Saturday, January 7, 2017

New Hero: Carlos Kleiber

The rabbit hole du jour I've been plunging down to avoid doing work: Carlos Kleiber, a conductor I'd never heard of until two days ago when pianist/thereminist/velamintist Rob Schwimmer posted this video, entitled "Carlos Kleiber in Agony", to his Facebook feed:



It's slow-burn comedy gold, but, as Rob noted, it's especially impressive to musicians for the fact that this mofo never, ever misses a beat (watch his unperturbed baton hand's sweeping, lovely motions while his other hand cringes). I had to learn more, and, woah, was there ever a lot to discover. Here's a map of my subsequent surfing:

Wikipedia: Carlos Kleiber Good starting point.

Carlos Kleiber, A Reclusive Genius An article accompanying an ambitious radio profile.

Carlos Kleiber Audio Documentary That radio profile streaming online, complete with tons of musical excerpts.

Carlos Kleiber - Complete Recordings On Deutsche Grammophon Free to stream if you have Amazon Prime.

1990 article from The Guardian Lots more background here.

Tristan Und Isolde from the above collection As mentioned in that Guardian article.

Corresponding with Carlos: A Biography of Carlos Kleiber

A Study In Contrasts – Carlos Kleiber I just love that he left "Kleibergrams" on the stands of individual musicians.

2004 Obituary in The Telegraph The first part of the eighth paragraph is extremely affecting.

The thoughts of inveterate contrarian Norman LeBrecht

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