Carlos Kleiber

[Humoresque]

I've read many postings here about this great conductor and want to correct some information which I've noticed is inaccurate but written some time ago, Kleiber did not die in Munich as was suggested but in Slovenia. He drove his car across the alps from Munich all by himself in early July 2004 to a tiny little village in Slovenia where his wife had been buried just 7 months earlier. He died the next day after arriving, never emerging from that house again and a CD of the wonderful Brahms 4 he recorded with the VPO was later found in his Audi CD player.

I became upset when I read this and Lebrecht has had the gall to say to me today via email "I never said Carlos Kleiber was not a great conductor, you need to retract that comment". Could've fooled me!

http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrech...L-kleiber.html

[Humoresque]

Here's pianist Sviatoslav Richter on Carlos Kleiber's 'Tristan und Isolde' in Bayreuth in 1976, from his private notebooks that were published by Bruno Monsaingeon: "I fear that as long as I live I shall never heard another Tristan like this one. This was the real thing. Carlos Kleiber brought the music to boiling point and kept it there throughout the whole evening … There's no doubt he's the greatest conductor of our day." And Richter says he went backstage to see Kleiber: "I told him what I thought and he suddenly leapt into the air with joy, like a child: 'Also, wirklich, gut?' [So it was really good?]. Such a titan, and so unsure of himself."

https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/c...etailseite.jpg

[Humoresque]

I've just found this amusing and insightful discussion about conducting, with the majority of excerpts - unsurprisingly - from Kleiber. I draw your particular attention to the clip from the Concertgebouw (1983) when Carlos is conducting Beethoven #7 and he expresses his displeasure at 'mistakes' - as only this phenomenal maestro could!! In one of the most deft, poised, subtle and spontaneous conjuring tricks I've ever seen Kleiber imposes his formidable authority.

http://www.ted.com/talks/itay_talgam...eat_conductors

You'll also see the remarkable Bernstein in the final excerpts. Last night, I watched a program on pay TV about Bernstein wherein he described the primary function of music as "navigating the psychological geography within". Another phenomenal musician and intellectual!! That's as near-perfect a call on music as any I've ever heard or read. He's suggesting that the music we like actually tells us (and others) a lot about ourselves. (I've long felt that myself, strangely enough!!)

[Peter]

I've just found this amusing and insightful discussion about conducting, with the majority of excerpts - unsurprisingly - from Kleiber. I draw your particular attention to the clip from the Concertgebouw (1983) when Carlos is conducting Beethoven #7 and he expresses his displeasure at 'mistakes' - as only this phenomenal maestro could!! In one of the most deft, poised, subtle and spontaneous conjuring tricks I've ever seen Kleiber imposes his formidable authority.

http://www.ted.com/talks/itay_talgam...eat_conductors

You'll also see the remarkable Bernstein in the final excerpts. Last night, I watched a program on pay TV about Bernstein wherein he described the primary function of music as "navigating the psychological geography within". Another phenomenal musician and intellectual!! That's as near-perfect a call on music as any I've ever heard or read. He's suggesting that the music we like actually tells us (and others) a lot about ourselves. (I've long felt that myself, strangely enough!!)

Very enjoyable, thank you .

[Humoresque]

A Met orchestral musician, writing just over 2 years ago, remembers Carlos Kleiber. This is really a very moving tribute to the great man - and there is also a quote from Leonard Bernstein:

http://www.metorchestramusicians.org...-of-the-podium

Kleiber's wife died on 18th December, 2003. The conductor was unable to cope thereafter. In a letter from early July, 2004, shortly before he died, Kleiber wrote to a friend (in what we now regard as one of many farewell letters to his friends and associates) about his despair:

"She was a Samurai. What am I? A sissy".

Let there be more 'sissys' in this world like Carlos Kleiber!!

[Humoresque]

This BBC radio documentary from 2009, "Who was Carlos Kleiber?", might be of interest. Charles Barber dispenses hyperbolic praise for the conductor!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2EUsV2UJ7M

A few more words about "Corresponding with Carlos". I feel very ambivalent about Barber because, having instigated contact with the reluctant Kleiber, and subsequently developing an ongoing 'relationship' ("I got the powerful impression that if I were to write again he would answer again"), he ultimately made use of the conductor to further his own career. This made me angry, I have to say. Barber asked Carlos for a 'favour' - could Kleiber write a letter of recommendation for him for a particular orchestral conducting gig? Carlos Kleiber's reply (which I won't write here) and his later confession "you are my only correspondent" left me feeling rather touched and sad, if not voyeuristic, after reading these deeply personal statements. He obviously trusted his newly-found 'friend' and wouldn't have imagined his letters exposed to the scrutiny of the whole world after his death. (At least Barber had the decency to withhold some of the more 'personal' comments in Kleiber's last year.) But the book reveals others in the music world who are only too eager to have Carlos Kleiber help advance their own careers.

An elaborate lie was developed by Charles Barber about his domestic arrangements and the lie continued right to the very last. How tinged with piquance, then, those very genuine well-wishes from Kleiber to Charles Barber's "wife", Hildi, who never was a wife but the wife of a friend, and how artful of Barber to perpetuate that lie at the expense of his 'friend'!! There can be but one motive for Barber pretending that he had a wife - including her views in the 'narratives' - and not his male partner when approaching Carlos Kleiber for his friendship. That's my theory, anyway.

[Humoresque]

I absolutely have to share this with music-lovers (and I'll be doing so next March with our music group - but, until then, I'm horribly impatient!!). Researching for two forthcoming Carlos Kleiber presentations and reading everything I can and listening to everything available, I recently came across this (translation of an) Italian radio program from 2008. Kleiber was a very great friend of Maurizio Pollini, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, von Karajan and also Sviatoslav Richter - all of whom he positively adored and revered - but particularly the two pianists, and the feelings were mutual. Kleiber was fortunate to enjoy wonderful friendships with the most important people in the musical firmament. As a child he met Richard Strauss and many other luminaries. But I digress. This is what I wanted to document:

Pollini: "I confess that I am truly embarrassed speaking of Carlos Kleiber, and also a bit overwhelmed, emotional, because he was one of those conductors, those musicians, that truly counted in our formation; certainly one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century - and also something more. Because Carlos Kleiber represents an example of a completely personal approach to music. In part, perhaps this stemmed from the experience of the old masters, among whom was certainly his father Erich Kleiber, and also all the other greats that he cited and whose works he knew inside out; naturally Furtwangler, Toscanini, and Bruno Walter (whom he adored). And all that constituted, I would say, a method of approach to music, that, alas, in some way is disappearing from the world; because this rigour, this extreme seriousness, this incredible study of even the smallest details of the score - these demands that were put, most strongly, on himself - something that certainly made him suffer a lot in his life. They were for him absolute duties that he had to fulfill toward music. I would like to repeat the concept that Carlos Kleiber represented a reality of approach to music different from that which we are used to today.

Today, the way musical life is organized - of course the reduced number of rehearsals, the demand by listeners toward performances in which everything functions smoothly but in such a way that one can also forget that there is a soul - against this world that leads towards consumption, toward a quanity of musical experiences without depth, Carlos Kleiber truly represents (indecipherable)...something unequalled that perhaps is dying from the world. A profoundly ethical approach to the profession, like Carlos Kleiber's, remains a unique fact that makes us think.

His credo was something like this; the composer is the one for whom we are here. He had this tremendous 'credo' and I find this a marvellous thing. That is, that Ludwig van Beethoven is to be written large and Kleiber a bit smaller. This was truly a wonderful thing that few colleagues of his stature had".

Now, my own comments:

There is a paradox here; Pollini talks about 'ethical approach', yet Carlos interpreted that only as far as musical fidelity - in his relationships with orchestras, management and intendants he could cancel ruthlessly at the last minute, in a rather cavalier fashion!!

[Humoresque]

I've found an amusing letter Kleiber wrote anonymously in Der Spiegel, 16th issue, 1989 and it provides an insight into his wicked sense of humour. (It seems nobody here is much interested in Kleiber but I'm hoping that if somebody Googles the composer they'll find this!) The brackets in the body after the names are mine and explain who it is Kleiber is talking about:

Telex from Toscanini (Heaven) to Celibidache (Munich):

Dear Sergiu!!

We have read in you the Spiegel. You get on our nerves, but we forgive you. We have no choice anyway; forgiveness is in style Up Here. Potato-sack Karli (Bohm) made some objection, but after Kna (Knappersbusch) and I had a heart-to-heart with him, he stopped whining.

Wilhelm (Furtwangler) now all of a sudden insists that he has never even heard of you. Papa Josef, Wolfgang Amadeus, Ludwig, Johannes, and Anton all prefer the second violins on the right and claim that your tempi are all wrong. But actually, they don't really give a damn about it. Up Here we are not supposed to care a damn about anything. The Boss does not allow it.

An old Zen master who lives next door says you got it all wrong about Zen Buddhism. Bruno (Walter) is totally cracked up by your comments. I have the suspicion that he secretly shares your views about me and Karli (Bohm). Maybe you could say something mean about him for a change, otherwise he feels so left out.

I hate to break it to you, but everybody up here is totally crazy about Herbert (von Karajan). In fact, the other conductors are a little jealous of him. We can't wait to welcome him up here in about 15 or 20 years. Too bad you can't be with us then.

But people say that where you will go the cuisine is much better, and the orchestras down there never stop rehearsing. They even make little mistakes on purpose, so that you have a chance to correct them for all eternity. I'm sure you will like that, Sergui. Up Here, the angels read the composers' minds. We conductors only have to listen. Only God knows why I'm here.

Have lots of fun,
In old friendship,
Arturo

The style of the letter revealed its author shortly after publication, but Kleiber never admitted he'd written it.

[Peter]

I've found an amusing letter Kleiber wrote anonymously in Der Spiegel, 16th issue, 1989 and it provides an insight into his wicked sense of humour. (It seems nobody here is much interested in Kleiber but I'm hoping that if somebody Googles the composer they'll find this!) The brackets in the body after the names are mine and explain who it is Kleiber is talking about:

Telex from Toscanini (Heaven) to Celibidache (Munich):

Dear Sergiu!!

We have read in you the Spiegel. You get on our nerves, but we forgive you. We have no choice anyway; forgiveness is in style Up Here. Potato-sack Karli (Bohm) made some objection, but after Kna (Knappersbusch) and I had a heart-to-heart with him, he stopped whining.

Wilhelm (Furtwangler) now all of a sudden insists that he has never even heard of you. Papa Josef, Wolfgang Amadeus, Ludwig, Johannes, and Anton all prefer the second violins on the right and claim that your tempi are all wrong. But actually, they don't really give a damn about it. Up Here we are not supposed to care a damn about anything. The Boss does not allow it.

An old Zen master who lives next door says you got it all wrong about Zen Buddhism. Bruno (Walter) is totally cracked up by your comments. I have the suspicion that he secretly shares your views about me and Karli (Bohm). Maybe you could say something mean about him for a change, otherwise he feels so left out.

I hate to break it to you, but everybody up here is totally crazy about Herbert (von Karajan). In fact, the other conductors are a little jealous of him. We can't wait to welcome him up here in about 15 or 20 years. Too bad you can't be with us then.

But people say that where you will go the cuisine is much better, and the orchestras down there never stop rehearsing. They even make little mistakes on purpose, so that you have a chance to correct them for all eternity. I'm sure you will like that, Sergui. Up Here, the angels read the composers' minds. We conductors only have to listen. Only God knows why I'm here.

Have lots of fun,
In old friendship,
Arturo

The style of the letter revealed its author shortly after publication, but Kleiber never admitted he'd written it.

Thanks for that witty example of Kleiber's humour! I'm sure more are interested than you realise, many read but don't always feel a need to respond!

[Humoresque]

This documentary about Carlos Kleiber was made in 2010 and has just been posted on U-Tube. I have it on DVD and it's a real insight into this enigmatic conductor and presented in High Definition. You may need to activate the subtitles yourselves, I'm not sure. In any case the translation isn't exactly crash hot. Never mind, the subject matter is riveting. What an absolute hero this man was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta8Tqjn7Suo

I absolutely adore the little sequence where he's talking to Herr Schaefer about the size of the orchestra pit for the performances of "Der Rosenkavalier" in Stuttgart (14'53" and following) and how the musicians will hit their heads; that nervous laugh and highly strung persona of Kleiber is readily apparent. And what comes across loud and clear is how much he was widely loved.

[Humoresque]

I found this poor-quality vision of Kleiber conducting the Beethoven 5th, on a tour in Mexico with the Vienna Philharmonic. To my knowledge this is the only vision of him conducting this work! I've just checked with the Vienna Philharmonic archives and this was in 1981 in Mexico!!

Anyway, it's rare vision of Kleiber conducting the Beethoven 5th:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcq0P8tzdOw