At first glance this book would seem to be nothing more than one of the last products of the late Herbert von Karajan’s formidable publicity machine. All the requisite elements of this untasty genre, assembled for us by the English music critic Richard Osborne, are present here: the softball questions, the fulsome praise from the interlocutor, the self-regarding and lengthy answers, and the romantically moody portraits of the hero-conductor.
But however justified the reader’s skepticism about the integrity of this book might be, to dismiss it out of hand would be to ignore the vital and profound content concealed beneath the book’s luxuriant superstructure. Karajan was undoubtedly an egomaniac; he did indeed bend everyone around him to his will; he certainly was a shameless flaunter of his own success. But he was the greatest conductor of the postwar era, and his towering stature was not challenged in anyway until the day of his death in July of last year.
What is important about this collection of Karajan’s “musical tabletalk” is its concrete revelation of what it means to be a supremely great conductor, not in terms of fame, prosperity, or power, but in terms of just what it is such a conductor does in his daily musical work. It is tempting to say that what a great conductor does—certainly what Karajan himself did—is work, unceasingly, unsparingly, and uncomplainingly.
Mr. Osborne’s Conversationsprovides some of the details. Already as a young man conducting in Aachen, Karajan was