One of the greatest
conductors of the twentieth-century, renowned for his
precise and
titanic performances of
Beethoven and
Wagner. He began conducting in 1907, at the recommendation of his friend
Mahler, and was principal conductor for life of the
Philharmonia until 1973. He was also a champion of modern music, such as
Janáček,
Schönberg,
Weill, and
Hindemith.
Klemperer was born in Breslau in Germany (now Wrocław in Poland) on 14 May 1885, and grew up in Hamburg. He studied in Frankfurt and Berlin, and was appointed to the German National Theatre in Prague in 1907. His début performance was Der Freischütz.
Later appointments included Hamburg (1910-1914), Strasbourg (1914-1917), Cologne (1917-1924), Wiesbaden (1924-1927), Berlin (1927-1933), Budapest (1947-1950), and Walter Legge's Philharmonia (later the New Philharmonia) from 1959 to 1973. His assistant there in the last two years of his life was Loren Maazel.
He was expelled from Germany by the Nazis, and settled first in the United States (citizen 1937) then in Israel (citizen 1970). He was also a composer, with works including six symphonies, occasionally heard. His son Werner Klemperer, himself a musician of some skill, played Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes.