• Name: Joseph Keilberth
• Birthday: 04/19/1908
• Birth Place: Karlsruhe
• Died: 07/20/1968
• Place of Death: Munich
• Country: Germany
• Genre: Classical

Title	Release
Richard Strauss: Intermezzo	2008
Brahms: Symphony No. 3; Schumann: Piano Concerto; Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche	2007
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8	2007
Mozart: Vesperae Solennes de Confessore; Piano Concerto No. 17	2007
Dvorák: Rusalka	2006
Hermann Goetz: Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung	2006
Wagner: Das Rheingold	2006
Wagner: Götterdämmerung	2006
Wagner: Siegfried W	2006
Hindemith: Cardillac	2005
Richard Strauss: Arabella	2005
Rossini: Der Barbier von Sevilla	2005
Goetz: Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung	2003
Richard Strauss: Die ägyptische Helena	2003
Cornelius: Der Barbier von Bagdad	2002
Mozart: Symphony No. 40; Brahms: Symphony No. 2	2001
Charles Gounod: Faust	2000
Marschner: Hans Heiling	2000
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte	2000
Janácek: Die Ausflüge des Herrn Broucek	1994
Wagner: Lohengrin	1994
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8; Coriolan	1992
Weber: Der Freischütz	1988
The Artistry of Joseph Keilberth	1986
The Artistry of Joseph Keilberth: Bruckner's Symphony No. 6	1985
Giuseppe Verdi: Messa da Requiem
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Pfitzner: Palestrina
Strauss: Salome
Wagner: Der Fliegende Holländer
Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Wagner: Die Walküre
Wagner: Die Walkürie
Wagner: Tannhäuser
Wagner: Tannhäuser (Bayreuth 1954)

Joseph Keilberth was a German conductor active during the mid-twentieth century. His talents developed early: he pursued a general education and musical training in Karlsruhe, and at the age of seventeen joined the Karlsruhe State Theater as a répétiteur (vocal coach--a common starting place for European conductors). He remained with the theater and ten years later he was appointed general music director.

He remained there until 1940, when he was appointed chief conductor of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. He became chief conductor of the Dresden State Opera in 1945. With a minimum of disruption for deNazification (official Allied certification that he was not implicated in Nazi crimes) he remained in that position until 1950.

In 1949 he became chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, which was in fact a reunion: After the War, the German population of the Sudetenland (the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia), which had been the excuse for Hitler's occupation of the country, were returned to Germany, and with them went the German Philharmonic of Prague, Keilberth's old orchestra, which settled in Bamberg. Causing unwary biographers some confusion, he also became the chief conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic in 1950.

He frequently appeared as a guest conductor elsewhere in Germany, notably with the Berlin Philharmonic and, beginning in 1952, the Bayreuth Festival, and appeared regularly at the Salzburg and Lucerne festivals. In 1952 he also led his first performance in the Edinburgh Festival with the Hamburg State Opera.

He was a favored conductor for the Ring and other operas through 1956. In 1959 he succeeded Ferenc Fricay at the helm of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. There, history repeated itself. Keilberth died after collapsing during a performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, just as Felix Mottl--conductor at the same theater--had done in 1911.

Keilberth was very strong in Mozart and in the Wagnerian repertory, and in later German classics such as Pfitzner, Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and Paul Hindemith. His classic recordings included Hindemith's opera Cardillac.

~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide