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The Austrian conductor Karl Böhm, the son of a lawyer, studied law before he entered the Graz Conservatory and then the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied under Eusebius Mandyczewski, the friend of Johannes Brahms.
His unyielding harshness and youthful spirit, his sensitivity, authority and total commitment to the music characterised this conductor, who always receded behind the works he conducted. He owed his world-wide success to his diligent life style. He appreciated Richard Strauss, Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Alban Berg, but his special devotion was reserved for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose symphonies he recorded in 1974. He received numerous many honors, among which 1964 first Austrian 'Generalmusikdirektor'. |
