Herbert Von Karajan: A Life in Music

Herbert von Karajan was one of the twentieth century's most prodigiously gifted performing artists. Richard Osborne knew him and had many conversations with him. These, however, were only the starting point for a biography which draws on interviews with those who worked with Karajan during his sixty-year career, and on a vast array of primary archive material that has never been previously examined.

This biography explores Karajan's life and music-making against the complex background of European music and politics in the years 1908 - 1989. The Austrian theatre producer Otto Schenk once said of Karajan: 'He is not only a musician. He is a whole period. When I was a boy he was already a period in our history'. This epic biography meticulously explores that period, and the enduring enigma of the man who shaped so much of it.