A number of high-calibre conductors, including Kurt Masur, Klaus Tennstedt and Carlos Kleiber, born in the years leading up to 1930, came to prominence around the middle of the 20th century, maturing during the years of Herbert von Karajan’s dominance. Christoph von Dohnányi, who has died aged 95, was among them, rising like the others through the ranks of the German opera houses to major posts in the UK and US.
Following appointments as general music director at Lübeck, Kassel and Frankfurt, Dohnányi made his British debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1965, his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1972 (with Falstaff) and at Covent Garden in 1974 (with Salome). Then in 1984 he began an 18-year period as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, during which he elevated it to new heights.
He took the orchestra on more than a dozen international tours, to Europe and Asia, including China. In the 1990s Cleveland became the first American orchestra in decades to serve as a resident ensemble at the Salzburg festival. He also took them to the Edinburgh and Lucerne festivals and to the BBC Proms, and it was under his directorship that the Cleveland became the most-recorded US orchestra of the age. He was the catalyst behind the $37m renovation of Severance Hall, dating from 1931, which reopened in January 2000.
One project that did not go to plan was the projected recording of Wagner’s Ring with the orchestra for Decca. Das Rheingold was released in 1995 and Die Walküre in 1997, but were unfavourably reviewed and failed to compete in the market with recent recordings by Bernard Haitink, James Levine and Daniel Barenboim. Many of the principal roles were not taken by the best singers of the day, the finest characterisations being those of Peter Schreier as a wheedling, needle-sharp Mime and Kim Begley as a quixotic Loge. The chief virtue of these recordings was considered to be the orchestral playing, particularly that of the brass.
It was at this point that the classical recording industry collapsed, putting an end to the Ring project and severely curtailing the recording career of Dohnányi and many other major figures. Dohnányi brought his tenure at Cleveland to a close with two performances of Siegfried, but the opera was not recorded. Plans for him to do Götterdämmerung in the role of music director laureate in 2005 were abandoned on financial grounds.
He was also principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London from 1994, and its principal conductor from 1997 for 11 years, being appointed honorary conductor for life in 2008.
On his return to Covent Garden, his Wozzeck (1984), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1987), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Fidelio (both 1990) were generally well received. He had made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1972 with his then wife, Anja Silja, in the title role of Salome and appeared there many times over the following three decades, conducting the Ring in 1993.
In those latter years he focused primarily on repertory from the Austro-German tradition from Mozart to Mahler and Strauss, though his versatility and technical skills served him well in works of the Second Viennese School and in later modernist scores. He conducted the premiere of Henze’s Der Junge Lord in 1965, making his debut at the Deutsche Oper, in what the composer described as “a brilliantly rehearsed and conducted performance”.
His conducting of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron in Frankfurt and Vienna in the 1970s were highly acclaimed, and his recordings of Berg’s Lulu (1976) and Wozzeck (1979), also starring Silja, were regarded as benchmarks. He conducted all the leading orchestras in the US and was a familiar figure on the podium in concert halls and at the opera all over the world.
Born in Berlin, he was the third child of Hans von Dohnányi, a prominent jurist, and Christine Bonhoeffer, whose brother was the well-known Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Hans was no less active than his brother-in-law in his resistance to the Nazis; indeed, he was directly involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944. By this time both he and Bonhoeffer had already been arrested and imprisoned; both were hanged in April 1945.
It had been Christoph’s intention to become a lawyer to help restore justice in Germany, and immediately after the war he studied law in Munich. But music was already a major part of his life and as he later recalled: “As I had a very quick mind and a good memory, I was able to listen to my law professor while composing music at the same time.”
As a member of an extended family whose ancestors had been close to Brahms, Liszt and others, he had already studied music, including the piano, seriously as a child. Those studies were interrupted by the war, but in 1948 he entered the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich, winning the Richard Strauss conducting prize when he graduated in 1951.
He then moved to the US to continue his studies with his composer grandfather Ernö von Dohnányi, who had joined the faculty of Florida State University at Tallahassee. He also spent summers at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, studying with Leonard Bernstein.
In 1953 he was engaged by Georg Solti as a chorus master and conductor at Frankfurt Opera, progressing from there to the music director posts in Lübeck (1957-63), Kassel (1963-68) – where he revived Schreker’s Der Ferne Klang, suppressed by the Nazis – Frankfurt (1968–77) and Hamburg (1977–84).
Working at Frankfurt with a team of dramaturgs that included Gerard Mortier (later director of La Monnaie in Brussels, and the Salzburg festival), he aimed for a broadly based programme that combined traditional elements with innovative “director’s theatre”. Engaging directors such as Klaus Michael Grüber and Hans Neuenfels, he helped pave the way for the radical developments of his successor, Michael Gielen.
He was also chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne from 1964 to 1970 and exploited the high technical standard of the orchestra, and the openness of the city to avant-garde music encouraged by Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s founding of Musica Viva in 1945, to expand the repertory. At the same time he devoted himself to the music of Mendelssohn, banned in his youth, performing Elijah, as well as many of the orchestral works.
In addition to his London appointments, he was artistic adviser to the Orchestre de Paris from 1998 to 2000 and chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg from 2004 to 2010.
In interpretative terms he generally gave the impression of being led by his intellect rather than his emotions, so much so that his readings could border on the perfunctory. He nevertheless generated a substantial body of work, much of it of high quality. Technically he impressed both audiences and players – his ear for intonation and voicing was both famed and feared – and his ability to motivate musicians raised standards wherever he worked.
His first marriage, in 1957, was to the German actor Renate Zillessen, and they had two children, Katja and Justus; in 1979 he married Silja, with whom he had three children, Julia, Benedikt and Olga. His first two marriages ended in divorce. In 2004 he married Barbara Koller, a viola player and his former assistant. She survives him, with his five children and his brother Klaus.