Rudolf Kempe

German conductor.

Kempe directed the Dresden Opera and the Dresden Staatskapelle from 1949 to 1952, making his first records. He maintained a relationship with the Dresden orchestra for the rest of his life, making some of his best-known records with them during the stereo era.

His international career began with engagements at the Vienna State Opera in the 1951 season, for which he conducted Die Zauberflöte, Simon Boccanegra, and Capriccio. He was invited to succeed Georg Solti as chief conductor of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich from 1952 to 1954, and was permitted by the East German authorities to do so without severing his ties with Dresden. In 1953 Kempe appeared with the Munich company at the Royal Opera House in London, where the General Administrator, Sir David Webster, quickly decided that Kempe would be an ideal Musical Director for the Covent Garden company. Kempe resisted the appointment, and did not accept the top job at any opera house after leaving Munich in 1954. He nonetheless conducted frequently at Covent Garden and was immensely popular there, Kempe’s début at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus was in 1960.

Kempe was associated with the Royal Philharmonic (RPO) from 1955. In 1960, he became its Associate Conductor, chosen by the orchestra's founder, Sir Thomas Beecham. From 1961 to 1962 he was Principal Conductor of the RPO, and from 1963 to 1975 its Artistic Director. In 1970, the RPO named him Conductor for Life, but in 1975, he resigned his post with the orchestra.

From 1965 to 1972 Kempe worked with Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, and from 1967 to his death conducted the Munich Philharmonic, with whom he made international tours and recorded the first quadraphonic set of theBeethoven symphonies.

In the final months of his life, Kempe was the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

He died 12 May 1976 in Zürich.