Christian Kluttig

Kluttig was born in Dresden as a son[1] of the cantor and subsequent Kirchenmusikdirektor Gottfried Kluttig (1913-2004). Kluttig had accordingly grown up with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.[2] In his hometown, he attended the Kreuzschule.[3] From 1961 to 1967, he studied conducting with general music director Rudolf Neuhaus and Horst Förster at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. [3] Furthermore, he took part in conducting courses given by Arvīds Jansons and Igor Markevitch in Weimar as well as Hans Swarowsky and Witold Rowicki in Vienna.[4]

After he had also undergone piano training in Dresden with Ingeborg Finke-Siegmund,[5] he received his first engagement as solo répétiteur with conducting duties at the Saxon State Opera in 1967.[6] There, he was active as an opera conductor for the first time with Le postillon de Lonjumeau by Adolphe Adam, Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber and Die Zauberflöte by Mozart. [4] In 1969, he also conducted his first Handel opera with Deidamia.[7] In Dresden, he learned a lot from guest conductors such as Rudolf Kempe and Igor Markevitch during orchestral work.[6]

With his Dresden qualifications, he moved in 1969 to Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz),[6] where he became First Kapellmeister at the city Theater in 1969. [8] In this capacity he studied among others the operas Simon Boccanegra by Verdi and The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky. [4] At the Opera House, he conducted the premiere of the Carl Riha production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with Kammersänger Konrad Rupf as Hans Sachs in 1974.[9] In a later interview (1985), he stated that his Wagner work so far had proved to be "a great happiness" for him.[10] At the same time, he regretted that he had hardly found the opportunity to interpret him.[10] In 1975, he rose to the position of Musical Director. [8] In 1979, he opened the Robert Schumann Days in the Stadthalle Chemnitz with Schumann's oratorio Paradise and the Peri.[11] In addition, he devoted himself in Chemnitz to the symphonic work of Dmitri Shostakovich and Gustav Mahler.[6]

Theater des Friedens, Landestheater Halle (1986)

Finally, in 1979, artistic director Ulf Keyn brought him to the Landestheater Halle as musical director.[12] The new management team continued to include Martin Schneider (opera director), Karin Zauft (chief dramaturge), Peter Sodann (drama director) and Dieter Wardetzki (1st play director of the Sprechtheater).[12] He also became chief conductor of the Orchestra of the Halle Opera House[13] and took over all George Frideric Handel productions in Halle from 1979 to 1990.[5] Thus he directed Ezio (1979), Agrippina (1980), Poro (1981), Alessandro (1983), Floridante (1984), Il pastor fido and Terpsichore (1985), Partenope (1985), Rinaldo (1987), Oreste (1988) and Tamerlano (1990). [7] With 41 performances, the opera Rinaldo was the second most performed Handel production in Halle.[14] Kluttig received support regarding performance practice from the musicologist Bernd Baselt.[15] Kluttig had to cope with "an immense workload and encrusted structures" in connection with the Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft, according to opera director Andreas Baumann. [6] In addition to Baumann, from 1981, he worked closely in Halle with Peter Konwitschny, from 1986.[6] Thus Kluttig played his part in opening up the festival to theatre directors.[16] Kluttig helped several singers socialised in Leipzig to get engagements in the Saale city, mainly on the recommendation of the singing teacher Helga Forner.[8] Among the new recruits were Annette Markert, Juliane Claus, Hendrikje Wangemann, Jürgen Trekel and Tomas Möwes. [7][6] He repeatedly invited Simone Kermes as a guest.[7] The first "in-house" countertenor Axel Köhler received special support. [7] According to Baumann, Kluttig stood for the "retention of Handel's dramaturgy" and had "new translations produced that were oriented towards the original text".[6] In this way, Kluttig provided essential suggestions for a "New Handel Style Halle".[6] Halle advanced to become an "East German centre of historical performance practice", as music journalist Michael Struck-Schloen put it.[17] For musicologist Karin Zauft, Kluttig was one of the pioneers of historical performance practice in the GDR[18] The opera ensemble made guest appearances both in the so-called Eastern Bloc (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary) as well as in the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.[14] After performances in 1985[4] at the Prague Spring International Music Festival[19] and at the Dresden Music Festivals, guest appearances took him to the Kissinger Sommer even before the fall of the Wall.[3] (1989–1993, 1995, 2000/01)[20] und zu den Innsbruck Festival of Early Music.[6]

In Halle, according to Gilbert Stöck, he was also responsible for "two nationally acclaimed productions of contemporary and at the same time socialy critic operas":[21] In 1984, Der Preis by Karl Ottomar Treibmann was staged and in 1986 Candide by Reiner Bredemeyer was premiered.[22] On the occasion of the Hallische Musiktage, he repeatedly premiered works by foreign composers with the Handel Festival Orchestra, such as in 1980 Avet Terterian's[5] Symphony No. 5 and 1985 Primož Ramovš's Dialogue for Piano and Orchestra (soloist: Bettina Otto).[23] As Gilbert Stöck noted, Kluttig was also open to works by Gerd Domhardt.[21] Thus in 1982[24] whose Symphony II was premiered.[21] In 1990, he premiered Günter Neubert's orchestral music Das verschenkte Weinen. In 1990, at the Handel House, he was one of the co-founders of the Halle Music Council, as whose vice-chairman he served from then on.[25] The declining attendance figures at the Landestheater Halle in the course of the Peaceful Revolution probably ultimately led to the resignation of the Kluttig and Baumann team.[26]

After a guest appearance,[26] he was from 1991 to 1998[27] in succession to James Lockhart Chief Conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and, as it were, Musical Director of the Theater Koblenz.[28] There, he cultivated both the operatic and the concert repertoire[6] Thus, on the one hand, he conducted the Handel operas Giulio Cesare (1989), Serse (1993), Alcina (1997) and Tamerlano (1999),[7] on the other hand, he performed all Mahler symphonies. [5] On the occasion of the 2000th anniversary of the city, he performed Mahler's Symphony No. 8 a festive concert in the Sporthalle Oberwerth.[29] With the orchestra, he was responsible for the world premiere of Róbert Wittinger's[5] Sinfonia no. 5. During Kluttig's tenure, the orchestra received the "Best Concert Programme of the 1995/96 Season" award from the Deutscher Musikverleger-Verband.[30]

Kluttig once named Claudio Abbado as his artistic role model.[31] For the music critic Wolf-Eberhard von Lewinski, he is "a sovereignly controlling and unpretentiously shaping conductor".[32] The musicologist Peter Gülke attested to Kluttig's combination of "modesty [...] with the authority of the highly competent".[3] He had "completed a huge opera repertoire" and was well known in the Historically informed performance (Baroque) as well as in "the classics and in Mahler scores."[3] Thus Kluttig's repertoire includes, in particular, orchestral works and oratorios by George Frideric Handel, as well as works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gustav Mahler.[33] He also championed Neue Musik,[33] for example, he brought the 1972 Piano Concerto by Manfred Weiss, a work commissioned by the Staatskapelle Dresden[34] (soloist: Gerhard Berge), and in 1983 at the New Gewandhaus together with the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra[35] Christfried Schmidt's "Munch music" premiered. Guest conducting engagements took him to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Dresden[4] as well as the Landestheater Linz (Serse, 1981) and the Theater Osnabrück (Alcina, 1997).[14] He also worked among others with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Dresdner Philharmonie and the Berliner Symphoniker as well as the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.[5] He presented several radio and record productions.[5]

In 1984[36] Rector Gustav Schmahl brought him to teach conducting at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. [37] He additionally took over the university symphony orchestra (HSO) there at the end of the 1980s[37] and led it in a teaching capacity in a first phase until he left for Koblenz in 1991. [38] Having already followed a call to Dresden as professor of orchestral conducting in 1998, he was additionally offered a professorship in Leipzig in 2000.[6][39] He also became the full-time director of the Leipzig HSO this time. [38] His tenure included the opening of the Great Hall and the engagement of renowned guest conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Kurt Masur and Herbert Blomstedt. [37] After an interim period with his former assistant Michael Köhler in 2003/04, he took over the conducting post again until his emeritus in 2007.[38] He also conducted several courses of the Dirigentenforum at the Deutscher Musikrat (Koblenz 1993, 1996 and 1998, Hilchenbach 2001, Recklinghausen 2011).[40] Until 2015 he was still a lecturer for conducting in Dresden. [41] His students include among others Titus Engel,[42] Stefan Sanderling[43] and Ines Schreiner.[44]

But then Kluttig suffered an irreversible hearing disorder, which forced him to end his conducting career in 2002.[3] He has since been increasingly involved as a chamber music pianist and Liedbegleiter.[3] Kluttig is a founding member of the alumni association[45] and board member of the Friends Society of the Dresden Academy of Music.[46] He is married[3] and father of three sons, whose eldest Roland Kluttig (born 1968) is also a conductor.

• 1969: Support Prize at the Dresden Carl Maria von Weber Competition.[47]
• 1971: Mendelssohn Scholarship 1971/72.[48]
• 1981: Handel Prize.[49]
• 1983:Conferment of the title Generalmusikdirektor.[50]
• 1998: Honorary Member of the Richard Wagner Association Koblenz.[51]

• Georg Friedrich Händel: Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (ETERNA, 1982 / Berlin Classics 1997) – Monika Frimmer, Eberhard Büchner, Chamber choir with members of the Halle State Theatre Choir, the Halle Choral Soloists and the Collegium vocale, Handel Festival Orchestra Halle
• Gerd Domhardt: 2. Sinfonie (NOVA, 1988) – Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig
• Christfried Schmidt: Munch-Musik (WERGO, 1994) – Rundfunksinfonieorchester Leipzig
• Engelbert Humperdinck: Die Heirat wider Willen (Deutsche Schallplatten, 1996) – Nils Giesecke, Simone Kermes, Peter Edelmann, Lena Lootens, Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie
• Róbert Wittinger: Sinfonia no. 5 (ANTES EDITION, 1998) – Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie
• Louis Spohr: Konzertante Werke (Deutsche Schallplatten, 2003) – Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie among others.

• Andreas Baumann: Christian Kluttig zum 70. Geburtstag. In Jahrbuch der Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden (2013).
• Walter Habel (ed.): Wer ist wer? The German Who’'s Who. 46. Ausgabe 2007/08, Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2007, ISBN 978-3-7950-2044-6, p. 688.
• Alain Pâris: Klassische Musik im 20. Jahrhundert. Instrumentalisten, Sänger, Dirigenten, Orchester, Chöre. 2nd completely revised edition, dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-32501-1, p. 411.
• Manfred Rätzer: Die halleschen Händel-Opern-Pioniere sollen im Gedächtnis bleiben. Prof. Christian Kluttig zum 70. Geburtstag. In Mitteilungen des Freundes- und Förderkreises des Händel-Hauses zu Halle e.V. 1/2014, pp. 33–35.
• Axel Schiederjürgen (Red.): Kürschners Musiker-Handbuch. Solisten, Dirigenten, Komponisten, Hochschullehrer. 5. Ausgabe, K. G. Saur Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-24212-3, p. 39.

• Literature by and about Christian Kluttig in the German National Library catalogue
• Christian Kluttig discography at Discogs
• Christian Kluttig on Allmusic
• Christian Kluttig (Conductor) on Bach Cantatas Website
• Christian Kluttig in Autorenverzeichnis of the Theater der Zeit