Josef Krips was an Austrian conductor and violinist. He was born in Vienna on 8 April 1902 and studied with Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner.
In 1921, Krips became Weingartner's assistant at the Vienna Volksoper. He subsequently conducted several orchestras and served as musical director in Karlsruhe from 1926 to 1933. In 1933 he returned to Vienna as a resident conductor and also became a professor at the Vienna Academy.
After 1945, Krips conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in its first postwar performance and led the first postwar Salzburg Festival. He also directed the New Year's Concert at the Vienna Musikverein, where he established the Radetzky March as the customary closing work.
In the early 1950s, he led the Netherlands Opera, including performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni, and conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Holland Festival. He was conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1950 to 1954, then led the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1963 to 1970. In 1970 he became conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, his final appointment.
His recordings include Beethoven's complete symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven's five piano concertos with Arthur Rubinstein, and Mozart opera recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic, including Don Giovanni and The Abduction from the Seraglio. With the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he recorded Mozart's late symphonies.
Krips died in Geneva on 13 October 1974 and was buried at Neustift Cemetery in Neustift am Walde. In 1988, a Vienna street was named Kripsgasse in his honour.