George Cleve, Conductor Who Interpreted Mozart, Dies at 79. This is sad news for those of us who
knew him from northern California.
"George Cleve, a conductor known to New York audiences for his guest appearances with the Mostly Mozart Festival and the New York City Ballet, died on Thursday at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 79.
The cause was liver failure, said Khori Dastoor, a family friend.
Renowned as a Mozart interpreter, Mr. Cleve spent his career primarily on the West Coast. He was the music director of the San Jose Symphony from 1972 to 1992 and in 1974 founded the Midsummer Mozart Festival, an annual concert series in the Bay Area that he directed to the end of his life.
Mr. Cleve appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras around the world, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; the Boston, San Francisco and Montreal Symphonies; the Cleveland Orchestra; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, the Israel Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony and the Orchestre National de France.
The distinguished soloists with whom he worked over the years included the pianists Van Cliburn, Peter Serkin and André Watts; the violinists Henryk Szeryng and Joshua Bell; the cellist Mischa Maisky; and the French horn player Barry Tuckwell.
George Wolfgang Cleve was born in Vienna on July 9, 1936, to an artistic family. His father, Felix, was a philosopher, violinist and newspaper film and dance critic; his mother, the former Melitta Monheit, taught foreign languages and played the piano. An aunt, Fanny Cleve, was a prominent soprano who sang under the batons of Richard Strauss, George Szell and Otto Klemperer.
The Cleves, who were Jewish, fled Austria after the Nazi annexation of 1938, settling in New York in 1940. As a youth, George studied the piano and violin, graduating from the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan.
He went on to study at the Mannes College of Music, and at Tanglewood he worked with the conductor Pierre Monteux, who became a longtime mentor."
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/arts/music/george-cleve-conductor-who-interpreted-mozart-dies-at-79.html?_r=0
https://www.sfcv.org/article/memories-of-george-cleve-maestro-and-mentor
He was conducting to the very end
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