Born in Breslau, May 14, 1885
Died in Zürich, July 6, 1973
- Klemperer was one of the leading German conductors of his generation, and was considered an authority on the Austro-German repertoire, especially Beethoven.
- He received one of his first major appointments at the Neues Deutches Theater in Prague in 1907 thanks to a recommendation from Mahler, and went on to become an important opera conductor.
- In the 1930s Klemperer emigrated to avoid antisemitic oppression in Nazi Germany.
- In 1954 Klemperer was appointed director of the Philharmonia Orchestra, but in 1964 Walter Legge, the orchestra’s founder, chose to disband it. The musicians rebelled, reformed as The New Philharmonia Orchestra with Klemperer’s support, and he remained with the group for the rest of his career.
- Klemperer studied composition with Schoenberg in the 1930s in Los Angeles. His music is also influenced by Mahler’s.1
Sources
- Peter Heyworth and John Lucas, “Klemperer, Otto,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 31, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000015136.