Spotlight Rossini: overtures and string sonatas
Gioachino Rossini was not only one of the first composers Karajan recorded but also one of the first he ever conducted...
Read More
Composers
Spotlight Liszt: tone poems
European celebrity, conductor, music promoter, enthusiastic teacher, society darling, style icon, media star switching between public and monastic solitude – there are many aspects...
Read More
Spotlight Wagner: “The Valkyrie”
Richard Wagner’s “The Valkyrie” is a complete opera and also part of the greatest cycle in classical music, “The Ring of the Nibelung”. Karajan’s interpretation of “The Valkyrie”...
Read More
Spotlight Respighi: The Roman trilogy
Karajan was certainly a great conductor for Italian opera. But Italian orchestral music didn’t appear very often in his programmes – particularly if the music...
Read More
Spotlight Monteverdi: “L’incoronazione di Poppea”
Not many conductors in musical history have had a repertoire as broad as Karajan’s. But he is not usually associated with the music of Claudio Monteverdi. In November 1953...
Read More
Spotlight von Einem: The piano concerto
It is well known that Karajan was a responsible mentor for musicians and singers who were younger than he was. Equally well documented is...
Read More
Spotlight Stravinsky: “Le sacre du printemps”
Karajan’s first approach to Stravinsky’s “Le sacre du printemps” came quite late, in 1962. At that time, the piece had been in the repertoire for a long time...
Read More
Spotlight Handel: Concerti grossi, Water Music and others
Karajan isn’t widely thought of as a baroque specialist. Nevertheless, he “had a great if somewhat eccentric fondness for Handel’s music (Richard Osborne).” Early in his career in Ulm...
Read More
Spotlight Smetana: “The Moldau” and other orchestral works
Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau” was one of the first pieces Karajan recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1941. It is – together with Dvořák’s “New World Symphony” – the most popular work...
Read More
Spotlight Orff: “Trionfi” and “De Temporum”
It would definitely have been one of the best-selling classical albums of all time: Karajan conducts Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”, the most popular choral work in the 20th century. But the record...
Read More
Load More Articles
Here you can download the full curriculum vitae of Herbert von Karajan!