Rudolf Kempe was one of the most respected German conductors of the mid‑twentieth century, admired for clarity, balance, and fidelity to the score. Born in Dresden, he began his career as an oboist, an experience that shaped his lifelong rapport with orchestral musicians. After early posts in Chemnitz, Dresden, and Munich, Kempe enjoyed a distinguished international career at the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Bayreuth Festival. His long association with London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra established him as a musician’s conductor par excellence. Kempe’s interpretations of Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, and especially Richard Strauss—preserved in classic recordings with the Staatskapelle Dresden—remain highly esteemed.
Rudolf Kempe
June 14, 1910 – May 12, 1976
Kempe was born into a family in which music played little part, but when he was six, he began to have piano lessons, taking up the violin when he was twelve and also the oboe; his teacher was Johann König, the first oboe of the Dresden Staatskapelle. Two years later, he enrolled at the Music High School in Dresden, where he continued to study with König as well as with Fritz Busch, Karl Schutte Theodor Blumer, and Karl Striegel, and learned the accordion as well as his other instruments. Having been engaged as the first oboist in the orchestra of the Dortmund Opera in 1928, two months later Kempe accepted the same position in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (also the orchestra of the Leipzig Opera), in which he played under many distinguished conductors including Beecham, Busch, Furtwängler, Erich Kleiber, Klemperer, Schuricht, Richard Strauss, and Waler: often rehearsals he would have the full score on his desk as well as his own instrumental part. Kempe has discussed in interviews how he became a conductor during 1935. “We were rehearsing le nozze di Figaro. Paul Schmitz, who was principal guest conductor at the Gewandhaus, wanted to listen to the second act from the back of the hall. There was no assistant conductor present, so he asked if anyone in the orchestra was ready to conduct the second act. At length, he settled on me to take the podium. Fourteen days later, I had to conduct Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz, and that’s when I decided to quit the orchestra and to devote myself entirely to conducting.” After joining the Leipzig Opera as a répétiteur and assistant conductor, Kempe was soon entrusted with substantial repertoire works such as Der Freischütz, Carmen, Le nozze di Figaro, Arabella and Madama Butterfly.
Although Kempe entered military service in 1942, he was quickly given unofficial permanent leave to work at the Chemnitz Opera as a répétiteur and conductor; and after his discharge from the army in 1945, he returned there as first conductor and subsequently as chief conductor from 1946 to 1948. In addition, he conducted at the Berlin Staatsoper and in concert in Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig. For the 1948-1949 season, he worked alongside Hermann Abendroth at the National Theater Weimar, after which he was invited by Joseph Keilberth to join the Dresden Opera, initially as first conductor, and, after Keilberth’s departure, as chief conductor. Kempe’s earliest recordings date from this period and include a complete account of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. During 1951 and 1952, he conducted at the Vienna State Opera, in the latter year succeeding Georg Solti as chief conductor of the Munich State Opera, where he stayed until 1954. He made his British debut conducting the company in a highly successful series of performances of Strauss’s Arabella at Covent Garden in the autumn of 1953, after which he was invited back to conduct at the Royal Opera House regularly, his first appearance with the Covent Garden company in fact taking place during the following month with Strauss’s Salome. Kempe was invited to conduct Wagner’s Ring Cycle at Covent Garden in 1954, which he did with great success, preparing for these performances by conducting a cycle in Spain with an orchestra which required intensive coaching. He also made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York in 1954, conducting Arabella (in English), Tannhäuser, and Tristan und Isolde and appeared at the Salzburg Festival in 1955 leading Pfitzner’s Palestrina.
Despite serious illness in 1956, Kempe now began to appear frequently as a guest conductor in the major internation music centers and to record an extensive repertoire for EMI, predominantly with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He also continued to appear regularly at Covent Garden until 1960, the year in which he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival, conducting the Ring. As Sir Thomas Beecham’s health declined during 1960 bringing the future the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) into question, Beecham took advice and offered Kempe the associate conductorship of the orchestra, which he accepted after a hastily arranged lunch in London. Kempe became the chief conductor of the orchestra after Beecham’s death in 1961 and remained with it, apart from a short hiatus in 1961, until 1975. Together orchestra and conductor gave many memorable concerts in the United Kingdom and abroad; and early assignment, of which regrettably no sound recordings appear to have survived, was a series of concerts conducting the music of Delius at the 1962 Bradford Delius Festival.
Following the death of Hans Rosbaud in 1962, Kempe was appointed principal guest conductor of the Zürich Tonhall Orchestra, becoming chief conductor in 1965 and remaining with it in this position until 1972; despite his activities being once more curtailed by illness during 1963 and 1964. He was invited to become chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in 1967, a position he held for the rest of his life, and, in the following year began work on his monumental survey with the Dresden Staatskapelle of Richard Strauss’s orchestral works for EMI. He returned to Covent Garden for a memorable series of performances of Strauss’s Elektra in 1973 and conducted Salome at the Orange Festival in 1974. Kempe was invited to become chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with effect from the autumn of 1976, but gave only a handful of concerts with this orchestra before his untimely death in May 1976.
Kempe was greatly admired by orchestral players, often the harshest of critics. On the one hand, in rehearsal he was quiet and undemonstrative, rarely raising his voice, always extremely courteous and very clear about his requirements; yet in performances his extraordinary technical clarity, his musical flexibility and infallibility and his sense of drama could result in readings of great power. Kempe combined all the key assets of the great conductor, above all being able to draw from the forces at this disposal performances which technically and interpretively exceeded their own expectations of what they could achieve: the results were invariably music-making of the highest quality. His discography was very large indeed and has increased since his death as recordings of radio broadcasts and of live opera and concert performances have become available. Kempe’s recordings of Richard Strauss’s music, which demand true conductorial virtuosity, probably stand as his greatest monument.
Taken from “A-Z Conductors”, by David Patmore