Web Site editor's notes - Paragraph 1, 1: Klemperer's own
list of influential music teachers is headed by mention of his mother. Ida
Klemperer was a pianist of considerable ability, as well as a composer.
She decided when he was about 5 that he should be trained for a career as
a professional musician. It was fortunate for them both, as well as for
the rest of us, that his talents and inclinations allowed him to oblige.
Paragraph 1, 2: Actually, Klemperer "first encountered
the composer who was to exercise a decisive influence on his career"
in boyhood. Their paths crossed by chance one day when Klemperer was walking
to school. There was instant recognition on young Klemperer's part, and
total fascination. Was it the effect of prescience - some deep, intuitional
precognition of the signficiant role this unexpected companion would someday
play in Klemperer's life? More likely it was the effect of Mahler. The lanky,
abstracted composer, with his unruly hair and ungainly gait, was ideally
suited to attracting the attention of 9-year-olds. "At that time he
had a habit of pulling strange faces, which made a tremendous impression
on me," Klemperer recalled (as quoted in Otto Klemperer:His Life
and Times vol.1, p.1). "I ran along shyly after him for about ten
minutes and stared at him as though he were a deep-sea monster."
Paragraph 2: Berlin was then the center of the musical
world. Innovations at Klemperer's Kroll, as it was informally known, could
not help but have international repercussions.
Paragraph 4: "Emigrated" is a euphemism. Hitler
had come to power. Klemperer was of Jewish heritage. It made no difference
that he'd recently been awarded the Goethe Medal for his contribution to
German cultural life, had been a Catholic since early adulthood, and perceived
himself as being first, last, and always a German. In place of "emigrated,"
read "fled for his safety to Switzerland."
Paragraph 5: That reputation did not retire with him. He still retains it.
The photo of Dr. Klemperer is from the front cover of the EMI boxed set SLS 804 Brahms: The Four Symphonies, Tragic & Academic Festival Overtures. Although the photographer is uncredited, it appears to be G. MacDomnic's work.
The Kroll Theatre graphic was taken from the c.1935 photograph ©Ullstein Bilderdienst which appears on p.183 of vol. 1 of Peter Heyworth's Otto Klemperer: His Life and Times (Cambridge University Press, 1996).