The conductor who refused the record

1912–1936

Iași · childhood

He is born in Roman on 11 July 1912 (28 June, old style), the son of a cavalry officer. He spends his childhood in Iași, where he studies mathematics, philosophy and music and improvises at the piano from the age of four.

At 18 he rejects a political career, quarrels with his father and, after studies in Bucharest and Paris, chooses Berlin: in 1936 he enrols at the Academy of Music, studying composition with Heinz Tiessen and conducting with Kurt Thomas, Walter Gmeindl and Fritz Stein. Alongside he reads philosophy with Nicolai Hartmann and Eduard Spranger and writes a thesis on Josquin des Prez — the doctorate itself is left unfinished because of the war.

28 June is old style, Romania's official calendar until 1919; 11 July is the new-style date.

1945–1952

Berlin · the seven years

On 29 August 1945, aged 33, he steps onto the podium of the Berlin Philharmonic — the Bernburger Straße hall a heap of rubble, Furtwängler barred from conducting until denazification was complete, and the interim conductor, Leo Borchard, accidentally shot by an American sentry. The inexperienced young man, fresh winner of a Berlin Radio Orchestra competition, becomes principal conductor overnight and stays seven years.

When Furtwängler dies in 1954, the management passes him over for Herbert von Karajan. Only on 31 March 1992 — after his last concert in November 1954 (the Philharmonic itself rounds the gap to 38 years) — does he conduct the orchestra again, in Bruckner's Seventh, at president Richard von Weizsäcker's invitation.

1952–1979

Appointments and collaborations

Twenty-seven years of appointments and collaborations follow, mostly with radio orchestras: chief conductor in Stockholm (1965–1971) and Stuttgart (1972–1977), on the podium of the ORTF National Orchestra in Paris (1973–1975), guest appearances across Europe. He teaches conducting at Siena and Mainz. In 1970 he receives Denmark's Sonning Prize. In 1965 he marries Ioana Procopie Dumitrescu; their son Serge is born in 1968.

1979–1996

Munich · the last 17 years

In 1979 he becomes music director of the Munich Philharmonic and stays until death: 17 years in which his legendary Bruckner concerts consolidated the orchestra's international reputation. He rehearsed — in the account of Michael Graf Münster, who attended his rehearsals, lessons and concerts between 1976 and 1985 — about three times as much as his colleagues. He also teaches at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia; in 1984 the Curtis Orchestra's Carnegie Hall concert, his American debut, is described by New York Times critic John Rockwell as “as revelatory an experience, both thrilling and thought-provoking,” as he had ever encountered.

He dies on 14 August 1996, aged 84, in the Paris area, and is buried at La Neuville-sur-Essonne.