Weekly SpinOn: Karajan and His Female Protégées

This week’s edition looks at Herbert von Karajan’s collaborations with female artists at very different stages of their careers. Working in a period when major orchestras remained almost entirely male, Karajan relied on female soloists to shape many of his most distinctive projects. The four recordings selected here trace this aspect of his work — from the discovery of a young violinist to the long partnership with a leading soprano, and from the support of an established pianist to the guidance of a rising coloratura voice.

Track 1: Mozart – Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219 “Turkish” – I. Allegro aperto –  Anne-Sophie Mutter 

Our first track centres on one of the most emblematic artistic partnerships in Herbert von Karajan’s later career: his work with Anne-Sophie Mutter. When Karajan first heard the thirteen-year-old violinist in 1976, the Berliner Philharmoniker was still an all-male ensemble; its first female member would not join until 1982. Inviting a young woman into the orchestra’s rehearsal environment was therefore unusual, and Karajan’s immediate decision to involve Mutter in future projects marked the beginning of a deliberate mentorship. Rather than relying on spontaneous opportunities, he developed a staged plan for her repertoire, aware of how quickly a young musician could be pushed into technically or artistically premature territory.

Their first studio recording, made in 1978 for Deutsche Grammophon, consisted exclusively of Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 3 and 5. Karajan saw Mozart as the appropriate starting point for Mutter’s development: the repertoire demands clarity of articulation, balance between soloist and orchestra, and disciplined phrasing, all of which he regarded as essential foundations before approaching the larger romantic concertos that were to follow. This stepwise approach framed the early phase of Mutter’s work with him and shaped the sequence of projects they undertook over the following decade.

Mozart composed the Fifth Concerto in 1775 during his Salzburg years, and the opening movement, Allegro aperto, combines a formal orchestral introduction with contrasting solo passages typical of his early violin writing. The 1978 Berlin sessions capture Mutter at the outset of the artistic path Karajan had mapped for her, performing on her Emiliani Stradivarius and working within the precise production framework he maintained during this period. As such, the recording documents both the beginning of a long collaboration and the first step in a mentorship defined by careful repertoire planning — a characteristic element of Karajan’s support for exceptional young artists.

Track 2: Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 – I. Allegro – Clara Haskil

While Anne-Sophie Mutter entered Karajan’s artistic circle as a young musician at the beginning of her career, Clara Haskil shows a different kind of connection within this week’s theme. By the time she and Karajan first worked together in the early 1950s, Haskil was already regarded as one of the great Mozart pianists of the century. After decades marked by illness and the disruptions of two world wars, her international breakthrough finally came during this decade, when she performed widely in Europe and appeared with partners such as Arthur Grumiaux, Géza Anda, and Karajan.

Karajan held Haskil in particularly high esteem and supported her during a period when her health made international touring unpredictable. He invited her to prominent concerts and broadcast performances, integrating her into projects that offered stability and long-term visibility. Several of these appearances were recorded, ensuring that her interpretations were preserved at a time when she was performing less frequently than many of her contemporaries. In this respect, Karajan’s role was not that of a formative mentor but of a conductor who helped maintain and strengthen the conditions under which a major pianist could continue to work at the highest level.

The recording used here — the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 — was made on 28 January 1956 at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, with the Philharmonia Orchestra and produced by ORF. Unlike Karajan’s work with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the same era, where no women were admitted until 1982, the Philharmonia Orchestra already included female players in its regular line-up. Haskil therefore performed within a musical environment that reflected the more flexible personnel traditions of British orchestras in the mid-20th century.

Track 3: Verdi – Un ballo in maschera, Act I: “Volta la terrea (‘Oscar’s Aria’)” – Sumi Jo 

Sumi Jo entered Karajan’s artistic circle in the mid-1980s, during the final phase of his life, when he was working with only a very small number of younger singers. Her voice immediately attracted his attention, and she soon became one of the last artists he chose to mentor personally. At this point Karajan was highly selective about new collaborators, which makes his interest in the young Korean soprano particularly notable.

In the 1989 Un ballo in maschera recording — the only project they completed together — Jo sang the role of Oscar, the light and agile page whose music brings one of the opera’s brightest colours. The track chosen here, “Volta la terrea,” is Oscar’s characteristic aria in Act I and shows the clarity and precision that shaped Jo’s early international career.

The recording was made with the Wiener Philharmoniker shortly before rehearsals for the planned Salzburg Festival production were due to begin. As in many of his later opera projects, Karajan recorded the complete work before staging rehearsals. This approach allowed singers to learn the score in ideal conditions, to rehearse the staging with playback in order to protect their voices, and to have a finished recording ready at the time of the premiere.

A short scene from the documentary Karajan in Salzburg (available on YouTube) offers a revealing glimpse of Karajan’s protective relationship with Jo. In the footage, she mentions that she is preparing the Queen of the Night, and Karajan immediately raises concerns that taking on such demanding repertoire too early could harm her voice. By the way, in the same clip you can also see a very young Cecilia Bartoli, who sang with her in this mentoring session — an unexpected meeting of two future stars at the very beginning of their careers.

Karajan died in July 1989 during the rehearsal period for the Salzburg production, so the staged performances never took place under his direction. For Sumi Jo, the completed studio recording therefore became both her first and only collaboration with Karajan and a defining early moment in her international profile. As his final opera recording, it also remains a significant document of how he continued to mentor and guide emerging artists until the last months of his life.

Track 4: Verdi – Requiem: “Lacrymosa” – Anna Tomowa-Sintow 

Anna Tomowa-Sintow occupied a unique position among the female artists who worked with Karajan. After her debut with him in 1973, she quickly became one of the central voices of his later career and remained closely associated with him for more than fifteen years. Karajan relied on her for a wide range of major projects — from Mozart and Verdi to Strauss and his final Beethoven cycle — and often described her as the soprano he trusted most during this period. In contrast to the brief encounters he had with many younger singers toward the end of his life, Tomowa-Sintow belonged to his inner musical circle.

The Verdi Requiem was one of the cornerstone works in their collaboration. Karajan returned to it repeatedly, and Tomowa-Sintow participated in several performances and recordings, including the later Berliner Philharmoniker projects of the 1980s. In the “Lacrymosa,” her voice forms part of the quartet that Karajan shaped with great attention to blend, balance and clarity — qualities that had made Tomowa-Sintow indispensable to him in both operatic and symphonic repertoire.

Her long partnership with Karajan is also documented in an interview available on the Herbert von Karajan YouTube channel, where she reflects on the intensity of their working relationship, the precision he demanded, and the artistic trust that developed over the years. The interview offers a rare first-hand insight into how Karajan mentored and supported her, and how she, in turn, became one of the defining voices of his final artistic decades.

Tomowa-Sintow’s place in this playlist therefore highlights a different aspect of Karajan’s work with female artists: not the discovery of a young talent, as in the case of Anne-Sophie Mutter or Sumi Jo, but a long, sustained collaboration built on artistic continuity and mutual respect. Her recordings with Karajan — including this Requiem, recorded with the Berliner Philharmoniker — remain some of the most representative documents of his late period.

—  Pia Bernauer (Karajan Institute, Salzburg)