Erich Kleiber
Erich Kleiber was among the most respected Austrian conductors for the first half of the twentieth century, noted for precise, exciting, beautifully shaped performances of the great symphonic and operatic repertory.
He had the usual school education, and was taught violin as a boy. He was taken to concerts from an early age, and heard some of the legendary figures of music, including Gustav Mahler. He entered university in Prague in 1908, studying philosophy and the history of the arts, while also entering the Prague Conservatory to study music. He won a prize in 1911 for a symphonic poem.
Even before graduating he got a typical entry-level job for a conducting career, chorus master in the German Theater of Prague (1911). He was a staff conductor at the Court Theater in Darmstadt from 1912 to 1919. He followed a typical career path: conducting in Barmen-Elberfeld, Düsseldorf, and Mannheim, where he began in 1922. He also made guest conducting appearances, conducting a sensational performance of Beethoven¹s opera, Fidelio, in Berlin in 1922. Just three days later he was appointed General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera.
During his leadership there he kept high standards and engaged many of the world¹s finest singers, undertook reforms in production, and introduced many new operas to the Berlin public. His performance of Janacek¹s Jenufa is credited with having solidified the fame of its composer outside Czechoslovakia. His premiere of Alban Berg¹s Wozzeck was a triumph following 137 rehearsals. He also presented premieres of operas by Milhaud, Schreker, and Krenek.
He toured widely as a guest conductor, debuting in New York in 1930. His son, Carlos Kleiber, who has also become a world-famous conductor, was born in the same year.
After the Nazis were appointed to power in Germany in 1933, the cultural minister, Joseph Goebbels, announced a ban on what the Party termed "Entartete" (Degenerate) Music. One of the works so labeled was Alban Berg¹s opera Lulu, even though at this point it was a work in progress, unheard and unpublished. Kleiber resigned from his post at the State Opera in public protest. Then he played his farewell concert on December 4, 1934, including a suite of music from the incomplete opera. It was a triumph, receiving the plaudits of the public.
Kleiber immediately left Germany directly from the concert, and did not return until 1951. He settled in Buenos Aires because he had been well received there on tour, and because it had afforded a welcome home to his exact contemporary, the conductor Fritz Busch, who had left Germany in 1933. He conducted regularly in the great Teatro Colón opera house there (where Busch also conducted. He was put in charge of that house¹s German repertory from 1937 to 1949. He based his career there, making important appearances in Santiago (Chile), Mexico City, Havana, and Montevideo, helping develop the local orchestras.
He debuted with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1935, and also in London conducted a legendary performance of Strauss¹s Der Rosenkavalier with Lotte Lehman in the cast in 1938. He frequently appeared in Europe outside of German territory until World War II broke out. He confined his activities during the war years to the Americas.
He was considered one of the supreme conductors of Mozart, Beethoven, and Richard Strauss, particularly in Rosenkavalier. He conducted only one production in his native Vienna in his entire life, a Rosenkavalier in 1951. His Italian debut was also delayed by was and Fascist politics: a production of Verdi¹s Les vêpres sicilliennes, starring Maria Callas. This was in the 1951 Maggio Musicale of Florence, where he also conducted the first performance of Haydn¹s Orfeo ed Euridice since the composer¹s time.
He was known for an almost fanatical effort at rehearsals to achieve complete accuracy. He avoided sentimentality, and achieved his performance concepts through deep study, never relying on so-called "performance traditions."
In 1954 he agreed to resume directorship of the Berlin State Opera, which was now in East Berlin. The appointment was announced publicly. But the Soviet-dominated East Germany government started making arbitrary, politcally based suggestions and decisions. As a result, Kleiber resigned the position on March 16, 1956, before he even took it up. He died within the year. He left a legacy of exciting recordings, including a Rosenkavalier, some Beethoven Symphonies, and Mozart¹s Le Nozze di Figaro.
© Joseph Stevenson /TiVo
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Erich Kleiber dirigiert (Vol.2)
Sinfonías - Editado por Preiser Records el 24 sep. 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
Maria Reining, Ludwig Weber, Sena Jurinac, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Decca Music Group Ltd. el 1 ene. 1954
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel, Schubert & Ravel: Overture to Berenice - Symphony No. 3 in D, D200 - Ma Mère l'Oye
Erich Kleiber, NBC Symphony Orchestra
Clásica - Editado por Infinity el 20 ene. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
VERDI: I VESPRI SICILIANI
Ópera - Editado por Nar Classical el 15 sep. 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Conductor's Gallery, Vol. 19: Erich Kleiber, Jean Martinon
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Erich Kleiber, Jean Martinon
Clásica - Editado por Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. el 25 ago. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Conductor's Gallery, Vol. 18: Erich Kleiber
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. el 25 ago. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Erich Kleiber Archives, Vol. 1
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Berliner Philharmoniker, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por DOREMI el 1 ene. 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Les enregistrements de jeunesse (Volume 3)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Naxos el 8 abr. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Orchestral Music - Beethoven, L. / Borodin, A. / Schubert, F. / Tchaikovsky, P.I. (Nbc Symphony, E. Kleiber) (1947-1948)
NBC Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Arrau, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Music and Arts Programs of America el 1 abr. 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Erich Kleiber & Berliner Philharmoniker
Erich Kleiber, Berliner Philharmoniker
Música sinfónica - Editado por Digimusic el 12 oct. 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven, Schubert, Lanner, Heuberger
Erich Kleiber, Orchestre National de Belgique, Berliner Philharmoniker
Música sinfónica - Editado por Digimusic el 13 abr. 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven : Symphony No. 9 In D Minor, Op. 125
Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Erich Kleiber, Hilde Gueden, Sieglinde Wagner, Anton Dermota, Ludwig Weber
Ópera - Editado por Puzzle Productions el 7 oct. 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Le carnaval romain, Op. 9, H 95
Staatskapelle Berlin, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Deutsche Grammophon (DG) el 1 ene. 1928
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven 250 Symphonies 5 and 6
Sir Malcolm Sargent, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Editions Audiovisuel Beulah el 7 feb. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dvořák: Slavonic Dance in C Major, Op. 46 No. 1
Staatskapelle Berlin, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Deutsche Grammophon (DG) el 1 ene. 1929
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Smetana: The Moldau (Excerpt)
Staatskapelle Berlin, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Deutsche Grammophon (DG) el 1 ene. 1928
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WEBER: DER FREISCHÜTZ
Ópera - Editado por Nar Classical el 17 nov. 1998
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BEETHOVEN: FIDELIO "LEONORE, ODER DER TRIUMPH DER EHELICHEN LIEBE"
Clásica - Editado por Nar Classical el 28 feb. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovksy, P.I.: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 6 / Schubert, F.: Symphonies Nos. 5 and 8 (Kleiber) (1935, 1948, 1953, 1955) (Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky - Franz Schubert)
Clásica - Editado por IDIS el 1 ene. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Great Conductors: Erich Kleiber, Vol. 1
Berliner Philharmoniker, Česká filharmonie, Erich Kleiber
Clásica - Editado por Jube Classic el 29 ene. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Waltzes and Overtures (Hector Berlioz - Carl Maria von Weber - Johann Strauss II)
Clásica - Editado por Archiphon el 1 oct. 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo