Karajan on the music of today
This 1963 Stereo Review interview with Herbert von Karajan was tucked inside a copy of Curt Riess' 1955 biography of Wilhelm Furtwängler that I bought years ago from a rare book dealer. In it Karajan ranges from baroque to contemporary music. A fascinating document that is worth reproducing even though it is rather difficult to read in this format. Left clicking (in Windows) on the individual images does enlarge them. Sorry about the legibility and cropping, but transcribing the complete text is beyond even me. However the following exchanges do particularly demand to be captured: Pendergast - ' In rehearsing the orchestra, you seem to put great emphasis on conveying the proper rhythms to the players. Is this perhaps the most difficult task for the conductor?' Karajan - ' Yes, it is. It is very strange, but with our race and in our latitude, rhythmic control is the most difficult thing for a musician to achieve. There is hardly a musician among us who can play the sa