Rafael Kubelík

Rafael Jeroným Kubelík, KBE (29 June 1914 – 11 August 1996) was a Czech conductor and composer.

The son of a distinguished violinist, Jan Kubelík, he was trained in Prague and made his debut with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 19. Having managed to maintain a career in Czechoslovakia under the Nazi occupation, he refused to work under what he considered a "second tyranny" after the Communist Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948, and took refuge in Britain. He became a Swiss citizen in 1967.

Kubelík was music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1950–53), musical director of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden (1955–58). In 1957, he conducted and recorded the world premiere of Berlioz's Les Troyens. From 1961 to 1979, he was music director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and was a frequent guest conductor for leading orchestras in Europe and America.

As a composer, Kubelík wrote in a neo-romantic idiom. His works include five operas, three symphonies, chamber music, choral works, and songs.

Life and career Early life Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic, the day after Archduke Ferdinand's assassination that triggered the First World War. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me". His mother was a Hungarian countess, Anna Julie Marie Széll von Bessenyö. Kubelík studied the violin with his father, and entered the Prague Conservatory at the age of 14, studying violin, piano, composition, and conducting. Kubelík conducted the orchestra's first post-war concert in May 1945. In 1946, he helped found the Prague Spring Festival, and conducted its opening concert on 12 May that year.

In July 1946, Kubelík began a three-month conducting tour of Australia as a guest artist for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, travelling with his wife and two-year-old son. He returned for a second tour in 1949, leading to offers to stay as chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, which he refused. He would not appear in Australia again until 1958.

Defection After the Communist coup of February 1948, Kubelík left Czechoslovakia, vowing not to return until the country was liberated. "I had lived through one form of bestial tyranny, Nazism," he told an interviewer, "As a matter of principle I was not going to live through another." He defected during a trip to Britain, where he had flown to conduct Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Glyndebourne company at the Edinburgh Festival.

Chicago, Covent Garden and Munich

In 1950, Kubelík became music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, choosing the position over an offer from the BBC to succeed Sir Adrian Boult as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He left the post in 1953. Some hold that he was "hounded out of the [Chicago] job" (to quote Time magazine) by the "savage attacks" (to quote the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians) of the Chicago Tribune music critic Claudia Cassidy. But Chicago Sun-Times music critic Robert C. Marsh argued in 1972 that it was the Chicago Symphony trustees who were behind the departure. Their foremost complaint, and that of Cassidy as well, was that Kubelík introduced too many contemporary works (about 70) to the orchestra; there were also objections to his demanding exhaustive rehearsals and discharge of principal players. Kubeliki's landmark recording of Pictures at an Exhibition with the CSO on Mercury led New York Times music critic Howard Taubman to observe that listening to it was like "being in the living presence of the orchestra," and Mercury began releasing their classical recordings under the "Living Presence" series name.

After leaving Chicago, Kubelík toured the US with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and, in the words of Lionel Salter in the Grove Dictionary, "had a brilliant success with Janáček's Kát'a Kabanová at Sadler's Wells in London in 1954". Among his achievements there was, in 1957, the first practically complete production in any opera house of Berlioz's Les Troyens. Although Covent Garden sought to renew his contract, he chose to leave, partly because of a campaign by Sir Thomas Beecham against the engagement of foreign artists at Covent Garden. Kubelík accepted partly because of his strong artistic relationship with Gentele. The first production he conducted as the Met's music director was Les Troyens. The death of Gentele in a road accident in 1972 undermined Kubelík's reasons for working at the opera house. He had prior conducting commitments away from the Met in his first season there, which diverted his attention. He resigned from the Met in 1974, after only six months in the post.

In his post-Czechoslovak career, Kubelík worked with the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland, Israel Philharmonic, London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras, among others. His final concert was with the Czech Philharmonic.

Kubelík died in 1996, aged 82, in Kastanienbaum, in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. His ashes are interred next to the grave of his father in Slavín, Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague.

Compositions Among Kubelík's compositions are five operas, three symphonies, three settings of the requiem, other choral works, many pieces of chamber music, and songs. Salter describes his musical style as "neo-romantic". His complete cycle of Mahler's symphonies (recorded from 1967 to 1971 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) is highly regarded. Of his Mahler, Daniel Barenboim remarked, "I often thought I was missing something in Mahler until I listened to Kubelík. There is a lot more to be discovered in these pieces than just a generalized form of extrovert excitement. That is what Kubelík showed." Kubelík also left much-admired recordings of operas by Verdi (his Rigoletto was recorded at La Scala with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), Mozart, Janáček, Dvořák and others, including Wagner, whose music he had shunned during the war, but which he conducted in later years. His recordings of Die Meistersinger and Parsifal have been ranked the top choice by many critics, including BBC Radio 3's Building a Library programme.

Kubelík's complete discography is enormous, with music ranging from Malcolm Arnold to Jan Dismas Zelenka, with recordings both in the studio and in concert. In addition to complete cycles of Beethoven, Brahms, Dvořák, and Mahler, Kubelík made recordings of orchestral and operatic works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi and many others, including modern composers.

In May 2018, Deutsche Grammophon released a 66-disc box-set of his complete recordings for the label.

Composer Composition Date Orchestra RecordingBerliozLes Troyens1957Coven Garden Opera Chorus, Coven Garden OrchestraTestament Bartók Concerto for Orchestra 1974 Boston Symphony Orchestra Deutsche Grammophon Beethoven Symphony No. 4 1975 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Symphony No. 5 1973 Boston Symphony Orchestra Symphony No. 6 "Pastorale" Orchestre de Paris Symphony No. 7 1974 Wiener Philharmoniker Symphony No. 8 1975 The Cleveland Orchestra Symphony No. 9 "Choral" Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Berg Violin Concerto 1971 Brahms A German Requiem 1978 Audite Bruckner Symphony No. 3 1954 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands 1985 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Sony Classical Symphony No. 8 1963 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Orfeo 1977 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks BR Klassik Symphony No. 9 1985 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Orfeo Dresden Dansflitsen 1954 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands Dvořák Symphonic Variations 1974 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon My Home, Overture 1973-4 Hussite Dramatic overture In Nature's Realm Concert Overture Carnival Concert Overture 1977 Othello Concert Overture Scherzo capriccioso 1975 Symphony No. 1 1973 Berliner Philharmoniker Symphony No. 2 Symphony No. 3 Symphony No. 4 Symphony No. 5 Symphony No. 6 Symphony No. 7 1950 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands 1971 Berliner Philharmoniker Deutsche Grammophon Symphony No. 8 1966 Symphony No. 9 1973 The Noon Witch 1974 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks The Water Goblin The Wild Dove 1976 Grieg Piano Concerto 1964 Berliner Philharmoniker Hindemith Chamber Music No. 5 1966 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Bayerischer Rundfunk Concerto Music, Op. 48 1963 Der Schwanendreher 1968 Janáček Concertino 1970 Deutsche Grammophon The Diary of One Who Disappeared Glagolitic Mass Sinfonietta 1970 Taras Bulba 1951 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands 1970 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon Mahler Symphony No. 1 "Titan" 1967 1979 Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" 1969 Deutsche Grammophon 1982 Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony No. 3 1967 Deutsche Grammophon Symphony No. 4 1968 Symphony No. 5 1971 1981 Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony No. 6 "Tragic" 1968 Deutsche Grammophon Symphony No. 7 1970 Symphony No. 8 "Symphony of a Thousand" Symphony No. 9 1967 Symphony No. 10 1968 Mendelssohn Violin Concerto 1951 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands Mozart Eine kleine Nachtmusik 1962 Wiener Philharmoniker EMI Mass No. 9 in B Flat major KV 275 (Missa brevis) 1973 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon Symphony No. 36 KV 425 "Linz" 1962 Wiener Philharmoniker EMI Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 1951 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands Schoenberg Piano Concerto 1972 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Deutsche Grammophon Violin Concerto Schubert Symphony No. 9 1960 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra EMI Schumann Symphonies 1979 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks CBS / Sony Classical Piano Concerto 1964 Berliner Philharmoniker Deutsche Grammophon Smetana Má vlast 1971 Boston Symphony Orchestra Tansman Music for Orchestra 1950 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Radio Netherlands Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 1961 Wiener Philharmoniker EMI Verdi Rigoletto 1964 Orchester del Teatro alla Scala Deutsche Grammophon Wagner Lohengrin 1971 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Weber Der Freischütz 1980 Decca Oberon 1970 Deutsche Grammophon