Otto Klemperer

Conductor

• Born: May 14, 1885
• Birthplace: Breslau, Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland)
• Died: July 6, 1973
• Place of death: Zurich, Switzerland

German classical conductor

A renowned conductor of the Austro-German repertoire, Klemperer was also a strong advocate of new music.

The Life

Otto Klemperer (KLEHM-pur-ur) was born to Nathan and Ida Klemperer, a middle-class Jewish family, in Breslau, Germany, now in Wrocław, Poland. The family moved to Hamburg when Klemperer was four years old. Because both parents loved music—Nathan was an amateur singer, and Ida was a pianist—they frequently visited theaters and concert halls. In his early childhood, Klemperer received piano lessons from his mother, and later he studied with Hans Havekoss.

In 1901 Klemperer entered the conservatory in Frankfurt to study piano with James Kwast. When the teacher left Frankfurt for the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin one year later, Klemperer followed him. Kwast was appointed to the Stern Conservatory in Berlin in 1905, and Klemperer moved to that institution, where he received composition and conducting lessons from Hans Erich Pfitzner in addition to the piano studies with Kwast.

After winning several international competitions, Klemperer was poised to begin a career as a concert pianist. At that time, he was given an opportunity to conduct: directing the offstage orchestra at a 1905 performance of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (1895). This was a turning point for Klemperer, who made his first acquaintance with Mahler, composer and director of the Vienna State Opera. On Mahler’s recommendation, Klemperer was appointed conductor at the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague in 1907, and his years as an apprentice began. He moved to Hamburg in 1910, to Barmen in 1913, and to Strasbourg in 1914.

Around the time Klemperer became musical director at Cologne Opera in 1917, his career as a conductor was flourishing. He conducted Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in 1919, and thereafter he performed at least one major work by Mahler each year until he left Cologne in 1924. There Klemperer conducted not only classical German repertories, such as symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven and by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but also contemporary works such as Arnold Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande (1905) and Pfitzner’s Palestrina (1917). Klemperer moved to the State Opera in Wiesbaden in 1924, and in the same year he visited the Soviet Union for the first time, returning to conduct in Moscow and Leningrad every year until 1929. In Wiesbaden he developed further repertories, by conducting the neoclassical works of his contemporaries, such as Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky. Their music was associated with the new art movement called New Subjectivity, which arose in Germany in the early 1920’s in opposition to Expressionism.

In 1927 Klemperer became conductor at the Kroll Theatre, a branch of the Berlin State Opera at the Platz der Republik. At this time, he established his position as an advocate of new music. For the next four years, Klemperer directed numerous contemporary works, such as Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (1927) and Mavra (1922), both produced by Klemperer; Schoenberg’s Expectation (1924) and The Lucky Hand (1924); Hindemith’s Cardillac (1926) and News of the Day (1929); Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead (1930); and Kurt Weill’s Der Jasager (1930).

With the rise of the Nazi Party, Klemperer left Germany, emigrating to the United States in April, 1933, where he became music director of the Los Angles Philharmonic Orchestra. During this period, he also conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Orchestra. In 1939, however, he underwent an operation for a brain tumor, and this surgery left him partially paralyzed. Because of this problem, his activity as conductor stopped for several years. His next regular engagement was at the Budapest Opera in 1947, but he left in 1950 because of the Communist regime’s restrictive musical policies. Although he suffered another accident in 1951, falling on ice at the airport in Montreal, Klemperer accepted guest engagements in the 1950’s, despite the fact that he had to conduct seated in a chair.

In 1954 Klemperer conducted and made recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London at the invitation of Walter Legge, its founder, and he became the principal conductor the following year. He suffered another accident, a severe burn from a cigar, in 1959, but he resumed work nine months later. In 1961 he made his Covent Garden debut, conducting Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805). Later he conducted Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1791) and Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin (1850). When the Philharmonia Orchestra turned into the New Philharmonia Orchestra in 1964, resulting in Legge’s attempt to disband the orchestra, Klemperer became the honorary president of the new institution.

Klemperer began composing while he was still at the conservatory, and he continued to compose until the early 1970’s. He wrote nine string quartets, five operas, many vocal works, and six symphonies. Klemperer continued conducting until 1971, and he died in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1973.

The Music

Born in the late nineteenth century, Klemperer started his conducting career at German opera houses, where his repertoire included works by Mozart and Wagner. At the same time, he showed an interest in contemporary music, including Schoenberg’s Expressionistic and Stravinsky’s neoclassical works. Klemperer later became known as an authoritative interpreter of German classical and Romantic music. His interpretations, however, have a strong element of neoclassical New Subjectivity; in that sense, they are different from late Romantic, subjective interpretations (such as those of Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hermann Abendroth, and Bruno Walter). Thus, Klemperer’s performances were sometimes described as uncompromising and severe. He did not vary tempo, keeping in tempo whenever no tempo changes were indicated in the score. He looked for a fine balance of voices, in which each voice plays an equally important role without being exaggerated. Klemperer conducted in an unmanipulated manner: There is no surprise emphasis on any part. It may be said that his style represents a rare marriage of neoclassical approach and traditional Austro-German grand manner, and that is why his recordings, made in the 1960’s, still appeal to the listeners.

In a videotaped interview in 1964, Klemperer rather bluntly proclaimed, “I am an immoralist.” This remarkable statement, indicating he did not approve of mixing taste for musical idea and style with human morality, was a response to one made by Walter. Walter dismissed atonal or twelve-tone composition as “going against my moral standard.” Even though his late recordings were mainly of German classical and Romantic music, Klemperer remained avant-garde in spirit.

Brahms’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 4. Klemperer recorded the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms with the Philharmonia Orchestra between 1955 and 1957. This album includes Symphony No. 3 in F Major (1883) and Symphony No. 4 in E Minor (1885). In this recording, the first movement of Symphony No. 3 begins with a chord succession that sounds strong-willed and expansive. Following the German tradition, Klemperer built harmony from the lower voice up with an emphasis on the bass, which resulted in grand and solid sonority of the orchestra. In the first movement of Symphony No. 4, the initial theme is articulated in a long phrasing with the dynamics marked in the score carefully observed. Here, the music flows naturally, without being overly sentimental. His uncompromising approach reveals the architecturally solid structure of Brahms’s symphonies clearly, not in a dry and cold manner but with a great passion.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. This symphony is one of Mahler’s most frequently recorded compositions. In this EMI studio recording from 1963, Klemperer conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as soprano and Hilde Rössel-Majdan as mezzo-alto. He starts the first movement intensely, with great concentration. Klemperer treats every note carefully and produces the most delicate Ländler (folk dance) in the second movement and Urlicht (primal light) in the fourth movement. In the closing section of the finale, he successfully conveys the mood of divine tranquillity and happiness by taking a deliberately slow tempo with the chorus and soloists.

Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. Klemperer conducted Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major (1881) with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich on April 1, 1966, and it was recorded live. In this performance, Klemperer chose rather fast tempi; it took about sixty minutes for the entire work. This is five to ten minutes faster than other famous recordings, such as those by Eugen Jochum (1965, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra), Karl Böhm (1973, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), or Herbert von Karajan (1971, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra). The fact that Klemperer was eighty years old at the time of this recording suggests that his choice of tempi, which is often slow in other recordings, is a judicious one, most likely not because of his old age. Klemperer produces strong and full harmonies with the powerful sound of the brass instruments throughout the performance. The last movement is especially thrilling and exciting.

The Marriage of Figaro. Klemperer recorded Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (1786) with New Philharmonia Orchestra in January, 1970, before a concert performance at the Festival Hall in London on February 3. This studio recording presents Klemperer’s unique interpretation of The Marriage of Figaro with unconventionally slow choice of tempi. Although it might be explained by his old age (he was eighty-four), there is another explanation. When Klemperer conducted the same opera in Strasbourg in May, 1915, he changed the main roles (Susanna and Cherubino) to far heavier voices. What he sought was an intense music drama, as Klemperer believed “Mozart was a matter of lightness on a dark background,” according to his biographer Peter Heyworth. This illustrates that Klemperer’s approach to The Marriage of Figaro was quite experimental. In this much later recording, Klemperer seemed to make another experiment, depicting the dark and serious side of this comic opera by taking slow tempi instead of using heavy voices.

Musical Legacy

Because Klemperer suffered from illnesses and had accidents in his later years, his recorded legacy has gaps in the 1940’s and 1950’s. A man of strong will, he overcame these difficulties to conduct until 1971, at the age of eighty-six, and he produced numerous recordings. Fortunately, his late years coincided with a period during which many commercial recordings were made and marketed. His large discography for EMI has high sound quality.

Principal Recordings

albums (as conductor): Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, 1951; Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56, 1951; Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, 1951; Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, 1954; Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A Major, 1954; Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G Major, 1956; Mozart: Symphony No. 39 in G Minor, 1956; Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, 1957; Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90; Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98, 1957; Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, 1957; Brahms: Concerto for Violin in D Major, Op. 77, 1960; Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A Major, 1961; Bach: St. Matthew Passion, 1962; Beethoven: Fidelio, 1962; Mahler: Symphony No. 2, 1963; Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite, 1963; Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde, 1964; Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, 1964 (The Magic Flute); Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D Major, Op. 123, 1965; Handel: Messiah, 1965; Bruckner: Symphony No. 4, 1966; Bach: Mass in B Minor, 1967; Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D Major, 1967; Stravinsky: Pétrouchka, 1967; Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, 1968 (The Flying Dutchman); The Marriage of Figaro: A Comic Opera in Four Acts, 1971.

Bibliography

Heyworth, Peter. Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times. Vol. 1: 1885-1933. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996. This detailed biography of Klemperer discusses his early years in Europe.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times. Vol. 2: 1933-1973. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996. A scholarly researched biography illustrates the life of the composer after his immigration to the United States.

Holden, Raymond. The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. A professional conductor, the author queries nine European conductors, including Klemperer, about their rehearsal techniques, performance practices, and more.

Klemperer, Otto. Conversations with Klemperer. Compiled and edited by Peter Heyworth. London: Faber & Faber, 1985. Illustrates Klemperer’s thoughts on conducting Mahler and Richard Strauss, on the singing of Myra Hess and Kathleen Ferrier, and on his early life.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Klemperer on Music: Shavings from a Musician’s Workbench. Edited by Martin Anderson. Preface by Pierre Boulez. Lancaster, England: Toccata Press, 1986. A collection of Klemperer’s writings on Beethoven, Mozart, Schoenberg, Mahler, himself, and others.

Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth. “Otto Klemperer.” In On and off the Record: A Memoir of Walter Legge. Introduction by Herbert von Karajan. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982. Schwarzkopf (Mrs. Legge) recalls her encounters with Klemperer after the 1920’s.