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Classical Companion

BEHIND THE MUSIC WITH HI-FI NEWS & RECORD REVIEW

Carlos Kleiber

Conductor

Admired by his colleagues yet unpredictable for managers, he was a perfectionist who
lived in his father’s shadow. Christopher Breunig looks back at this reclusive genius

‘ am very slow on the uptake. But Like fluidity of arm and body movements,

now I know what’s wrong: the èfather while film of Wagner’s Tristan
quavers are too low on nicotine. like son: Erich und Isolde (see Georg Wübbult’s
IThey need a little bit more Kleiber’s documentary I Am Lost To The
tar – they have to be a bit more enduring World) shows the utter intensity
venomous…’ And: ‘the side-drum Beethoven he conveyed in the opera
has to edge its way in. It has to be Symphony No 5 house. There’s also a split-screen
very conspiratorial, a schizophrenic from 1953 comparison of father and son in the
back and forth between sentimental same Johann Strauss piece.
and rumbustious’. Not the sort of Kleiber would never beat time
rehearsal instructions orchestral in a conventional manner, but his
players would be used to – but then, expressive body language was all
Carlos Kleiber was different. the players needed. In the famous
When he first told his father, New Year Day concerts in the Vienna

the great Austrian conductor Erich Musikverein (1989/92), and in
Kleiber, that he too wanted to Born Karl Ludwig, in 1930, his classical pieces too, sometimes he’d
conduct he was bluntly told ‘One name was changed when the family drop the baton to one side and just
Kleiber is enough!’, and was packed Carlos moved from Germany to Buenos briefly leave the players alone – once

off to study chemistry in Zurich. íKleiber Aires in 1935. As a ‘modernist’ he set up a metronome in rehearsal,
But as his sister remarked, in the became – conducting Janáček, Krenek, claiming he could do no better!
EuroArts documentary Traces To reclusive and Milhaud, et al, he’d premiered Berg’s
Nowhere [to be found on YouTube], conducted his Wozzeck: a work which the Nazis AN AUDI, THANK YOU
Carlos at one time worked under last concert in deemed ‘degenerate’ – Erich Kleiber For his scant later appearances
an alias. And later, Erich Kleiber did 1999 with the had felt impelled to resign his post he asked for huge remuneration
acknowledge his son’s huge talent. Bavarian RSO at the Berlin State Opera. – the conductor Michael Gielen
Wozzeck was later one of Carlos reckoned that his fees for taking
Kleiber’s key successes at Stuttgart Der Rosenkavalier to Japan would
and he brought the work, and the have set him up for life; and for one
Staatsoper to the concert he requested
Edinburgh Festival ‘“The money a fully customised
in 1966 (his fi rst UK Audi. But as his sister
appearance). As so side was a Veronika said ‘For
often, he was using him the money side
his father’s marked gauge of his was like a gauge of
scores – it has been his importance’. He
claimed that he only importance”’ seemingly felt he
conducted works with never reached the
this precedent (Henze’s Ondine is same level attained by his father.
one obvious exception, with 27 Fassbaender found him, at times
performances given from 1961-66). ‘given to outbursts of hilarity, almost
He was ‘a dictator, but very like an adolescent’. His sense of play
human and supportive with it,’ extended – in one performance of
says mezzo Brigitte Faessbender his much-loved Die Fledermaus, after
– although she remembers him the Act 2 interval – to dressing as
sending a little note ‘How could you Boris Becker, wig and all, conducting
do this to me?’, after a couple of using a racquet and tennis ball.
Kleiber used to recommend the

minor fluffs during a Rosenkavalier old Clemens Kraus recording [Decca]
PHOTO: UNIVERSAL Stuttgart Der Rosenkavalier online while his own [DG 457 7652] proved
performance with him.
You can see a short clip from a
controversial in the casting of Ivan
showing Kleiber’s extraordinary
Rebroff – a ‘falsetto’ Orlovsky.
80 | www.hifi news.co.uk | DECEMBER 2020