A maestro of the classic form, Kurt Masur conducted major orchestras around the world although he spent most of his career in East Germany as music director of Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. He became renowned in the West in the 1970s and achieved added fame due to his bravery in the political turmoil that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
He was noted for his classical approach to the central romantic repertoire of Bruckner, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Mahler. Born in a town that was at the time within Germany's Weimar Republic (now Poland), Masur began to play the piano as a child and studied with the Landesmusikschule Breslau until he was obliged to join the military during World War II. After the war, he studied at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig followed by conducting work with the Halle Landestheater, the Erfurt City Theater and the Leipzig Opera Theater.
Masur spent three years with the Dresden Philharmonic in the mid-'50s followed by two as music director of the Mecklenburg State Theater in Schwerin. After a stint with the Dresden Philharmonic, in 1970 he joined Leipzig's Gewandhaus Orchestra where he remained for more than 25 years. He made many recordings in that time but although he led the orchestra on a tour of America in the '70s, the albums were not heard in the West until the fall of communism two decades later.
An outspoken critic of the East German government's policies as communism began to crumble in the East, Masur supported the pro-democracy movement as the city of Leipzig became a centre of resistance. He organised meetings and spoke out in favour of non-violence in speeches on the radio. As a result, Masur's fame grew in the West and in 1991 he was named music director of the New York Philharmonic. Already lifetime honorary conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, he later was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic and music director of the Orchestre National de France. He died in Greenwich, Connecticut from complications with Parkinson's disease in 2015 aged 88.
