He studied violin and piano at the Leipzig Conservatory. He avoided military service during the Nazi era by joining a Baroque orchestra. He became concertmaster of the orchestra at the Halle Municipal Theatre in 1948. However, a finger injury stopped his career as a violinist. Tennstedt then directed his talents toward conducting. In 1958, he became music director of the Dresden Opera, and in 1962, music director of the Schwerin State Orchestra and Theatre.

Tennstedt emigrated from East Germany in 1971 and obtained asylum in Sweden. He conducted in Gothenburg with the Göteborg Theatre and in Stockholm with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1972, he became General Music Director of the Kiel Opera in Northern Germany. From 1979 to 1981, he served as Chief Conductor of the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, and during the same period (1979–82) he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra.

In 1974, Tennstedt made his North American debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. His first US appearance was shortly after that, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, on December 13, 1974, conducting an all-Brahms program. His appearances were so highly acclaimed that as a result, Tennstedt guest-conducted at the Tanglewood Music Festival and Blossom Music Festival in 1975. His American opera debut was at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1983. In Europe he guest conducted the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the SDR Symphony.

His London debut was with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976. In 1977 came his first engagement with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), which led to his appointment as the LPO's Principal Guest Conductor in 1980, and eventually as Principal Conductor in 1983. Due to ill-health, however, he stepped down in 1987, and he was later named the LPO's Conductor Laureate. He did return to the LPO in 1986 for recording Mahler's and for concerts of Mahler in November 1991 and May 1993. On the advice of his physicians, Tennstedt retired from conducting altogether in October 1994. The last time he conducted was in June 1994, at a rehearsal of a student orchestra at Oxford University where he was to receive an honorary doctorate a few days later.

In 1978 Tennstedt became the first German conductor of his generation to conduct the Israel Philharmonic, which until then had boycotted German conductors because of their connections with the Nazi regime. Source: Wikipedia

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