Paul Kletzki

Born in Łódź, Poland, on the 21st of March 1900, Paul Kletzki (the German spelling of his Polish name Paweł Klecki) was a Polish conductor and composer. He first joined the Łódź Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of fifteen, and after serving in the Great War, studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw. During the 1920s his compositions were championed by Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler, who permitted Kletzki to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1925. In the second half of the twentieth century, Kletzki was a renowned conductor, especially of Mahler. In 1954 he was appointed chief conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Between 1958 and 1961, he was principal conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and from 1966 to 1970, he was the General Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Kletzki died on the 5th of March 1973