Karl Ristenpart
Karl Ristenpart | |
---|---|
Born | Kiel, Germany | 26 January 1900
Died | 24 December 1967 Lisbon, Portugal | (aged 67)
Nationality | German |
Occupation | Conductor |
Karl Ristenpart (26 January 1900 – 24 December 1967) was a German conductor.
Career
Born in
Following an
In 1932 Ristenpart became the conductor of a little string ensemble in Berlin, whose core was composed of women friends of his wife, the pianist and harpsichordist Ruth Christensen. This ensemble came to be known as the Karl Ristenpart Chamber Orchestra and often played for the Berlin radio and the Deutschlandsender, mostly for exhausting live night broadcasts abroad. But Ristenpart's career as a promising young conductor in Germany was hobbled by his refusal to join the Nazi Party.
Following
Ristenpart began working in the summer of 1953 as conductor of the
In December 1967, Ristenpart suffered a heart attack while on tour in Portugal with the chamber orchestra of the Gulbenkian Foundation and died in a Lisbon hospital on Christmas Eve. The Chamber Orchestra of the Saar was unable to survive long the dimming of its guiding light. After four years under the baton of the reputable cellist Antonio Janigro, and the death in a car accident of its core musicians, first-violin Georg Friedrich Hendel and his wife Betty Hindrichs-Hendel, first-cellist, it merged with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1973.
Discography
Original LP recordings
Karl Ristenpart left :
- only one LP of his production with his Chamber Orchestra in Berlin (Archiv 14004 with Bach cantatas 56 and 82 interpreted by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hermann Töttcher);
- 169 LPs with the Saar Chamber Orchestra, of which 2 were made in Germany (Archiv and Elektrola) and 167 in France (2 Lumen, 4 Club National du Disque, 1 Harmonia Mundi, 95 Les Discophiles Français, 24 Erato, 42 Club Français du Disque);
- 4 with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart (Checkmate, USA).
Reissues as CDs
- Archiv 14004 with cantatas 56 and 82 was reissued by Polydor International/DG Classics in 1997 and again since.
- several LPs of Club Français du Disque, Musidisc and Erato with Bach, Mozart and Haydn works were reissued as CDs in the 1980s and 1990s under the labels Accord or Erato (see www.amazon.fr);
- ACCORD/UNIVERSAL issued a 6-CD set with Bach orchestral works (including the Brandenburgs, the Suites and The Art of Fugue) in 2000; a 4-CD set entitled "L'art de Teresa Stich-Randall" which includes sacred compositions by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Schubert in which the soprano is accompanied by Ristenpart’s Saar Orchestra, in 2005; a double-CD set with cantatas 56, 82, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, Gott soll allein mein Herze haben, BWV 169, Coffee Cantata, and 212 in 2006.
- a wide selection of Ristenpart recordings which had been issued as LPs by Nonesuch can be ordered as CDs in the USA from www.rediscovery.us;
- the Association Jean-Pierre Rampal has started reissuing most of the early Saar radio tapes (1954–1985) with Ristenpart’s orchestra and French soloists as CD sets under its label Premiers Horizons Disques (www.jprampal.com). Works of Frank Martin, Willy Burkhard, Peter Mieg, Jean-Michel Damase and others.
- "The RIAS Bach Cantatas Project" Audite 21415 [1] is a 9-CD set issued in 2012 taken from the RIAS-Berlin archives (today with Deutschlandradio Kultur) of 29 Bach Cantatas among the 70 recorded by Karl Ristenpart in the period from 1949 to 1952 (planned initially as a complete recording). These studio recordings include J.S. Bach Cantatas
Sources
- Charles W. Scheel. Karl Ristenpart: Die Werkstätten des Dirigenten: Berlin, Paris, Saarbrücken. Saarbrücken, SDV, 1999 (www.amazon.de). This biography contains many photos, detailed charts of Ristenpart’s productions and a CD with 4 recordings of the Saar Chamber Orchestra under Ristenpart (Mozart, Sinfonia concertante for 4 winds and orchestra (Pierre Pierlot, oboe; Jacques Lancelot, clarinet; Gilbert Coursier, horn; Paul Hongne, bassoon), 1954; Albert Roussel, Concert pour petit orchestre, op. 34, 1955; André Jolivet, Concerto for flute and string orchestra (Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute), 1960; J.S. Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 [Georg Friedrich Hendel, violin; Kurt Cromm and Holger Ristenpart, flutes], 1967).
- Charles W. Scheel and Saarländische Kammerorchester(1953-1967) = Karl Ristenpart et l’Orchestre de chambre de la Sarre (1953-1967). Bern and New York, Peter Lang (“Convergences” Series; 291 p., 20 illus.), 1999.
- Classic Record Collector, Spring 2006, pp. 10–17.
- Charles W. Scheel (ed.). "Gustav Mahler in the correspondence between Karl Ristenpart and Richard Freed in 1967", special trilingual issue of the Cahiers de l’Amefa, Saarbrücken, 2007. Texts edited and translated in German, French and English by Charles W. Scheel (72 p + CD with a 1959 recording of the Adagietto from Mahlers 5th Symphony, by the Saar Chamber Orchestra under Karl Ristenpart). See under:
https://univ-metz.academia.edu/CharlesScheel/Papers/766156/GUSTAV_MAHLER _in_der_Korrespondenz_in_the_correspondence_dans_la_correspondance