Karajan Resigns Berlin Philharmonic Post : 81-Year-Old ‘Conductor for Life’ of Renowned Orchestra Cites Ill Health

Herbert von Karajan, the colorful and controversial conductor, stepped down Monday as director of the celebrated Berlin Philharmonic, which many consider the world’s best.

Karajan, an 81-year-old autocratic Austrian, handed a letter of resignation to the West Berlin senator for cultural affairs in Salzburg, Austria.

The senator, Anke Martiny, said that Karajan referred in his letter to his increasing spinal disability, declaring:

“The results of the medical examinations I have been undergoing for several weeks indicate that I am not in the position to fulfill my duties as I understand them.”

The German music world has been expecting Karajan’s retirement after 34 years with the Berlin orchestra, partly because of his health problems--he has had a stroke and three spinal operations and must be helped to the podium--and partly because of a dispute with the Philharmonic management.

West Berlin officials reportedly told Karajan in March that he had violated his contract by refusing to give more than six concerts a year in the city, while appearing abroad with other orchestras.

For instance, he has often appeared with the rival Vienna Philharmonic, which he directed in New York’s Carnegie Hall in February, leading the New York Times to comment: “This was a concert that one will tell the grandchildren about.”

But, as the Berlin Philharmonic’s conductor-for-life, Karajan has insisted that he could not be fired.

“As long as my arm can hold a baton, you won’t get rid of me,” he has said. “As long as I live, there won’t be talk about a new chief conductor.”

More recently, he put it: “Discussions about my successor can begin the day after my death.”

In West Berlin, the new left-wing coalition government said that a search for a successor was under way. Among those mentioned as possibilities were James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York; Bernard Haitink, music director of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, in Britain; Riccardo Muti, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy; and Simon Rattle, the British conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony.

Two of Karajan’s favorites are said to be Seiji Ozawa of Japan and Semyon Bychkov of the Soviet Union.

Whoever replaces Karajan will conduct concerts in Philharmonic Hall, an auditorium specially designed to the maestro’s specifications, with the orchestra surrounded by the audience.

Karajan left the board of directors of the Salzburg Music Festival in August, and he has reduced his commitments there and elsewhere. On New Year’s Day, he decided not to make his annual appearance playing light Viennese music with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Karajan was supposed to conduct the Philharmonic in West Berlin on May 8 and 9 and play in East Berlin for the first time on May 30.

Under the Berlin system, the 121 members of the orchestra will, at least in theory, freely elect a new conductor.

During this year’s argument with the new West Berlin government, the members of the orchestra found themselves divided: Most believed that Karajan should give more performances with them, but nevertheless all have benefited financially from the large number of records they made under his tutelage. More than 900 recordings bear Karajan’s name.

As one member put it: “Rehearsals for our concerts were actually well-paid recording sessions--it was a wonderful life.”

Born in Salzburg on April 5, 1908, Karajan had a meteoric career as a musician, but he was to admit that, during the Hitler era, he had joined the Nazi Party to retain his conducting posts.

After the war, the Allies barred Karajan from conducting for two years, but he quickly became one of the world’s premier conductors and succeeded Wilhelm Furtwangler at the Berlin Philharmonic in 1955.

He was well-known for developing proteges, like German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, whom he first presented at the age of 13.

His imperious style, however, resulted in a near-strike by the Berlin Philharmonic when Karajan insisted that another female protegee, Sabine Meyer, be made first clarinetist over the objections of the orchestra. In the end, the players won out.

In addition to a busy schedule of worldwide appearances, Karajan was an active sportsman and a major European celebrity--the subject of hundreds of articles, pictured on the ski slopes and in his yacht and plane and on his motorcycle, as well as on the podium.

He and his French wife, Eliette, have two daughters.