26 Facts About Karl Klingler

Karl Klingler was a German violinist, concertmaster, composer, music teacher and lecturer.

Karl Klingler was born in Strasbourg, at that time in Germany, the fifth of his parents' six recorded children.

Karl Klingler's father, Theodor Klingler, was a professional viola player who taught at the conservatory there.

When he was still very young Klingler was receiving violin lessons from his father, and then from his father's colleague at the conservatory, Heinrich Schuster.

Karl Klingler accordingly acquired a high-profile among Berlin's top musicians while still in his early 20s.

Karl Klingler's career was interrupted in July 1914 by the outbreak of the First World War: he was called up to fight as a soldier.

In 1920 Karl Klingler was sought out by a young Japanese musician called Shinichi Suzuki.

Karl Klingler had let it be known that did not normally extend his activities to private tuition, and accordingly Suzuki became his only private pupil.

Karl Klingler nevertheless managed to sustain a public career in music for several years after the Nazi takeover.

Karl Klingler participated in the activities of the Militant League for German Culture.

Karl Klingler was recruited by Richard Strauss to a senior administrative role within the Reich Chamber of Music.

Karl Klingler received a succession of warnings and threats from Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, probably backed up by communications from Herbert Gerigk, the top music administrator in Nazi Germany: The Jewish cellist must be replaced.

Karl Klingler had actually met Adolf Hitler, albeit briefly, at a musical event set up by President Hindenburg back in March 1934, and now he wrote personally to Hitler, a letter dated 22 November 1934, hoping that the leader would be appreciative of the artistic and German qualities of the Karl Klingler Quartet including its Jewish cellist.

On 9 March 1936, in the presence of several students, Karl Klingler protested at the university when he discovered that a bust of his mentor, Joseph Joachim, had been removed.

Karl Klingler was able to devote himself to composition, producing a large work for choir, soloist and piano.

Karl Klingler formed a friendship with the physicist Max Planck: the two of them engaged in deep discussions concerning certain problems in geometry.

Nevertheless, Karl Klingler was not completely written out of public life.

In Hanover Karl Klingler recruited some former students, Agnes Ritter, Friedrich Hausmann and Otto Garvens, to reform the Klingler String Quartet, but by this time Karl Klingler himself was past retirement age.

Karl Klingler was still able to write chamber music, and published some prose books on musical themes.

Karl Klingler died a few months after of his 91st birthday on 18 March 1971.

The Karl Klingler Quartet was founded in 1905 with the express purpose of recreating and preserving the tone quality and musical style of the legendary Joachim Quartet.

Just like the Joachim Quartet, which on account of the qualities of its tone and style had been identified as one of the best strong quartets in the world, its spiritual successor, the Karl Klingler Quartet, confirmed its own status by producing some of the best recordings of the day.

In 1936 Karl Klingler refused to submit to pressure to substitute an "Aryan" cellist for Silberstein, and the now world-famous Karl Klingler Quartet instead "resigned".

In terms of interpretation, Karl Klingler's aim had been to continue the qualities and traditions established by the Joachim Quartet.

Since 1979 the Karl Klingler Foundation, set up by Marianne-Migault Klingler to honour her father, has provided bursaries to support string quartet music.

The Karl Klingler foundation was established in 1979 to support string quartets and to promote early training for string players, applying the Suzuki method developed by Klingler's former pupil, Shinichi Suzuki.