Rudolf Kempe was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

.
Kempe was born in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, where from the age of fourteen he studied at the Dresden State Opera School. He played oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 in the opera orchestra

Dortmunder Philharmoniker

The Dortmunder Philharmoniker are a German symphony orchestra based in Dortmund. The orchestra of the Theater Dortmund performs both opera in the Opernhaus Dortmund and concert in the Konzerthaus Dortmund...

 of Dortmund

Dortmund

Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

 and then in the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, from 1929. In addition to oboe, he played the piano regularly, as a soloist, in chamber music or accompanying, as a result of which, in 1933, the new Director of the Leipzig Opera invited Kempe to become a répétiteur

Répétiteur

Répétiteur , repetitore , or Korrepetitor / Repetitor , originally from the French verb répéter meaning "to repeat, to go over, to learn, to rehearse"....

, and later a conductor, for the opera.

During the Second World War Kempe was conscripted into the army, but instead of active service was directed into musical activities, playing for the troops and later taking over the chief conductorship of the Chemnitz

Chemnitz

Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...

 opera house.
Kempe directed the Dresden Opera and the Dresden Staatskapelle from 1949 to 1952, making his first records, including Der Rosenkavalier

Der Rosenkavalier

Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...

, Die Meistersinger and Der Freischütz

Der Freischütz

Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...

. ‘He obtains some superlative playing from the Dresden orchestra,’ commented The Record Guide

The Record Guide

The Record Guide was an English reference work, listing, describing and evaluating gramophone recordings of classical music in the 1950s. It was the precursor of modern guides such as The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music-Publication history:...

.