Christoph von Dohnányi, longtime music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, has died at 95.
He first conducted here in 1981 and was named music director designate in 1984. During his tenure, Dohnányi presented the first fully staged opera at Blossom Music Center — Mozart’s "The Magic Flute" in 1985.
He also established a residency at the Salzburg Festival in 1992, which led to their first tour of mainland China. In 1994, Time magazine honored the ensemble as “the best band in the land."
He pushed to restore Severance Hall’s Norton Memorial Organ in 2000. The next year, the Orchestra released a 10-disc retrospective of his tenure. He stepped down in 2002, when he was named music director laureate, and later conducted London’s Philharmonia Orchestra for over a decade.
In a statement, orchestra CEO André Gremillet said the orchestra was "fortunate to have him in Cleveland."
"Maestro Dohnányi’s artistry and dedication led to a deep mutual respect with our musicians, which was felt sincerely by our audiences who had an enormous appreciation for him," he said. "We send condolences to his family and friends, and to all he touched with his music in Cleveland and beyond.”
In 2002, WKSU’s Vivian Goodman marked Dohnányi’s retirement in a piece for NPR. Speaking with the late Robert Finn, longtime classical critic for the Plain Dealer, Goodman noted that Dohnányi was an unusual choice to succeed Lorin Maazel: He was not well-known in the United States, and had built a reputation as an opera conductor.
“Within the first few weeks of his tenure here, he did a performance of the unfinished oratorio of Arnold Schoenberg, ‘Die Jakobsleiter,’” Finn said. “I thought, ‘This is a very shrewd move on his part. He’s got a kind of honeymoon period going and he took advantage of this to do this rarely heard, unusual and very difficult [piece]… and to make a go of it.’”
The maestro said he chose pieces because he liked them and not due to any strategy.
“If you start in a way that you just punch them in the face and say, ‘Okay, this is the way you should be educated,’ you will find resistance,” he said. “Art is not there to be consciously educated. It should go under the skin.”
Dohnányi was born in Berlin in 1929 and studied law before switching to music. He began his career as assistant to Sir Georg Solti and led several orchestras in Germany before coming to Cleveland. He died Sept. 6 in Munich.
