Paul Kletzki

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Paul Kletzki (1965)

Paul Kletzki , also Paul Klecki (born March 21, 1900 in Łódź , † March 5, 1973 in Liverpool ), was a Swiss conductor and composer of Polish origin.

life and work

Born as Paweł Klecki (he only adopted the German spelling later) into a Jewish family, the fourteen-year-old played violinist in the symphony orchestra in his hometown from 1914 onwards. At the Warsaw Music Academy he studied with Emil Młynarski (violin) and Juliusz Wertheim (composition). In 1920/21 he fought in the Polish-Soviet War . At the beginning of the 1920s he moved to Berlin to complete his studies at the Hochschule für Musik , and in the following years worked as a conductor and composer. Wilhelm Furtwängler and Arturo Toscanini included works by Kletzki in their program, which played in 1926Pozniak-Trio recorded the 3rd movement from his Trio op. 16 for Deutsche Grammophon . Furtwängler also invited him to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic , where Kletzki conducted, among other works, the Berlin premiere of his violin concerto in G major with the soloist Georg Kulenkampff in November 1928, and a pure Beethoven program in March 1933 . Kletzki fled Germany in 1933 because of the growing anti-Semitism . He came to Milan via Venice , where he taught composition at the Scuola Superiore di Musica from 1935 to 1937 . From 1937 to 1938 he worked as chief conductor in Kharkov (where he again fled from the "purges" of Stalin ). After returning to Milan, he fled from the Italian fascists to Switzerland in 1939 (in 1928 Kletzki had married the Swiss Hildegard Woodtli). Numerous members of his family, including his parents and his sister, were victims of the National Socialist terror.

After the Second World War, Kletzki worked internationally as a guest conductor. In 1947 he took on Swiss citizenship . In 1954 he became conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra , from 1958 to 1962 he was chief conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in Texas, after which he conducted the Bern Symphony Orchestra . From 1967 to 1970 he led the Orchester de la Suisse Romande as the successor to Ernest Ansermet .

As a conductor, Kletzki advocated the work of Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius, among others .

Kletzki composed, among other things, three symphonies (the third entitled "In Memoriam" was written in 1939), a Sinfonietta for strings, two string quartets, and other chamber music and songs. Believed to be lost after the war, Kletzki's compositional estate was only rediscovered after his death.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Noël Goodwin:  Kletzki, Paul [Klecki, Pawel]. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).
  2. ↑ a b c Antonio Baldassarre:  Klecki, Pawel. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 10 (Kemp - Lert). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618-1120-9  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
personal data
SURNAME Kletzki, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Klecki, Paul; Klecki, Paweł
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss conductor and composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Łódź
DATE OF DEATH March 5th 1973
Place of death Liverpool