Kirill Kondrashin

Kirill Petrovich Kondrashin (Russian Кирилл Петрович Кондрашин; * 21 Februarjul / March 6 1914greg in Moscow, .. † March 8, 1981 in Amsterdam) was a Russian conductor.

Life

Kondrashin was born into a family of musicians. He studied from 1932 to 1936 at the Moscow Conservatory. From 1938 to 1943 he was first Kapellmeister at the Maly Opera Theatre in Leningrad, then he worked 13 years in various positions at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre. From 1956 on, he was one of the chief conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic, from 1960 to 1976 whose artistic director. In the 60 years he has premiered several works of his friend Dmitri Shostakovich, among others whose symphonies No. 4, No. 12 and No. 13, and the second violin concerto. In 1979, he asked during a tour in the Netherlands for political asylum.

At the Concertgebouw Orchestra, he was henceforth as the 2nd principal conductor Bernard Haitink next. In 1981 he was designated Chief Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio, but died suddenly before he could take up this office.

Works

• Kirill Kondrashin: The art of conducting. Piper, Munich, 1989, ISBN 3-492-03264-8

Others

The citizens of the Soviet Union had many decades not to travel; Trips abroad were allowed only at the request and with good reason take place (see also ' links ').

Kondrashins life was coined until after Stalin's death from Stalinism. Communist functionaries or the CPSU intervened in the cultural life. In 1956 in the Soviet Union a period of thaw ( a certain de-Stalinization ); this ended after a few years.

1979 cooled from the East -West relations; In late 1979, the Red Army launched an invasion of Afghanistan, from the year-long war.