Herbert von Karajan perfectly embodied the public's image of the archetypal conductor. Head held haughtily high, eyes closed, swaying gently in time to the always-beautiful strings of his Berlin Philharmonic orchestra, he always let there be no doubt that he was in complete control at all times.

In my view, he played rather too safe, usually keeping the Berlin Phil's repertoire safely within the "core repertoire" of the big romantic symphonies, and he seldom strayed successfully into the realms of the more jazz-influenced 20th century composers. Still, within that romantic area, he produced some beautiful recordings: highlights for me are his symphony recordings of Shostakovich 10, Bruckner 8, Mahler 9 and the cycle of Beethoven symphonies he recorded in 1977.

He always embraced technology (which to me seems curious, considering his preference for big romantic music!), and had his own recording complex with state of the art sound- and video-recording equipment. He led the way in releasing his own videos of him conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, and carefully drilled the string players to move their bows in perfect visual synchronisation, for the dramatic visual effect this would produce on the video!

If the above makes him sound like nothing but a talented control freak, in fact he deeply loved music. He led a playboy lifestyle, with a taste for fast motor vehicles, but at the end of the day it always came back to music, and I've nothing but respect for anyone for whom that's the case.

Yes, his performances often erred on the side of the over-romantic, with sometimes excessively saccharine string sound, but when the occasion demanded it (as in the second movement of Shostakovich 10), he could crank up the energy level to generate tremendous excitement, and his 1977 Beethoven 9 (Choral) has, for me, the most thrilling finale of that symphony ever recorded.

It's hard to feel any affection for
the old Nazi (and that's not just name-calling - he was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party from 1935), and he certainly had his limitations, but certainly in the romantic symphonic repertoire, it's always well-worth checking out his recordings.