Rafael Kubelík

Rafael Jeroným Kubelík (29 June 1914 – 11 August 1996) was a Czech-born conductor and composer.

Son of a well-known violinist, Jan Kubelík, he was trained in Prague, and made his debut with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 19. Having managed to maintain a career in Czechoslovakia under the Nazi occupation, he refused to work under what he considered a "second tyranny" after the Communist Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, and took refuge in Britain. He became a Swiss citizen in 1967.

Kubelík was music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1950–53), musical director of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden (1955–58), and music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (1961–79), and was a frequent guest conductor for leading orchestras in Europe and America.

As a composer, Kubelík wrote in a neo-romantic idiom. His works include five operas, three symphonies, chamber music, choral works, and songs.

Life and career

Early life

Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me". His mother was a Hungarian countess, Anna Julie Marie Széll von Bessenyö.[1] Kubelík studied the violin with his father, and entered the Prague Conservatory at the age of 14, studying violin, piano, composition, and conducting.[1] He graduated from the conservatory in 1933, at the age of 19; at his graduation concert he played a Paganini concerto and a composition of his own for violin and orchestra. Kubelík was also an accomplished pianist, and served as his father's accompanist on a tour of the United States in 1935.

Brno

In 1939, Kubelík became music director of the Brno Opera, a position he held until the Nazis shut the company down in November 1941.[1] The Nazis allowed the Czech Philharmonic to continue operating; Kubelík, who had first conducted the orchestra when he was 19, became its principal conductor.[1] In 1943 he married the Czech violinist Ludmilla Bertlová, with whom he had one son.[2]

In 1944, after various incidents, including one in which he declined to greet the Nazi Reichsprotektor Karl Hermann Frank with a Hitler salute, along with his refusal to conduct Wagner during the War, Kubelík "deemed it advisable to disappear from Prague and to spend a few months undercover in the countryside so as not to fall into the clutches of the SS or Gestapo".[3] Kubelík conducted the orchestra's first post-war concert in May 1945. In 1946, he helped found the Prague Spring Festival, and conducted its opening concert.[2]

Defection

After the Communist coup of February 1948, Kubelík left Czechoslovakia, vowing not to return until the country was liberated. "I had lived through one form of bestial tyranny, Nazism," he told an interviewer, "As a matter of principle I was not going to live through another." He defected during a trip to Britain, where he had flown to conduct Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Glyndebourne company at the Edinburgh Festival.[1] He had been engaged on the recommendation of Bruno Walter, whom Kubelík had assisted in this work at the 1937 Salzburg Festival. Kubelík told his wife of his decision to defect as their plane left Czechoslovakia.

In 1953, the Communist government convicted the couple in absentia of "taking illicit leave" abroad. In 1956, the regime invited him back "with promises of freedom to do anything I wanted," said Kubelík, but he refused the invitation. In a 1957 letter to The Times, Kubelík said he would seriously consider returning only when all the country's political prisoners were freed and all émigrés were given as much freedom as he would have possessed. He was invited back by the regime in 1966 but again refused; in 1968, after the Prague Spring had ended by the Soviet invasion, he organised an international boycott, in which many of the major classical artists of the West participated.[4]

Chicago, Covent Garden and Munich

Rafael Kubelík (Amsterdam, 1950)

In 1950, Kubelík became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, choosing the position over an offer from the BBC to succeed Sir Adrian Boult as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.[5] He left the post in 1953. Some hold that he was "hounded out of the [Chicago] job" (to quote Time magazine) by the "savage attacks" (to quote the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians) of the Chicago Tribune music critic Claudia Cassidy.[6] But Chicago Sun-Times music critic Robert C. Marsh argued in 1972 that it was the Chicago Symphony trustees who were behind the departure. Their foremost complaint, and that of Cassidy as well, was that Kubelík introduced too many contemporary works (about 70) to the orchestra; there were also objections to his demanding exhaustive rehearsals and engaging several black artists.[1] Many recordings made by Kubelík in Chicago for Mercury Records are available on CD, and have received critical praise.[7]

After leaving Chicago, Kubelík toured the US with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and, in the words of Lionel Salter in the Grove Dictionary, "had a brilliant success with Janáček's Kát'a Kabanová at Sadler's Wells in London in 1954".[1] Kubelík became musical director of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, from 1955 to 1958.[8] Among his achievements there was in 1957: the first practically complete production in any opera house of Berlioz's Les Troyens.[9] Although Covent Garden sought to renew his contract, he chose to leave, partly because of a campaign by Sir Thomas Beecham against the engagement of foreign artists at Covent Garden.[1] In 1961 Kubelík accepted the position of music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) in Munich. He remained with the BRSO until 1979, when he retired. Salter considers this 18-year association the high point of Kubelík's career, both artistically and professionally.[1]

In 1961 Ludmilla Kubelík died after a car crash. In 1963 Kubelík married the Australian soprano Elsie Morison (1924-2016). In 1967 he became a Swiss citizen, and began an association with the Lucerne Festival, in addition to his work with the BRSO.[1]

In 1971, Göran Gentele, the new general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, New York, asked Kubelík to accept the position of music director.[10] Kubelík accepted partly because of his strong artistic relationship with Gentele. The first production he conducted as the Met's music director was Les Troyens.[11] The death of Gentele in a road accident in 1972 undermined Kubelík's reasons for working at the opera house. He had prior conducting commitments away from the Met in his first season there, which diverted his attention. He resigned from the Met in 1974, after only six months in the post.[12]

In his post-Czechoslovakian career, Kubelík worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland, Israel Philharmonic, London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras, among others. His final concert was with the Czech Philharmonic.[2]

Last years

In 1985, ill-health (notably severe arthritis in his back) caused Kubelík to retire from full-time conducting, but after the fall of Communism in his native land led him to accept a 1990 invitation to return to conduct the Czech Philharmonic at the festival he had founded, the Prague Spring Festival.[1] He recorded Smetana's Má Vlast live with the Czech Philharmonic for Supraphon, his fifth recording of the piece. He also recorded the Mozart "Prague" Symphony and Dvořák's "New World" Symphony at the festival. During the rehearsal of the "New World," he told the Czech Philharmonic, "It is my joy to hear this. I always wanted it to sound like this but never really found it with any other orchestra in the world. That eighth [note] is great!"

Kubelík died in 1996, aged 82, in Kastanienbaum, in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. His ashes are interred next to the grave of his father in Slavín, Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague.

Compositions

Among Kubelík's compositions are five operas, three symphonies, three settings of the requiem, other choral works, many pieces of chamber music, and songs, Salter describes his musical style as "neo-romantic".[1]

Selected recordings

Kubelík recorded a large repertory, in many cases more than once per work. There are two complete recordings of his traversals of three major symphony cycles - those of Brahms, Schumann, and Beethoven. When Kubelík recorded his first complete Beethoven symphony cycle for Deutsche Grammophon, he employed nine different orchestras, one for each symphony.[13] His complete cycle of Mahler's symphonies (recorded from 1967 to 1971 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) is highly regarded.[1] Of his Mahler, Daniel Barenboim remarked, "I often thought I was missing something in Mahler until I listened to Kubelík. There is a lot more to be discovered in these pieces than just a generalized form of extrovert excitement. That is what Kubelík showed."[14] Kubelík also left much-admired recordings of operas by Verdi (his Rigoletto was recorded at La Scala with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), Mozart, Janáček, Dvořák and others, including Wagner, whose music he had shunned during the war, but which he conducted in later years.[15]

Kubelík's complete discography is enormous, with music ranging from Malcolm Arnold to Jan Dismas Zelenka, with recordings both in the studio and in concert. In addition to complete cycles of Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák, and Mahler, Kubelík made recordings of orchestral and operatic works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Verdi and many others, including modern composers.

Composer Composition Date Orchestra Recording
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra 1974 Boston Symphony Orchestra Deutsche Grammophon
Beethoven Symphony No. 4 1975 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Symphony No. 5 1973 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony No. 6 Orchestre de Paris
Symphony No. 7 1974 Wiener Philharmoniker
Symphony No. 8 1975 The Cleveland Orchestra
Symphony No. 9 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Berg Violin Concerto 1971
Brahms A German Requiem 1978 Audite
Bruckner Symphony No. 3 1954 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
1985 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Sony Classical
Symphony No. 8 1963 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Orfeo
1977 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks BR Klassik
Symphony No. 9 1985 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Orfeo
Dresden Dansflitsen 1954 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
Dvořák Symphonic Variations 1974 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon
My Home, Overture 1973-4
Hussite Dramatic overture
In Nature's Realm Concert Overture
Carnival Concert Overture 1977
Othello Concert Overture
Scherzo capriccioso 1975
Symphony No. 1 1973 Berliner Philharmoniker
Symphony No. 2
Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 6
Symphony No. 7 1950 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
1971 Berliner Philharmoniker Deutsche Grammophon
Symphony No. 8 1966
Symphony No. 9 1973
The Noon Witch 1974 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
The Water Goblin
The Wild Dove
1976
Grieg Piano Concerto 1964 Berliner Philharmoniker
Hindemith Chamber Music No. 5 1966 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Bayerischer Rundfunk
Concerto Music, Op. 48 1963
Der Schwanendreher 1968
Janáček Concertino 1970 Deutsche Grammophon
The Diary of One Who Disappeared
Glagolitic Mass
Sinfonietta 1970
Taras Bulba 1951 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
1970 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon
Mahler Symphony No. 1 1967
1979 Bayerischer Rundfunk
Symphony No. 2 1969 Deutsche Grammophon
1982 Bayerischer Rundfunk
Symphony No. 3 1967 Deutsche Grammophon
Symphony No. 4 1968
Symphony No. 5 1971
1981 Bayerischer Rundfunk
Symphony No. 6 1968 Deutsche Grammophon
Symphony No. 7 1970
Symphony No. 8
Symphony No. 9 1967
Symphony No. 10 1968
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto 1951 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
Mozart Eine kleine Nachtmusik 1962 Wiener Philharmoniker EMI
Mass No. 9 (Missa brevis) 1973 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon
Symphony No. 36 1962 Wiener Philharmoniker EMI
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 1951 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
Schoenberg Piano Concerto 1972 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon
Violin Concerto
Schubert Symphony No. 9 1960 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra EMI
Schumann Symphonies 1979 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks CBS / Sony Classical
Piano Concerto 1964 Berliner Philharmoniker Deutsche Grammophon
Smetana Má vlast 1971 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Tansman Music for Orchestra 1950 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 1961 Wiener Philharmoniker EMI
Verdi Rigoletto 1964 Orchester del Teatro alla Scala Deutsche Grammophon
Wagner Lohengrin 1971 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Weber Der Freischütz 1980 Decca
Oberon 1970 Deutsche Grammophon

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Salter, Lionel. "Kubelík, Rafael", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 3 February 2013 (subscription required)
  2. 1 2 3 "Obituary: Rafael Kubelík". The Times. 12 August 1996. p. 19.
  3. ↑ Scharf, p. 114
  4. ↑ Kennedy, pp. 306–307
  5. ↑ Kenyon, p. 228
  6. ↑ "Into the Fray". Time. 11 April 1969.
  7. ↑ Mermelstein, David (27 July 1997). "Gifted, Enigmatic and the Last of a Species". The New York Times.
  8. ↑ Haltrecht, p. 191
  9. ↑ Rosenthal, p. 669
  10. ↑ "Music Man for the Met". Time. 21 June 1971.
  11. ↑ "A Win for the Trojans". Time. 25 March 1974.
  12. ↑ "Wanted: Full-Time Help". Time. 25 February 1974.
  13. ↑ Achenbach, Andrew. "Rafael Kubelík", www.classicalsource.com, accessed 3 February 2013
  14. ↑ Barenboim, p. 223
  15. ↑ "Tristan und Isolde". The Times. 5 June 1958. p. 16. and Mann, William (13 November 1971). "Parsifal and Son: with Kubelik and Boulez". The Times. p. 9.

References

External links

Cultural offices
Preceded by
Karl Rankl		 Music Director, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
1955-1958 		Succeeded by
Georg Solti
Preceded by
Eugen Jochum		 Chief Conductor, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
1961-1979 		Succeeded by
Sir Colin Davis
Preceded by
none		 Music Director, Metropolitan Opera
1973-1974 		Succeeded by
James Levine
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/18/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.