Otto Klemperer Klemperer In Concert

He stands head and shoulders above the ranks of great twentieth-century conductors, and not simply because of his impressive stature: Otto Klemperer, who was given the nickname of "Kl'Empereur", comparing him with Napoleon Bonaparte. That says a great deal about his attitude to music, an attitude he shares with another famous personality: Gustav Mahler, who did not tolerate the routine or negligence in the arts, changing from an affable man into a tyrant as soon as he picked up a baton. "His approach to music is strictly relentless, both in opera and on the concert stage. For him, music is something absolute - intensive, spiritualized and very personal," is how the conductor William Steinberg described his great colleague Otto Klemperer. Klemperer was the epitome of a conductor dedicated to a serious approach rooted in the nineteenth-century German-Austrian tradition. The works of Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler were at the heart of his artistic interest. He left many recordings, not least of works by these composers, which can undoubtedly be regarded as recordings of the century.