Home > Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music > Karajan, Herbert von

preeminent Austrian conductor in the grand Germanic tradition; b. Salzburg, April 5, 1908;d. Anif, near Salzburg, July 16, 1989. Karajan was a son of a cultured family of Greek-Macedonian extraction whose original name was Karajannis. His father was a medical officer who played the clarinet, and his brother was a professional organist.

Karajan began his musical training as a pianist, taking lessons at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Eventually he went to Vienna, where he pursued academic training at a technical college while continuing to take piano lessons. He then entered the Vienna Academy of Music as a conducting student.

In 1928 Karajan made his conducting debut with a student orchestra at the Vienna Academy of Music. Shortly afterward, in early 1929, he made his professional debut with the Salzburg Orchestra. He then received an engagement as conductor of the Ulm Stadttheater from 1929 to 1934. From Ulm he went to Aachen in 1935, where he was made conductor of the Stadttheater and subsequently served as Generalmusikdirektor until 1942.

In 1938 Karajan conducted his first performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, the orchestra he would lead for more than three decades. Later that year, he conducted LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN's Fidelio at his debut with the Berlin Staatsoper. After his performance of RICHARD WAGNER'S Tristan und Isolde soon thereafter, he was hailed by the Berliner Tageblatt "das Wunder Karajan" ("the wonder[ful] Karajan").

Karajan's growing fame as a master of both opera and symphony led to engagements elsewhere in Europe. In 1938 he conducted opera at La Scala in Milan and also made guest appearances in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. In 1939 he became conductor of the symphony concerts of the Berlin Staatsoper Orchestra.

There was a dark side to Karajan's character. He became fascinated by the powerful and ruthless National Socialist (Nazi) party, and in 1933 he registered in the Salzburg office of the Austrian Nazi party. Barely a month later, he joined the German Nazi party in Ulm. He lived to regret these actions after the collapse of the Nazi empire.

Karajan's personal affairs also began to interfere with his career. He married the operetta singer Elmy Holgerloef in 1938, but divorced her in 1942 to marry Anita Gütermann. Trouble came when suspicious Nazi officials discovered that she was one-quarter Jewish and suggested divorce. But World War II was soon to end, and so was the Nazis' power. Karajan divorced Gütermann in 1958 to marry the French fashion model Eliette Mouret.

Karajan was characteristically self-assertive and demanding in his personal relationships and in his numerous conflicts with managers and players. Although he began a close relationship with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1948, he left it in 1958. His association as conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra of London from 1948 to 1954 did more than anything to reestablish his career after World War II, but in later years he ended his relationship with that ensemble.

When WILHELM FURTWÄNGLER, longtime conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, died in 1954, Karajan was chosen to lead the orchestra on its first tour of the U.S. However, he insisted that he would lead the tour only on the condition that he be duly elected Furtwängler's successor. Protesters were in evidence for his appearance at N.Y.'s CARNEGIE HALL with the orchestra in 1955, but his Nazi past did not prevent the musicians of the orchestra from electing him their conductor during their visit to Pittsburgh on March 3. After their return to Germany, the West Berlin Senate ratified the musicians' vote on April 5, 1955.

Karajan soon came to dominate the musical life of Europe as no other conductor had ever done. In addition to his prestigious Berlin post, he served as artistic director of the Vienna Staatsoper from 1956 until he resigned in a bitter dispute with its general manager in 1964. He concurrently was artistic director of the Salzburg Festival from 1957 to 1960, and thereafter he remained closely associated with it. From 1969 to 1971 he held the title of artistic adviser of the Orchestre de Paris.

In the meantime, Karajan consolidated his positions in Berlin and Salzburg. In 1963 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the gala concert inaugurating the orchestra's magnificent new concert hall, the Philharmonie. In 1967 he organized his own Salzburg Easter Festival, which became one of the world's leading musical events. In 1967 he renegotiated his contract and was named conductor-for-life of the Berlin Philharmonic. He made a belated Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. that same year, conducting Wagner's DIE WALKÜRE.

In 1982 Karajan again made news when he personally selected the 23-year-old clarinetist Sabine Meyer to be a member of the Berlin Philharmonic (any romantic reasons for his insistence were not apparent). The musicians of the orchestra rejected her because of their standing rule to exclude women, but also because the majority of the musicians had less appreciation of Fräulein Meyer as an artist than Karajan himself did. A compromise was reached, however, and in 1983 she was allowed to join the orchestra on probation. She resigned in 1984 after a year of uneasy coexistence.

In 1985 Karajan celebrated his 30th anniversary as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and in 1988 his 60th anniversary as a conductor. In 1987 he conducted the New Year's Day Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, which was televised to millions on both sides of the Atlantic. In early 1989 he made his last appearance in the U.S., conducting the Vienna Philharmonic at N.Y.'s Carnegie Hall. Soon thereafter he announced his retirement from his Berlin post, citing failing health. Shortly before his death, he dictated an autobiographical book to Franz Endler, which was published in an English translation in 1989.

Karajan amassed a huge personal fortune during his career. His records were among the best-selling of all classical artists, and he is said to have made over 800 records and videotapes. He had many lavish vacation homes and participated in many sports, including mountain climbing and skiing, as well as piloting his own plane.

Karajan was also a devotee of assorted physical and spiritual fads. He practiced yoga and aerobics, and for a while embraced Zen Buddhism. Moreover, he was known to believe in the transmigration of souls, and he expressed a hope of being reborn as an eagle soaring above the Alps, his favorite mountain range. As an alternative, he investigated cryogenics (the freezing of a dead body), hoping that his body could be thawed a century or so later to enable him to enjoy yet another physical incarnation. None of these actions prevented him from being overcome by a sudden heart attack in his home in the Austrian Alps. A helicopter with a medical staff was quickly summoned to fly him to a hospital, but it arrived too late.