Carlos Kleiber

Poll after poll has put Carlos Kleiber amongst the greatest conductors of all time, yet this strangely reserved man was the polar opposite of the charismatic podium showman. Born in Berlin in 1930, he never held a permanent post with a major orchestra, his repertoire was highly selective, and his recorded legacy was very small: just three Beethoven symphonies, two of Schubert and one of Brahms, a handful of operas and hardly anything else, (he gave up studio recordings in 1982, when he was in his early 50s). A perfectionist with a laser eye for detail, he demanded plenty of rehearsal time, and when he famously walked out of sessions for Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (1859) it was not for prima donna-ish reasons, rather that he genuinely despaired of ever achieving his ideal. Even so, that Tristan is widely regarded as one of the finest recordings of that opera ever made. His studio versions of Weber’s Der Freischütz (1821) and Bizet’s Carmen (1875) and the live recording of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalie (1910) are also cherished by many musicians and critics. The miracle remains that such perfectionism regularly resulted in something close to magic. Since his death in 2004, his reputation has grown to legendary status.