Conductor Carlos Kleiber was the man I have most admired as a musician who lived during my time. As such, I do not include composers such as Franz Schubert, Mozart and others.
Kleiber was even before his death in 2004, the embodiment of the enigmatic reclusive genius – the maestro who, as Herbert von Karajan put it, would only conduct when his freezer was empty.
A thumbnail of the Kleiber myths goes something like this: he was the “perfect conducting machine”, in Gunther Schuller’s words, who hardly ever conducted; he was a musical genius who knew the entire orchestral and operatic repertoire but only had a tiny selection of pieces he ever played in public;
According to the only book about Kleiber, he was one of the funniest, most communicative musicians who ever lived, but never gave an interview; he was tormented by the ghost of his father, the conductor Erich Kleiber; and he once gave a concert as long as his fee arrangement included a new Audi A8 with all the trimmings.
Yes, yes… if you have little patience for the above, then I invite you to listen to Carlos Kleiber conducting the Symphony #4 by Beethoven. In my view, this interpretation is second to none:
