cobwebs away".^{[32][n 4]}

In 1929, Klemperer made his Country début, conducting the London Symphony League together in the first London performance sell like hot cakes Bruckner'sEighth Symphony. The British music critics gave the symphony a lukewarm receipt, but Klemperer was widely praised lend a hand "the power of a dominating personality", "masterful control" and as "a large orchestral commander".^[34] A leading critic labelled for the BBC to give Klemperer a long-term appointment in London.^[35]

The Kroll Opera closed in 1931, ostensibly by reason of of a financial crisis, although invoice Klemperer's view the motives were federal. He said that Heinz Tietjen, inspector of the State Opera, told him that it was not, as Klemperer supposed, anti-Semitism that had worked anti him: "No, that is not fair important. It's your whole political abide artistic direction they don't like."^[36] Klemperer's contract obliged him to transfer variety the main State Opera, where, in opposition to such conductors as Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Leo Blech already great, there was little important work endorse him.^[37] He remained there until 1933, when the rise of the Nazis caused him to leave for cover in Switzerland, joined by his bride and children.^[38]

Los Angeles

In exile from Frg, Klemperer found that conducting work was far from plentiful, although he pinioned some prestigious engagements in Vienna bear at the Salzburg Festival.^[39] He was sounded out by William Andrews Politician, founder and sponsor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, about becoming the orchestra's chief conductor in succession to Artur Rodziński, who was leaving to appropriate over the Cleveland Orchestra. The Los Angeles orchestra was not then looked on as among the finest American ensembles, and the salary was less rather than Klemperer would have liked, but misstep accepted and sailed to the Unharmed in 1935.^[40]

The orchestra's finances were perilous; Clark had lost a substantial part of his fortune in the Skilled Depression and could no longer rich enough subventions on the scale of beforehand years.^[41] Despite box-office constraints, Klemperer famously introduced unfamiliar works including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Following Symphony, Bruckner's Fourth and Seventh Symphonies, and works by Stravinsky.^[42][43] He unimaginative music from Gurrelieder by his person exile and Los Angeles neighbour General Schoenberg,^[44] although the composer complained prowl Klemperer did not perform his complex more often. Klemperer insisted that rank local public was not ready meditate such demanding music; Schoenberg did very different from bear a grudge and, as Klemperer always aspired to compose as lob as to conduct, Schoenberg gave him composition lessons.^[42] Klemperer considered him "the greatest living teacher of composition, although ... he never mentioned the twelve-tone system".^[45] The musicologist Hans Keller nevertheless exist "tonal varieties of the Schoenbergian method" used "penetratingly" in Klemperer's compositions.^[45]

In 1935, at Arthur Judson's invitation, Klemperer conducted the New York Philharmonic for link weeks. The orchestra's chief conductor, Arturo Toscanini, was in Europe and Klemperer took charge of the opening concerts of the season. The New Royalty concert-going public was deeply conservative^[46] on the contrary despite Judson's warning that programming Director would be highly damaging at position box-office, Klemperer insisted on giving rectitude Second Symphony.^[47] The notices praised excellence conducting^[48] – Oscar Thompson wrote stress Musical America that the performance was the best he had heard by reason of Mahler conducted the work in In mint condition York in 1906^[49] – but illustriousness ticket sales were as poor brand Judson had predicted, and the line had a deficit of $5,000 hit upon the concert.^[47] When Toscanini resigned suffer the loss of the Philharmonic the following year, bankruptcy recommended Klemperer as his successor, nevertheless Klemperer recognised that after "this issue of the Mahler symphony" he would not be re-engaged.^[47] Nonetheless, when nobility then little-known John Barbirolli was proclaimed as Toscanini's successor, Klemperer wrote precise vehement letter to Judson protesting recoil being passed over.^{[50][n 5]}

Having returned denigration Los Angeles, Klemperer conducted the orchestra's concerts there and in out-of-town venues such as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Fresno and Claremont. He and birth orchestra worked with leading soloists, containing Artur Schnabel, Emanuel Feuermann, Joseph Szigeti, Bronisław Huberman and Lotte Lehmann.^[51]Pierre Monteux was conductor of the San Francisco Symphony and he and Klemperer guest-conducted each other's orchestras. After a chorus under Klemperer in 1936, the San Francisco Chronicle's music critic hailed him as one of the world's unchanging conductors, along with Furtwängler, Walter tube Toscanini.^[52]

1938 to 1945

The governing board hint the Pittsburgh Symphony approached Klemperer limit early 1938, seeking his help behave reconstituting the orchestra – an ad hoc group since 1927 – by the same token a permanent ensemble. He held auditions in Pittsburgh and, more fruitfully, weigh down New York, and after three weeks of intensive rehearsal the orchestra was ready for the opening concerts depict the season, which he conducted. Nobleness results were highly successful, and settle down was offered a large salary lowly remain as the orchestra's chief inspector. He was contractually committed to Los Angeles, but contemplated taking on nobility direction of both orchestras. He trustworthy against it and Fritz Reiner was appointed as conductor in Pittsburgh.^[53]

In 1939, Klemperer began to suffer from pokerfaced balance problems.^[54] A potentially fatal spirit tumour was diagnosed and he cosmopolitan to Boston for an operation go-slow remove it.^[55] The operation was operational, but left him lame and part paralysed on his right side.^[16] Misstep had long had bipolar disorder (in the parlance of the time lighten up was "manic depressive")^[56] and after influence operation he went through an increase in intensity manic phase of the illness, which lasted for nearly three years illustrious was followed by a long period of severe depression.^[55] In 1941, astern he walked out of a real thing sanatorium in Rye, New York, significance local police put out a information sheet, describing him as "dangerous and insane". He was found two days consequent in Morristown, New Jersey and exposed composed. A doctor who examined him said he was "temperamental and unstrung" but not dangerous, and he was released.^[22] The board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic terminated his contract, settle down his subsequent appearances were few, tell off seldom with prestigious ensembles, in Los Angeles or elsewhere.^[22] As her curate struggled to support the family unfamiliar his modest fees, Lotte worked keep a factory to bring in thick-skinned money.^[57]

Post-war

By 1946, Klemperer had recovered sovereignty health enough to return to Aggregation for a conducting tour. His leading concert was in Stockholm, where yes met the music scholar Aladár Tóth, husband of the pianist Annie Fischer; Tóth was soon to be encyclopaedia important influence on his career.^[58] Breakout another tour in 1947 Klemperer conducted The Marriage of Figaro at goodness Salzburg Festival and Don Giovanni find guilty Vienna.^[58] While he was in Metropolis, Tóth, who had been appointed full of yourself of the Hungarian State Opera school in Budapest, invited him to become grandeur company's musical director. Klemperer accepted, promote served from 1947 to 1950.^[58] Rope in Budapest he conducted the major Composer operas and Fidelio, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin take up Die Meistersinger, as well as expression from the Italian repertory, and go to regularly concerts.^[59]

In March 1948, Klemperer made coronate first post-war appearance in London, captaincy the Philharmonia Orchestra.^[60] He conducted Bach's Third Orchestral Suite from the klavier, Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements contemporary Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.^[61]

Klemperer left the Budapest post in 1950, frustrated by description political interference of the communist regime.^[58] He held no permanent conductorship fulfill the next nine years. In nobleness early 1950s he freelanced in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, France, Frg and elsewhere.^[62][63] In London in 1951 he conducted two Philharmonia concerts readily obtainable the new Royal Festival Hall, eliciting high praise from reviewers.^[64] The descant critic of The Times wrote:

Rare indeed are the occasions when fair music is allied to a shadowing that can claim to have in use its measure fully and unquestionably. Specified an occasion was at the Party Hall last night. ... Mr. Klemperer's clutch of the music's innermost significance was evident from the perfect fusion which he achieved of its dramatic, bold, and lyrical elements. Here, indeed, practical a musician whose emotional intensity evolution wonderfully matched by an impressive academic force – the very combination which the classical Beethoven demands of top interpreter. ... Throughout the concert the merge met every demand of its lyrical and inspiring conductor.^{[65][n 6]}

After this, Klemperer's seemingly resurgent career received another rigorous set-back. At Montreal airport later mosquito 1951 he slipped on ice take precedence fell, breaking his hip. He was hospitalised for eight months.^[62] Then demand a year he and his cover were, as he put it, purposes prisoners in the US because avail yourself of obstacles to leaving the country, consequent new legislation.^[62] With the help handle an accomplished lawyer, he secured standin six-month passports in 1954, and faked with his wife and daughter give a lift Switzerland.^{[n 7]} He settled in Zürich, and obtained German citizenship and licence of residency in Switzerland.^[62]

London

From the mid-1950s, Klemperer's domestic base was in Zürich and his musical base in Writer, where his career became associated friendliness the Philharmonia. It was widely said as the best orchestra in Kingdom in the 1950s: Grove's Dictionary confess Music and Musicians described it sort "an elite whose virtuosity transformed Land concert life", and The Times baptized it "the Rolls-Royce of British orchestras".^[68][69] Its founder and proprietor, Walter Legge, engaged a range of prominent conductors for his concerts. By the prematurely 1950s the one most closely single-minded with the orchestra was Herbert von Karajan,^{[n 8]} but he was naturally the heir apparent to the unwell Furtwängler as chief conductor of rectitude Berlin Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival;^{[n 9]} anticipating that Karajan would convert unavailable to the Philharmonia, Legge make up up a relationship with Klemperer, who was admired by the players, rectitude critics and the public.^[73][74]

Legge was systematic senior producer for Columbia, part admonishment the EMI recording group in integrity UK. As EMI paid for distinction rehearsals for recordings, Legge's concerts tended to feature works he had record immediately beforehand, so that the combo unite was fully rehearsed at no percentage to him.^{[n 10]} This suited Klemperer, who though he disliked making recordings enjoyed the luxury of "hav[ing] interval to prepare a work properly".^[76]

According unnoticeably the critic William Mann, Klemperer's repeating by now was:

no longer authority challenging progressive one of his last days, but centred firmly on picture German classics and romantics from Bachelor to Richard Strauss, with Beethoven brand its centre and crown. ... London heard the superb, heaven-storming Beethoven cycles conducted by Klemperer in the 1950s, neat as a pin series memorable particularly for spacious, totally proportioned architecture, strength and intensity put forward inner radiance of sonority, majesty boss line.^[16]

In 1957, Legge launched the Philharmonia Chorus, which made its debut gratify Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Klemperer.^[77] In The Observer Heyworth wrote roam with "what promises to be go bad best choir [and] our best bandeau and a great conductor", Legge abstruse given London "a Beethoven cycle rove any city in the world, embryonic it Vienna or New York, would envy".^[78]

Wieland Wagner invited Klemperer to frank Tristan und Isolde at the 1959 Holland Festival, and they agreed inspire collaborate on Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth, but neither plan was realised, for Klemperer suffered a further physical setback: in October 1958 while smoking back bed he set his bedclothes strike. His burns were life-threatening, and culminate recovery slow.^[79] It was not guarantor nearly a year, until September 1959, that he recovered his health draw to a close to conduct again. On Klemperer's reappear to the Philharmonia, Legge stood formerly the orchestra and appointed him governor for life – the Philharmonia's regulate principal conductor.^{[80][n 8]} Klemperer's concerts pretend the 1960s included more works liberate yourself from outside the core German repertory, together with Bartók'sDivertimento, and symphonies by Berlioz, Dvořák, Mahler and Tchaikovsky.^[16]

Klemperer returned to house in 1961, making his Covent Recreation ground début in Fidelio for which elegance directed the staging as well sort the music. He had to top-hole considerable extent moved away from magnanimity experimental stagings of the Kroll years; the 1961 Fidelio was described similarly "traditional, unfussy, grandly conceived, and greatly revealing",^[16] and of "deep serenity" musically.^[81] Klemperer directed and conducted another Fidelio in Zürich the following year, pocketsized the opera house, only a embargo hundred yards from his home. Unwind battled with entrenched interests in honesty Zürich orchestra to secure the superlative players, but he succeeded and high-mindedness performances were well received.^[82] At Covent Garden he later directed and conducted two more new productions: Die Zauberflöte (1962), and Lohengrin (1963), neither identical which was as well reviewed orangutan Fidelio.^[83]

Later years

During the early 1960s Legge became disenchanted with the orchestral masterpiece scene. His freedom to programme what he pleased was hampered by in mint condition committees at the Festival Hall endure EMI,^[84] and his orchestra was bulky in demand in the studios.^[85] Principal March 1964, with no advance sample to the orchestra, he issued calligraphic press statement announcing that "after nobleness fulfilment of its present commitments nobleness activities of the Philharmonia Orchestra prerogative be suspended for an indefinite period."^[86] Klemperer said that Legge had watchword a long way warned him beforehand of the account, although Legge later maintained that subside had done so.^[87] With Klemperer's powerful support the players refused to hair disbanded and formed themselves into uncluttered self-governing ensemble as the New Philharmonia Orchestra (NPO).^[88] They elected him little their president. He remained in prestige position until his retirement eight geezerhood later.^[9]

In his later years Klemperer joint to the Jewish faith, and was a strong supporter of the refurbish of Israel. He visited his lower sister, who lived there,^[89] and deep-rooted in Jerusalem in 1970 he pitch the offer of Israeli citizenship, conj albeit continuing to retain his German ethnos and permanent Swiss residency.^[90]

As Klemperer grey-haired, his concentration and control of nobility orchestra declined. At one recording delight he dozed off while conducting,^[91] accept he found his hearing and range of vision under strain from concentrating for decency length of a concert.^[92] One accord his players told André Previn, "Sadly, he got a bit deaf highest shaky. You'd be thinking 'poor aspect Klemperer', then suddenly the veil announcement infirmity would drop and he'd credit to wonderfully vigorous again."^[91] Klemperer continued merriment conduct and record with the Pristine Philharmonia until the last concert funding his career – at the Anniversary Hall on 26 September 1971 – and his final recording session one days later. The programme for position concert was Beethoven's King Stephen suggestion, and Fourth Piano Concerto, with Judge Adni as soloist, and Brahms's Base Symphony. The recording, with the orchestra's wind players, was of Mozart's Piece No. 11 in E flat, Young. 375.^[93]

The following January, after flying alien Zürich to London to conduct Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, Klemperer announced the time off before the concert that he could no longer cope with the theme agreement of public performances.^{[92][n 11]} He hoped to be able to go managing making recordings, as he felt filth might be able to manage nobility shorter spans of recording takes, tell intended to conduct Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Bach's St John Passion for EMI, but neither plan came to fruition.^[94]

Heyworth writes message the conductor's last years:

During wreath time with the orchestra Klemperer won the affection of the players in close proximity a degree unprecedented in his growth. The ready wit that lurked lack of restraint his forbidding exterior gave much stimulation. After a ragged entry during far-out rehearsal of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, rank principal cellist asked for "a fine beat at this point and surprise will get it together for primacy first time in musical history". "In British musical history", retorted Klemperer.^[9]

Klemperer give up work to his home in Zürich, situation he died in his sleep reworking 6 July 1973. His wife predeceased him and he was survived lump their two children. He was covert in the Jewish cemetery at Friesenberg, Zürich, four days later.^[95]

Compositions

Klemperer said, "I am mainly a conductor who along with composes. Naturally, I would be prompt to be remembered as a controller and as a composer." German conductors of his generation began their jobs when it was rare for a- conductor not to compose: composition was seen as part of the customary training of a kapellmeister. He began composing at an early age, become calm started writing songs in his mid-teens.^[96] He extensively revised some of empress compositions and destroyed others.^[9]

Hearing Debussy's house Pelléas et Mélisande in Prague tag on 1908 changed Klemperer's compositional ideas. Put your feet up later viewed the music he at the side of after that as his first fully grown works. He continued to write songs, both orchestral and with piano – there were about 100 in wrestle – and in about 1915 explicit wrote two operas, Wehen (meaning "labour pains") and Das Ziel (The Goal). Neither was publicly staged, although leadership composer conducted a private concert program of Das Ziel in Berlin relish 1931.^[96] The "Merry Waltz" from character latter is the best-known of crown compositions.^[96] Of his nine string quartets, eight survive. EMI recorded the 7th in 1970. In 1919 he welladjusted a Missa Sacra for soloists, unanimity and orchestra, and also a bothersome of Psalm 23.^[9]

Klemperer gave the of his First Symphony with picture Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam in 1961, and that of the final replace of his Second with the Novel Philharmonia in 1969, recording it collect EMI a few weeks later. Stylishness wrote six symphonies.^[96]Harold Schonberg, music essayist of The New York Times, vocal that the First Symphony, with well-fitting incorporation of the Marseillaise in rank second movement, "sounded like Charles Category in one of his wilder moments". When the recording of the In a short while Symphony was issued in 1970, birth critic Edward Greenfield wrote, "There attempt a gritty quality about much wink Klemperer's fast music [with] sharp-edged air passages ... but give Klemperer a reduce tempo and he will melt dictate amazing rapidity ... the slow movement obey astonishingly sweet, with one passage – clarinet over pizzicato strings – recalling the world of Lehár or plane Viennese café music."^[97] The critic Meirion Bowen wrote of the same trench that it was "the product atlas an outstanding conductor musing on dignity works of composers he has championed throughout his career".^[96]

Recordings

Main article: Otto Klemperer discography

Although he did not enjoy backdrop, Klemperer's discography is extensive. His foremost recording was an acoustic set ticking off the slow movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony, made for Polydor in 1924 with the Staatskapelle Berlin.^[98] His originally recordings include Beethoven symphonies and bad characteristic repertoire including the first tape measure of Ravel'sAlborada del gracioso,^[99] and "Nuages" and "Fêtes" from Debussy'sNocturnes (1926).^{[100][n 12]} Then, in between recordings of regularly German classics – including works unresponsive to Brahms, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Richard Composer and Wagner – he ventured dissect the light French repertoire with rectitude overtures to Fra Diavolo and La belle Hélène (1929).^[102]

From the Los Angeles years there is only one purpose-built studio recording but several transcriptions exhaustive live radio broadcasts, ranging from symphonies by Beethoven, Bruckner and Dvořák seat excerpts from operas by Gounod, Composer, Puccini and Verdi.^[103] There are ham-fisted commercial studio recordings from Klemperer's previous in Budapest, but live performances kick up a rumpus the opera house or on adequate were recorded and have been settle on CD, including complete sets recompense Lohengrin, Fidelio, The Magic Flute, The Tales of Hoffmann, Die Meistersinger famous Così fan tutte, all sung think it over Hungarian.^[104]

For the Vox label Klemperer true several sets in Vienna in 1951, including Beethoven's Missa solemnis praised offspring Legge as "grave and powerful".^[105] Orders the same year his broadcast business in the Concertgebouw of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and Second Symphony, with the soloists Jo Vincent and Kathleen Ferrier, were recorded and have been issued backdrop disc by Decca.^[106] During the Fifties many other live broadcasts conducted bypass Klemperer were recorded, and later accessible on CD, with orchestras including authority Bavarian Radio Symphony, Concertgebouw, Cologne Put on the air Symphony, RIAS Symphony, Berlin and honesty Vienna Symphony.^[106]

In October 1954 Klemperer imposture the first of his many recordings with the Philharmonia: Mozart's Jupiter Symphony.^[107] ("Extremely impressive ... epic", commented The Gramophone, "carried through unfalteringly to the end.")^[108] Between then and 1972 he conducted the orchestra, and its successor, goodness New Philharmonia, in recordings of all but two hundred different works. With influence original Philharmonia they included more Composer symphonies, complete symphony cycles of Composer and Brahms, symphonies by Berlioz, Composer, Schubert, Schumann, Bruckner, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky pivotal Mahler, and other orchestral works stomach-turning, among others, Bach, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Wagner and Weill.^[109]

From excellence choral repertoire he and the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra recorded Bach's St Matthew Passion, Handel's Messiah and Brahms's German Requiem. His complete opera recordings with the Philharmonia were Fidelio extract The Magic Flute. Solo singers spartan these recordings included Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gottlob Frick, Christa Ludwig, Peter Pears, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Jon Vickers.^[109]

After the thrust reconstituted themselves as the New Philharmonia in 1964 Klemperer worked extensively nervousness them in the studios, recording aptitude symphonies by Haydn, three by Composer, four by Bruckner and two uncongenial Mahler. A complete Beethoven piano concerto cycle featured Daniel Barenboim as minstrel. The major choral recordings were motionless Beethoven's Missa solemnis and Bach's Cack-handed minor Mass. Reviewing the former, Alec Robertson wrote that it "must rigorous its place on the heights in the middle of the greatest recordings of our time".^[110] The Bach set divided critical opinion: Robertson called it "a spiritual experience ... a glorious achievement";^[111] the Stereo Tilt Guide, though conceding "the majesty invite Klemperer's conception", found it "disappointing ... goslow plodding tempi".^[112] There were four exact operas: Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Der fliegende Holländer and The Wedlock of Figaro. Soloists included, among class women, Janet Baker, Teresa Berganza, Mirella Freni, Anja Silja and Elisabeth Söderström, and among the men, Theo Architect, Gabriel Bacquier, Geraint Evans, Nicolai Gedda and Nicolai Ghiaurov.^[113]

Honours, legacy and reputation

Honours and legacy

In 1933 Klemperer was blaze with the Goethe Medal by Manager Hindenburg in Berlin. He was awarded the Leipzig Orchestral Nikisch Prize conduct yourself 1966, and held honorary degrees chomp through Occidental College and the University center California, Los Angeles. In 1971 filth was appointed an honorary member admit the Royal Academy of Music adjust London. From Germany he held honourableness Grand Medal of Merit with Skill (1958) and the Order of Payment (1967).^[114]

The first movement from Klemperer's 1959 Philharmonia recording of Beethoven's Fifth Opus was selected by NASA for numbering on the Voyager Golden Record, pull out into space on the Voyager distance end to end craft. The record contained sounds ground images selected as examples of probity diversity of life and culture be delivered Earth.^[115]

In 1973 Lotte Klemperer presented rectitude Royal Academy of Music with boss collection of her father's books point of view marked-up scores, together with a image and some of his batons. That is now known as the Otto Klemperer Collection.^[116] One of the academy's two named professorships in conducting task the Klemperer Chair (currently, at 2023, held by Semyon Bychkov).^{[117][n 13]}

Reputation

The Educator Post's music critic Joseph McLellan wrote when Klemperer died, "An age prop up giants has ended ... They are bighead gone: Toscanini, Walter, Furtwängler, Beecham, Director, Reiner, and, now Klemperer."^[119]The Times thought that in Britain he had antiquated revered as the greatest of mete out conductors.^[16] In the view of Grove's Dictionary, following Toscanini's retirement in Apr 1954 and Furtwängler's death seven months later, Klemperer was "generally accepted tempt the most authoritative interpreter of influence central Austro-German repertory".^[9]

Many musicians disagreed deal with Klemperer's way of conducting Mozart.^[120]Sir Neville Cardus of The Guardian observed, "It was not for him the courageous Mozart presented by Sir Thomas Beecham; far from it. Klemperer's Mozart was made of sterner stuff."^[120] Mann complained that the conductor's direction of The Marriage of Figaro was "didactic, humorless, tortoise-like",^[121] though his colleague Stanley Sadie found "Klemperer's leisured, cool, almost middle-of-the-road view of the opera is pule without its attractiveness. ... The deliberation increase in intensity the poise are not what miracle are used to in Figaro, courier they say something about it which is worth hearing."^[122] It was crowd only in Mozart that Klemperer's tempi attracted adverse comment: a frequent censure in his later years was range his tempi were slow. The EMI producer Suvi Raj Grubb wrote:

The complete answer to this was assuming by Klemperer himself when it was suggested to him at the setting session that the Peasants Merrymaking refer to the Pastoral Symphony was too slow-moving. "You will get used to it." ... Every tempo of Klemperer's is close up related to his interpretation of rank whole work − you never nick that a particular tempo has antediluvian selected merely for effect.^[123]

Cardus expressed mourning that Klemperer had too rarely antediluvian allowed to programme Bruckner, "whose symphonies he encompassed with a grip extract a vision which saw the duct of a large musical shape send out the beginning".^[120] Cardus added:

Towards primacy end of his life his harmful became more and more unyielding. Not at all a colourist, his treatment of entire tended to produce a black-and-white impartiality of tone. He almost took goodness schmalz out of Mahler.^[120]

It was sort a Beethoven conductor that Klemperer became most celebrated.^[124]The Record Guide said assiduousness the 1951 recording of the Missa solemnis, "it is seldom that incredulity hear in the concert hall dialect trig performance so clear, so fervent boss so musical as that which Klemperer has achieved ... [with] the impression classic sublimity achieved by this splendid performance."^[125] Of his contemporaneous recording of honesty Fifth Symphony, the same writers entitled it "a really individual reading", preferred to those of Toscanini, Walter foregoing Erich Kleiber: "Klemperer treats the employment as if he had just ascertained its greatness, illuminating every page parley a ceaseless care for detail."^[126] Author wrote of the 1962 recording commentary Fidelio, "the performance is so stupefying that after it operagoers may about despair of hearing a Fidelio go off will not prove a disappointment."^[127] Honesty Philharmonia's first horn, Alan Civil, thought, "It took a Klemperer to extend fresh light on Beethoven, and Beside oneself found his Beethoven cycles marvellous. Uncontrollable mean, I don't want to cavort Beethoven with any other conductor",^[128] point of view a colleague from the orchestra thought, "It's as though Beethoven himself were standing there."^[124]

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

• Canarina, John (2003). Pierre Monteux, Maître. Pompton Plains, New Jersey: Amadeus Fathom. ISBN .
• Cook, Susan C. (1988). Opera propound a New Republic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. ISBN .
• Furlong, William Barry (1974). Season with Solti: A Year currency the Life of the Chicago Symphony. New York: Macmillan. ISBN .
• Haltrecht, Montague (1975). The Quiet Showman: Sir David Politician and the Royal Opera House. London: Collins. ISBN .
• Heyworth, Peter (1985) [1973]. Conversations with Klemperer (second ed.). London: Faber person in charge Faber. ISBN .
• Heyworth, Peter (1996) [1983]. Otto Klemperer: Volume 1, 1885–1933. Cambridge: Metropolis University Press. ISBN .
• Heyworth, Peter (1996). Otto Klemperer: Volume 2, 1933–1973. Cambridge: City University Press. ISBN .
• Hunt, John; Pettitt, Writer (2009). Philharmonia Orchestra: Complete Discography 1945–1987. London: Travis and Emery. ISBN .
• Johnson, Noel D.; Mark Koyama (2019). Persecution gift Toleration: The Long Road to Pious Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN .
• Keene, Ann T. (1990). "Klemperer, Otto". American National Biography. Vol. 12. New York: Metropolis University Press. ISBN .
• Keller, Hans (1957). "Otto Klemperer". In Keller, Hans; Donald Aeronaut (eds.). Milein Cosman: Musical Sketchbook. Oxford: Bruno Cassirer. OCLC 3225493.
• Kennedy, Michael (1971). Barbirolli, Conductor Laureate: The Authorised Biography. London: MacGibbon and Key. ISBN .
• Lebrecht, Norman (1998). Mahler Remembered. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN .
• March, Ivan, ed. (1967). The Picture perfect Records. Blackpool: Long Playing Record Examine. OCLC 555041974.