Karajan, Herbert von

(1908–1989)

   Born in Salzburg in a family with a distinguished history in Austrian cultural affairs, in his youth Karajan experienced a meteoric rise as a conductor. By 1941, he was in Berlin and quickly became a competitor of Wilhelm Furtwängler, another bright, and somewhat jealous, star in the contemporary musical firmament.

   Too close to some elements of the Nazi regime for the postwar occupation regime, von Karajan was forbidden to perform in Germany immediately after the conflict ended. In 1947 he returned to Austria, where he conducted at the Vienna State Opera, and led performances of the Vienna Philharmonic for the Society of the Friends of Music. Von Karajan was general director of the opera from 1957 to 1964. His international reputation was established through a large output of recordings, done largely with the Berlin Philharmonic, which he led after 1954, and at the Salzburg Festival, where he was director between 1956 and 1960, and again in 1965. A man of enormous personal charisma and self-confidence, he established his own very successful Easter Festival in the city beginning in 1967.