for multiple casting, with the role of Wotan split between Hermann Uhde and Jerome Hines, and Brünnhilde between Astrid Varnay and Birgit Nilsson. Orchestral Kempe was associated with the Royal Philharmonic (RPO) from 1955. In 1960, he became its Associate Conductor, chosen by the orchestra's founder, Sir Thomas Beecham. In 1961 and 1962 he was Principal Conductor of the RPO, and from 1963 to 1975 its Artistic Director. A member of the RPO later said of Kempe, "He was a wonderful controller of the orchestra, and a very great accompanist ... Kempe was like someone driving a racing-car, following the piano round the bends." Kempe abolished Beecham's male-only rule, introducing women into the RPO: an orchestra without them, he said, "always reminds me of the army." The first was violinist Christa Ruppert. In 1970, the RPO named him Conductor for Life, but in 1975, he resigned his post with the orchestra. From 1965 to 1972 Kempe worked with Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, and from 1967 to his death conducted the Munich Philharmonic, with whom he made international tours and recorded the first quadraphonic set of the Beethoven symphonies. In the final months of his life, Kempe was the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The opening concert of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts on 16 July 1976, in which he was to have conducted his BBC forces in Beethoven's Missa solemnis, became a memorial concert for him following Kempe's death in Zürich, two months earlier, aged 65. References External links 1910 births 1976 deaths BBC Symphony Orchestra German male conductors (music) German classical oboists Male oboists 20th-century German conductors (music) 20th-century German male musicians 20th-century British musicians Musicians from Dresden Répétiteurs