Kehr, Günter

views updated

Kehr, Günter

Kehr, Günter, German violinist and conductor; b. Darmstadt, March 16, 1920; d. Mainz, Sept. 22, 1989. He studied violin in Frankfurt am Main and Cologne, then took univ. courses in Berlin and Cologne, receiving a Ph.D. with the diss. Untersuchungen zur Violintechnik um die Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts (1941). As a violinist, he gave the first German performances of the concertos of Hindemith and Bartok; also played in a string trio. He then pursued a career as a conductor. In 1955 he founded the Mainz Chamber Orch., with which he made numerous tours. From 1953 to 1961 he was director of the Peter-Cornelius-Konservatorium in Mainz, and from 1959 he taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, becoming a prof, there in 1961 and remaining there until 1987. He ed. Urtext editions of the violin sonatas of Bach and Brahms and also supervised new editions of the orch. works of Albinoni, Rameau, Telemann, and other composers.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire