Kurt Sanderling

In his long life as a conductor, Kurt Sanderling was able to develop his expertise in the German and Russian repertoire in a unique way: first in the Soviet Union and then in his (East) German homeland. Sanderling, who died one day before his 99th birthday in September 2011, experienced the fall of the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the end of Stalinism and finally the end of Eastern European communism. At the age of 19, Sanderling became a répétiteur at the Städtische Oper in Berlin Charlottenburg. As a politically left-wing Jew, he was forced to leave Germany in 1935 and emigrated to relatives in the Soviet Union. After years of hardship, he finally found an artistic home with the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Philharmonic Orchestra. According to his own account, he survived the period of Stalinist terror, which was also life-threatening for artists, relatively unscathed because he remained the orchestra's second in charge behind chief conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. During his Soviet period, Sanderling came into personal contact with Dmitri Shostakovich and soon acquired an exceptional reputation as an interpreter of his music. In 1960, Sanderling returned to Germany, where he was chief conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (now the Konzerthaus Orchestra) until 1977, shaping it into a top ensemble. During this time, invitations to conduct internationally renowned orchestras also made him well-known in Western countries. In his later years, Sanderling, whose three sons are also respected conductors, was a universally admired musician whose performances inspired audiences with their expressive power. He announced his retirement from concert life in 2002 at the age of 90. In addition to his Shostakovich recordings, his recordings of the Sibelius symphonies and his interpretations of works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Mahler have reference status. It is not a question of “how” but “what” you conduct, Kurt Sanderling once said, who himself never received any formal training as an orchestra conductor.