Conductor Klaus Tennstedt had a distinguished career and he specialized in the music of Wagner, Bruckner, as well as the classical composers. He died at age 71 in 1998.
In his early years, he studied violin and piano at the Leipzig Conservatory. He avoided military service during the Nazi era by joining a Baroque orchestra. He became concertmaster of the orchestra at the Halle Municipal Theater in 1948. However, a finger injury stopped his career as a violinist, and afterwards he worked as a coach to singers at the same theater. Tennstedt then directed his talents toward conducting. In 1958, he became music director of the Dresden Opera, and in 1962, music director of the Schwerin State Orchestra and Theater.
From 1979 to 1981, Tennstedt served as Chief Conductor of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra (NDR Symphony) in Hamburg, and during the same period (1979-1982) he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra.
In 1978 Klaus Tennstedt became the first German conductor of his generation to conduct the Israel Philharmonic, which until then had boycotted German conductors because of their connections with the Nazi regime.
On this CD, we hear Mr. Tennstedt conduct the Beethoven Symphony #6, and also the overture to Egmont. While the symphony #6 is a true standard in the classical repertoire, the challenge that any conductor faces is the ability to translate the music into the original sounds of Nature which inspired Beethoven in the first place.
“No one can love the countryside as much as I do”, Beethoven once said. In his Sixth Symphony, Beethoven created a magnificent orchestral landscape in which the atmosphere of the countryside pervades every bar.
Here is music from the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony #6:
Tags: Beethoven, Klaus Tennstedt, Symphony #6