Obituary, Sir Jeffrey Tate (1943-2017)

We were saddened to hear over the weekend that the English conductor Jeffrey Tate died suddenly on Friday after suffering a heart attack whilst rehearsing in Italy.

Tate was born in Salisbury on 28th April 1943, with spina bifida and a severe curvature of the spine; though early prognoses suggested that both his mobility and life-expectancy would be severely limited by the conditions, he went on to have a hugely successful forty-year career as an operatic and orchestral conductor, despite receiving little formal musical training until his twenties.

Partly because of the gratitude he felt towards the medical profession as a result of the treatment and therapy he received during his childhood (much of which was spent in hospital), Tate initially intended to pursue a career as a doctor, reading medicine at Christ’s College Cambridge and going on to work at St Thomas’s Hospital before switching paths and training at the London Opera Centre as a repetiteur. A stint at Covent Garden followed shortly afterwards, where he came into contact with (among others) Pierre Boulez, Colin Davis and Georg Solti, who acted as something of a mentor during these early years. Despite his initial misgivings about the physical challenges of conducting, he gradually transitioned from keyboard to podium via a series of assistantships to the likes of Karajan and Boulez and eventually made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980, when he stepped in to conduct Berg's Lulu for an indisposed James Levine at terrifyingly short notice. Six years later he became the first person to hold the title of Principal Conductor at Covent Garden.

Opera work continued to play a significant role throughout Tate’s career (his repertoire encompassed Monteverdi, Mozart, Strauss and Wagner), but it is perhaps for his work with the English Chamber Orchestra that he will be most fondly remembered: he became the orchestra’s principal conductor in 1985, and their recordings of the Mozart symphonies and piano concertos (with Mitsuko Uchida) in particular won widespread acclaim for their ‘elegant freshness’ (MusicWeb International) and ‘detailed attention’ (Gramophone). He also held positions with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (with whom he recorded a particularly delightful Mendelssohn Midsummer Night’s Dream and a disc of orchestral highlights from Strauss’s operas), the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra (he was appointed their chief conductor in 2007 and remained in the position until the end of his life).

Tate was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours list, and maintained a busy international schedule right up until his death; he gave what would be his final concert (Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the Orchestra Haydn, in Trento) just last Tuesday, and his diary was filled with high-profile engagements well into 2018.

As well as his formidable musical achievements, Tate worked tirelessly in support of the spina bifida charity SHINE. He is survived by his husband Klaus Kuhlemann, a German geomorphologist; the two met in the late 1970s whilst Tate was working in Cologne, and married in 2010.

Sir Jeffrey Tate - a selected discography