Kurt Sanderling

Kurt Sanderling, CBE (; 19 September 1912 – 18 September 2011) was a German conductor.

Early life and career Sanderling was born in Arys, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (now Orzysz, Poland) to Jewish parents. His early work at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he served as repetiteur (rehearsal director) for Wilhelm Furtwängler and Erich Kleiber, was cut short when the Nazi regime removed him from his post because he was Jewish.

He then left for the Soviet Union in 1936, where he worked with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1939, he became conductor of the Kharkiv Philharmonic Orchestra. During the siege of Leningrad, he worked in Novosibirsk. From 1942 to 1960, he was joint principal conductor with Yevgeny Mravinsky of the Leningrad Philharmonic. Around 1942–1943, Sanderling first met Dmitri Shostakovich, which marked the start of their professional working relationship and personal friendship. In the US, he worked with particular frequency as a guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Sanderling announced his retirement from conducting in May 2002. In addition to his Philharmonia Beethoven symphony cycle, his commercial recordings include the Beethoven piano concertos with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, Nos. 3, 4 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Nos. 1, 2 and 5 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was among the first conductors to perform and record Deryck Cooke's completion of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 10, which his friend Berthold Goldschmidt had premiered.

Sanderling died on 18 September 2011, one day before his 99th birthday in Berlin.

Personal life He was married twice. His first marriage to Nina Bobath was in 1941, and produced a son, Thomas Sanderling, who became a conductor. This ended in divorce after his return to East Germany. His second wife was the former Barbara Wagner, a double bassist in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. They married in 1963, and their marriage produced two sons, the conductors Stefan Sanderling and Michael Sanderling.

Publications 2002: Kurt Sanderling and Ulrich Roloff-Momin: Andere machen Geschichte, ich machte Musik. Parthas, Berlin 2002, 431 pp., ill., discographie, , (Biography; in German)

Film Seine Liebe zu Brahms. Kurt Sanderling unterrichtet die 4. Sinfonie. (with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart of the SWR) Documentation, 60 Min., a film by Norbert Beilharz, First transmission: 2. November 2003.