Biografie

Ardent proponent of advancing sound recording technology. He eagerly supported high-fidelity studio recording technology and actively encouraged Sony and Philips to commit to developing and marketing the compact disc in the early 1980s.

He is the only conductor to have recorded Bach's "Mass in B Minor" five times.

Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for thirty-five years - from 1954 until 1989.

His great-great-grandfather Georgios Karajannis was born in the Ottoman province of Rumelia, today West Macedonia in Greece, and emigrated to Saxony, where his surname became "Karajan" (1792).

Perhaps the most controversial conductor of the 20th century, he is both admired and reviled for his insistence on technical perfection in an orchestra (often, his detractors say, at the expense of everything else, bringing a dehumanizing quality to his music-making). His wartime membership in the Nazi party has contributed a great deal to the unfavorable opinion some critics have of him. From 1955, when he became conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, until his death in 1989, he was well-known as the most powerful musical influence in Germany.