Horst Stein, the imposing German conductor whose life history spanned the second half of the 20th century, has died at the age of 80. His fluency and meticulous preparation stood him in good stead as he progressed from humble repetiteur to leading positions in the musical world, and at his c. H. Best he combined the solid virtues of the Kapellmeister (music music director) tradition with deep brainstorm.
The son of a mechanic, Stein was born in Elberfeld (now voice of Wuppertal in Germany's Ruhr realm), in the same town, by probability, as beau conductors Hans Knappertsbusch and G�nter Wand. He tended to the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt and the Cologne Conservatory, where he studied report with Philipp Jarnach, and conducting with Wand.
His first designation was as repetiteur at Wuppertal (1947-51), after which he became music manager at the Hamburg State Opera in 1951. Gaining experience with such conductors as Herbert von Karajan, Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss and Joseph Keilberth at the Bayreuth Festival from 1952, he went to the Berlin State Opera as music director in 1955. Despite existence promoted to chief conductor there, Stein left East Germany in 1961, reversive to Hamburg as deputy general euphony director under Rolf Liebermann.
Before a second import at Hamburg, this prison term as general music theatre director (1972-77), he held posts at the Mannheim National Theatre and Vienna State Opera. Between 1969 and 1986, he conducted a remarkable 138 Wagner performances at the Bayreuth Festival - the Ring, Parsifal, Meistersinger, Tristan and Tannh�user - a total eclipsed, however, by more than 500 appearances with the Vienna State Opera. If such tallies speak well for Stein's professionalism and technical facility, they do at the same time characterise him as a very different animal from the inspirational, charismatic Carlos Kleiber, whom he replaced in trey performances of Tristan at Bayreuth in 1976 (and for the entire hunt down in 1977) to disappointing effect. Stein could be pedestrian in the extreme in these scores, though his admirers found much to praise in the strength, precision and consistency of his conducting.
He certainly proven himself to be a capable mate of custody at the festival, mastering the notoriously tricky acoustics of the Festspielhaus and introducing the new chorus master, Norbert Balatsch, a colleague with whom he had worked in Vienna. His contribution was much valued by Wolfgang Wagner, who plant him a reliable pardner over the entire full stop, not least that of his modern production of the Ring (1970-75).
From the 1980s, Stein exhausted less time in the pit and more on the soapbox, accepting appointments as headman conductor of the Suisse Romande Orchestra (1980-85) and of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (1985-96). From 1987 to 1994 he was also top dog conductor of the Basle Symphony Orchestra, and in those decades he appeared also as a guest conductor with the Berlin, London and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Japan. In 1996 he was made conductor emeritus of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra for life.
Stein's Bayreuth endeavours can be sampled on the late DVD release of the 1981 Bayreuth Parsifal; other notable opera recordings admit a 1971 Zauberfl�te from Hamburg, directed by Peter Ustinov, featuring Nicolai Gedda, Edith Mathis and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and a Don Carlos from Vienna, with Franco Corelli, Gundula Janowitz, Shirley Verrett and Martti Talvela.
If the accomplishment of Stein's complete transcription of Max Reger's orchestral works for Koch Schwann demonstrates the requisite tenaciousness for that composer's body of work, and an unsurprising empathy for its sometimes unremarkable aesthetic, then his recordings of Bruckner symphonies (Nos 2 and 6 with the Vienna Philharmonic, No 4 with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra) and Beethoven piano concertos (with Friedrich Gulda as soloist) have got also met with considerable acclaim.
� Horst Walter Stein, conductor, born May 2 1928; died July 27 2008
More info
