When Christoph von Dohnanyi's appointment as the sixth music director in the history of the Cleveland Orchestra was announced in 1982, the reaction was nearly unanimous: Christoph von Who? The Berlin-born Dohnanyi, 53 -- grandson of the urbane composer Erno Dohnanyi, nephew of the martyred Nazi-era theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and husband of the glamorous dramatic soprano Anja Silja -- was nearly unknown in the U.S. Among the few who were aware of him, he was regarded as a workmanlike German kapellmeister with a suspicious fondness for 20th century music, and certainly an odd choice to command an orchestra whose past conductors...
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