Overview
Biography
István Kertész (28 August 1929 – 16 April 1973) was an internationally acclaimed Jewish Hungarian orchestral and operatic conductor who, throughout his brief but distinguished career led many of the world's great orchestras, including the Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Detroit, San Francisco and Minnesota Orchestras in the United States, as well as the London Symphony, Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, and L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. His orchestral repertoire numbered over 450 works from all periods, and was matched by a repertoire of some sixty operas ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and Wagner to the more contemporary Prokofiev, Bartók, Britten, Kodály, Poulenc and Janáček. Kertész was part of a rich musical tradition that produced fellow Hungarian conductors Fritz Reiner, Antal Doráti, János Ferencsik, Eugene Ormandy, George Szell, János Fürst, Ferenc Fricsay, and Sir Georg Solti.
Through his gramophone recordings, István Kertész has been rediscovered by a new and younger audience, and has increasingly come to be regarded as one of the greatest conductors of all time.
Career
On 17 December 1948, István Kertész made his debut as a conductor with an all Mozart programme.
Budapest
From 1953 to 1955, Kertész was chosen as Chief Conductor or the Philharmonic Orchestra at Győr, a post that he held for two years. During this period he had the opportunity to develop a broad symphonic repertoire, leading the Budapest Opera Orchestra from 1955 to 1957, and working as an Assistant Professor of Conducting at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. After the upheaval of the Hungarian Revolution, and with a young family in tow, Kertész left Hungary. Offered a fellowship to the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Kertész studied with Fernando Previtali while his wife, Edith Kertész-Gabry sang at the Bremen Opera. Kertész graduated with distinction, and was given the highest award of the Accademia, the "Premio d'Atri." Moreover, Previtali chose Kertész for his "Corso di Perfezionamento" for two successive seasons, during which Kertész conducted the Santa Cecilia Orchestra forty times.
After completing his studies in Rome, Kertész was engaged as a guest conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera. Guest conducting there, as well as in Wiesbaden and Hanover, he electrified German audiences with his masterful direction of Fidelio and La bohème.
Augsburg Opera
In March 1960, Kertész was invited to become General Music Director of the Augsburg Opera—a post especially created for him. There he conducted performances of Mozart's The Magic Flute, The Abduction from the Seraglio, Così fan tutte, and The Marriage of Figaro, earning himself a reputation as one of the finest interpreters of Mozart's work. With exhilarating performances of Verdi's Rigoletto, Don Carlos, Otello and Falstaff, and Richard Strauss's Salome, Arabella, and Der Rosenkavalier, Kertész also proved himself a master of the finest of Italian Romantic operas. Invited to the Salzburg Festival, he conducted The Abduction from the Seraglio in 1961, and The Magic Flute in 1963. During this time, Kertész also gave the first of many performances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, with the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Opera, North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto where he conducted Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel, and with Arthur Rubinstein in Paris.
Kertész also made his earliest recordings, including Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 4. Having already recorded for EMI/Columbia records, Kertész now signed an exclusive contract with Decca/London for whom he began to make dozens of prize-winning recordings. Already at this early stage in his career, Kertész's intrepetations of Brahms and Dvořák were highly regarded for their transparent textures and unmannered phrasing. In stark contrast to Herbert Karajan and George Szell, Kertész's music making featured an unforced manner even when employing the fastest of tempi. Other elements that made a Kertész performance notable was the elasticity of tempi while adhering to the structural coherence of a given musical work. His British debut was with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 1960. Kertész made his U.S. debut during the 1961-62 season, also beginning an association with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he guest conducted at Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium in March 1962. Eventually, Kertész conducted over 378 compositions with the Israel Philharmonic over an eleven-year period.
Within just four years, István Kertész had established a lasting international reputation as a conductor.
Cologne Opera
In 1964, Kertész received an appointment as the General Music Director of the Cologne Opera where he conducted the first German performance of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd and Verdi's Stiffelio, as well as the Mozart operas La clemenza di Tito, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and The Magic Flute.
While he established good rapport with the often critical Cologne audience, they were sometimes unhappy with his often fast tempi. His 1970 Aida, with Martina Arroyo in the title role, with one interval and some cuts, lasted under three hours.
London Symphony Orchestra
Retaining his previous position as Director of the Cologne Opera, he also became Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1968, and made guest appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. During his three years as Principal Conductor of the LSO, Kertész gave superbly stylish, imaginative and deft performances. He was acclaimed for recordings with the ensemble of the nine Dvořák symphonies, which included the first complete recording of the Symphony No. 1.
During this period in Kertész's career, in 1966, he also recorded Bluebeard's Castle with Christa Ludwig singing the role of Judith and Walter Berry in the title role. Kertész's interpretation of Bartók's difficult, brooding work is considered by many to be the benchmark performance of the opera; "the playing of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Kertész's instinctive shaping of the drama . . . has never been surpassed."
Kertész was a frequent guest conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other orchestras. He was appointed Principal Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony in 1973. The Cleveland Orchestra unsuccessfully bid for his appointment as musical director the year before. The orchestra players voted 96 to 2 to request the board to favour Kertész as the replacement of George Szell. In Chicago, he conducted his first performance at the Ravinia Festival in July 1967; he was the Festival's principal conductor from 1970 to 1972.
Death
On 16 April 1973, while on a concert tour, Kertész drowned while swimming off the coast of Israel at Herzliya. He had been recording what would become a legendary version of Brahms' Variations on a Theme by Haydn, as well as the complete Brahms symphonies. After his untimely death, and in tribute to him, the Vienna Philharmonic finished recording the Haydn Variations.
Kertész was survived by his wife, operatic soprano Edith Kertész-Gabry, his children, Gábor, Péter, and Kathrin, his mother, Margit Muresian Kertész Halmos, and his sister, the graphic artist Vera Kertész.
