Christoph von Dohnanyi, the great German conductor, has died

An emblematic baton of the great German tradition, heir to a line of musicians, conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi, who divided his career between great repertoire and modern music, died on Saturday, September 6, in Munich (Germany), at the age of 95. A demanding and rigorous personality, born into an aristocracy whose values ​​he cultivated, he leaves the image of a man of great elegance, both physical and moral, whose reserve could sometimes be akin to coldness. This does not do justice to an art whose expressiveness flourishes in a vision of the repertoire that is certainly controlled, but also profound and sensitive.

Born in Berlin on September 8, 1929, the grandson of the composer and great Hungarian pianist Ernö Dohnanyi (1877-1960) – an emulator of Brahms and a fellow student of Bartok – began playing music in the family. His father, Dr. Hans von Dohnanyi (1902-1945) joined his brother-in-law, the pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the fight against Nazism. Their participation in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, led to their deportation and subsequent hanging on April 9, 1945. At 15, Christoph and his one-year-old brother, Klaus, were orphaned. The latter would become a respected politician (Minister of Education in Willy Brandt's government and Social Democratic Mayor of Hamburg).

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