Rudolf Kempe
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Rudolf Kempe (June 14, 1910 – May 12, 1976) was a German conductor.
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[edit] Early years
Kempe was born in Dresden, where from the age of 14 he studied at the Dresden State Opera School.
He played the oboe in the opera orchestra at Dortmund and then in the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, from 1929. In addition to the oboe he played the piano regularly, as a soloist, in chamber music or accompanying,[1] as a result of which, in 1933, the new Director of the Leipzig Opera invited Kempe to become a répétiteur, and later a conductor, for the opera.[2]
During the Second World War Kempe was conscripted into the army, but instead of active service was directed into musical activities, playing for the troops and later taking over the chief conductorship of the Chemnitz opera house.[3]
[edit] Opera
Kempe directed the Dresden Opera and the Dresden Staatskapelle from 1949 to 1952, making his first records, including Der Rosenkavalier, Die Meistersinger and Der Freischütz. (‘He obtains some superlative playing from the Dresden orchestra,’ commented The Record Guide.[4]) He maintained a relationship with the Dresden orchestra for the rest of his life, making some of his best-known records with them during the stereo era.
His international career began with engagements at the Vienna State Opera in the 1951 season, for which he conducted Die Zauberflöte, Simon Boccanegra, and Capriccio.[5]
He was invited to succeed Georg Solti as chief conductor of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich from 1952 to 1954, and was permitted by the East German authorities to do so without severing his ties with Dresden.[6] In 1953 Kempe appeared with the Munich company at the Royal Opera House in London, where the General Administrator, Sir David Webster, quickly decided that Kempe would be an ideal Musical Director for the Covent Garden company. Kempe resisted the appointment, and did not accept the top job at any opera house after leaving Munich in 1954. He nonetheless conducted frequently at Covent Garden and was immensely popular there,[7] conducting among other works, Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, the Ring[8], Un Ballo in Maschera and Madama Butterfly, of which the critic Andrew Porter compared Kempe’s conducting favourably with that of Toscanini and de Sabata. [9]. As a guest conductor, Kempe frequently revisited Munich conducting mostly the Italian repertory.
Kempe’s début at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus was in 1960. The Ring cycle he conducted there in that year was notable for multiple casting, with the role of Wotan split between Hermann Uhde and Jerome Hines, and Brünnhilde between Astrid Varnay and Birgit Nilsson.
[edit] Orchestral
From 1961 to 1975 Kempe was chief conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in which role he was the chosen successor of the orchestra's founder, Sir Thomas Beecham. Kempe had been associated with the orchestra since 1955. A member of the RPO later said of Kempe, 'He was a wonderful controller of the orchestra, and a very great accompanist...Kempe was like someone driving a racing-car, following the piano round the bends.'[10]. Kempe abolished Beecham's 'male-only' rule, introducing women into the RPO: an orchestra without them, he said, ‘always reminds me of the army’[11]
From 1965 to 1972 Kempe worked with the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra, and from 1967 to his death conducted the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he made international tours and recorded the first quadraphonic set of the Beethoven symphonies.
In the final months of his life he was the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The opening concert of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts on 16 July 1976, in which he was to have conducted his BBC forces in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, became a memorial concert for him following Kempe's death in Zürich aged 65.[12]
[edit] Selective discography
- Beethoven
- Symphonies 1-9 (Munich Philharmonic, Munich Motettenchor, Urszula Koszut, Brigitte Fassbaender, Nicolai Gedda, Donald MacIntyre)
- Brahms
- Symphonies (BPO)
- Piano Concerto No. 1 (Jakob Gimpel/ BPO)
- Piano Concerto No. 2 (Bruno-Leonardo Gelber / Royal Philharmonic)
- Violin Concerto (Yehudi Menuhin / BPO)
- Ein Deutsches Requiem (Elisabeth Grümmer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Choir of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, Berlin, BPO)
- Bruch
- Violin Concerto No. 1 and Scottish Fantasy (Kyung-Wha Chung / Royal Philharmonic)
- Bruckner
- Symphony No. 4 (Munich PO - live recording)
- Symphony No. 5 (Munich PO - live recording)
- Symphony No. 8 (Tonhalle Orchestra, Zürich)
- Dvořák
- Symphony No. 9 (BPO)
- Symphony No. 9 (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)
- Grieg
- Piano Concerto (Nelson Freire/ Munich PO)
- Haydn
- Symphony No 104 (Philharmonia Orchestra)
- Humperdinck
- Suite from Hänsel und Gretel (RPO)
- Kodály
- Háry János Suite (VPO)
- Korngold
- Symphony in f sharp minor (Munich PO)
- Mahler
- Kindertotenlieder (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau/BPO)
- Symphony No 2 (Sheila Armstrong, Anna Reynolds, New Philharmonia Chorus, BBC SO – live recording)
- Mozart
- Symphonies 34, 39 and 41 (Philharmonia Orchestra)
- Requiem (Elisabeth Grümmer, Marga Höffgen, Helmut Krebs, Gottlob Frick, Choir of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, Berlin, BPO)
- Schumann
- Piano Concerto (Nelson Freire, Munich PO)
- Symphony No 1 (BPO)
- Strauss family
- Die Fledermaus: Overture (VPO)
- Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (VPO)
- Kaiser-Walzer (VPO)
- Im Krapfenwaldl (VPO)
- Radetzky March(VPO)
- Sphären-Klänge (VPO)
- Tausend und eine Nacht : Intermezzo (VPO)
- Geheime Anziehungskräfte (VPO)
- Richard Strauss
- Complete orchestral music (Dresden Staatskapelle):
-
- Eine Alpensinfonie
- Aus Italien
- Le Bourgeois gentilhomme Suite
- Burleske (Malcolm Frager)
- Don Juan
- Don Quixote (Paul Tortelier)
- Duet-Concertino for clarinet, basson and strings (Manfred Weise, Wolfgang Liebscher)
- François Couperin suite
- Ein Heldenleben
- Horn Concerto Nos 1 & 2 (Peter Damm)
- Josephslegende
- Macbeth
- Metamorphosen
- Oboe Concerto (Manfred Clement)
- Panathenäenzug, Etude Symphonique en forme de Passacaille (Peter Rösel)
- Parergon zur Sinfonia Domestica (Peter Rösel)
- Der Rosenkavalier waltzes (arr. Kempe)
- Salome, Tanz der sieben Schleier
- Schlagobers, Waltz
- Sinfonia Domestica
- Till Eulenspiegel
- Tod und Verklärung
- Violin Concerto (Ulf Hoelscher)
-
- Ariadne auf Naxos (Gundula Janowitz, James King, Teresa Żylis-Gara, Sylvia Geszty, Hermann Prey, Theo Adam, Peter Schreier, Dresden Staatskapelle)
- Der Rosenkavalier (Margarete Bäumer, Tiana Lemnitz, Ursula Richter, Kurt Böhme, Saxon State Orchestra)
- Wagner
- Lohengrin (Jess Thomas, Elisabeth Grümmer, Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gottlob Frick, Wiener Staatsoper Chorus, VPO)
- Die Meistersinger (Ferdinand Franz, Gottlob Frick, Benno Kusche, Rudolf Schock, Gerhard Unger, Elisabeth Grümmer, Marga Höffgen, Choir of St. Hedwig’s Cathedral, Berlin, BPO)
[edit] References
- Cox, David, The Henry Wood Proms, BBC, London, 1980, ISBN 0-563-17697-0
- Haltrecht, Montague, The Quiet Showman, Collins, London, 1975, ISBN 0-00-211163-2
- Previn, André (ed), Orchestra, Macdonald and Jane's, London 1979, ISBN 0-354-04420-6
- Sackville-West, Edward and others, The Record Guide, Collins, London, 1955.
- The Gramophone, February 1974, p. 1547, interview and profile by Alan Blyth.
[edit] Notes
| Preceded by Joseph Keilberth |
Chief Conductor, Dresden Staatskapelle 1949–1953 |
Succeeded by Franz Konwitschny |
| Preceded by Georg Solti |
General Music Director, Bavarian State Opera 1952–1954 |
Succeeded by Ferenc Fricsay |
| Preceded by Thomas Beecham |
Principal Conductor, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra 1962–1975 |
Succeeded by Antal Doráti |
| Preceded by Hans Rosbaud |
Chief Conductor, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra 1965–1972 |
Succeeded by Gerd Albrecht |
| Preceded by Fritz Rieger |
Chief Conductor, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra 1967–1976 |
Succeeded by Sergiu Celibidache |
| Preceded by Pierre Boulez |
Chief Conductor, BBC Symphony Orchestra 1975 |
Succeeded by Gennady Rozhdestvensky |
