ORFEO International

News

March 2011

† Yakov Kreizberg

In many ways the death of Yakov Kreizberg at the age of fifty-one marks the end of an era in the world of classical music. Only a few weeks ago he was praised for his excellent, far-reaching work with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, of which he had been artistic and musical director since 2008/9.
Yakov Kreizberg
Foto: Marco BorggreveHe also held the posts of principal conductor and artistic adviser with the Netherlands Philharmonic and Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and conducted his final concert with the former at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in February 2011. German opera-goers and concert-goers learnt to value his work at an early date, not least thanks for his successes as general music director of the Lower Rhine Symphony Orchestra and then, from 1994 to 2001, as general music director of the Komische Oper in Berlin, where he rehearsed and conducted works from three centuries ranging from the core repertory of Beethoven and Verdi to rarities by composers such as Berthold Goldschmidt. As a guest conductor he appeared with many leading symphony orchestras from Berlin to Cologne and Munich. He also made many appearances in the United States of America, where his career began as a scholarship holder at Tanglewood and where he won several major conducting competitions. For Orfeo, Yakov Kreizberg – a native of St Petersburg – recorded Shostakovich’s two cello concertos with Daniel Müller-Schott and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It is exactly two years since he conducted the first of these works with the same soloist in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Munich Philharmonie. It is shocking to have to take our leave of Yakov Kreizberg so soon afterwards.

C 659 081 ASchostakowitsch - Concerts for Violoncello and Orchestra No. 1 und 2
Daniel Müller-Schott
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Yakov Kreizberg
C 659 081 A