Schumann - Symphony Nos 1 Spring and 4

Christian Thielemann was born in 1959 into a family of music enthusiasts. He received his first piano lessons at the age of five, later studying the instrument at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik with Helmut Roloff. In addition to private lessons in conducting and composition, he also studied the viola with Giusto Cappone at the Berlin Philharmonic's Herbert von Karajan Foundation and received numerous awards both as pianist and violist. After graduating, he worked as a répétiteur at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and at the same time was Karajan's assistant.

Following positions in Gelsenkirchen, Karlsruhe and Hanover, he was appointed principal conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf in 1985. Three years later he became general music director in Nuremberg. After numerous appearances at all the important Italian opera houses, in 1993 he was appointed principal guest conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. He has conducted the complete cycle of Beethoven Symphonies in Rome with the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and made his Japanese debut with this orchestra in 1993. In American opera houses Thielemann has conducted a new production of Elektra in San Francisco and Der Rosenkavalier and Arabella at the Metropolitan in New York (the latter now released on video on DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON). At the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, he made his debut with Wagner's Lohengrin, which he also conducted when the company visited Tokyo in 1993; and starting in the 1997/98 season he took up his appointment as Generalmusikdirektor. He made his Covent Garden debut with Janacek's Jenufa, returning there to conduct Elektra. His concert activities have included engagements with leading orchestras in the U.S. (Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minnesota) as well as the Israel Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Berlin Philharmonic and numerous other major orchestras.

Christian Thielemann has recorded exclusively for DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON since 1996.