Jürgen Kesting

Jürgen Kesting (born July 26, 1940 in Duisburg ) is a German journalist , music critic and specialist book author .

Live and act

Kesting studied German , English and philosophy in Cologne and Vienna from 1960 to 1967 . After four years as press officer at Electrola (1969–1971) and the Munich Eurodisc (1971–1973), he has worked as an editor, department head, managing editor and author for Stern since 1973 . In 1993 he switched to the newly founded newspaper Die Woche as an author . In autumn 1997 he developed the music magazine Amadeo for Gruner + Jahr .

After numerous music broadcasts - WDR, Südwestfunk, Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Bayerischer Rundfunk, SWR, RBB, DR - in 1986 he published a comprehensive study, which was regarded as a standard work, The great singers in three volumes. In 1990 a monograph on Maria Callas , translated into English, Russian and Japanese, followed, and in 1991 a book essay on Luciano Pavarotti , translated into English. For thirteen years he produced a weekly music series about great singers for NDR; for four ARD stations (SFB, NDR, MDR, Süddeutscher Rundfunk) a 26-part episode about Maria Callas, then also 26 episodes about the pianist Vladimir Horowitz ; for the third program of the ARD a 13-part TV series The Great Tenors of the Shellac Era . As a freelance author, he wrote and writes for the magazines “ opernwelt ”, “ Fono Forum ” and “Musik und Theater”. Since 1997 he has been a freelancer for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . In 2008 he revised his study The Great Singers and brought it out in an updated version , now in four volumes. For ten years he was on the program committee of the Stuttgart International Voting Days. Jürgen Kesting has been a member of the jury of the singing competition “New Voices” since 2005.

Works

Books

• The great singers . Claassen Verlag. Düsseldorf, 1986. Three volumes. 2094 pp.
• Maria Callas . Claassen Verlag. Düsseldorf, 1990. 431 pp. Translated into English, Russian and Japanese.
• Luciano Pavarotti . An essay on the myth of the tenor voice. Econ publishing house. 1991. 186 pages
• The great singers . Rev. and exp. New edition. Hoffmann & Campe, 2008. Four volumes. 2547 pages.
• Handel Handbook 2011 . 20 lexical articles

Articles, essays (selection)

• The poster on the move. Advertising postcards. Bibliophile paperbacks. Harenberg. Dortmund, 1978
• From mouth to mouth and hand to heart. In: The kiss. Eighty postcards Bibliophile paperbacks. Harenberg. Dortmund, 1979
• From the pictures of the world and the picture of the world . In: The Chronicle of the 20th Century. A representation in postcards. Bibliophile paperbacks. Harenberg. Dortmund, 1983
• The voice as a work of art . In: Patrick Barbier: Farinelli. The castrato the king. Preface. Econ publishing house. Düsseldorf, 1995
• From the leaps of time. In: André Heller: Jagmandir. Dream as reality. The eccentric private theater of the Maharana of Udaipur. Escort essay. Edition Christian Brandstädter. Vienna, 1991

watch TV

• The tenors of the shellac age. Documentation in 13 parts, first broadcast: June 2, 1996 (Das Erste). Series about the greatest tenors of the first half of the 20th century - from Enrico Caruso to Leo Slezak and Tito Schipa to Richard Tauber . Comment / Text: Jürgen Kesting, Director: Jan Schmidt-Garre (broadcast in Italy, France, USA; England)
• Jan Schmidt-Garre , director: Belcanto - The tenors of the shellac era. 2017, 74 min. ( 3sat, station information on the first broadcast in D. July 1, 2017; with interviews by Kesting; media library )

Web links

• Literature by and about Jürgen Kesting in the catalog of the German National Library