Karajan, orchestra out of tune

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 8

Karajan, orchestra out of tune

NZPA West Berlin Herbert von Karajan, for 28 years conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,' has cut his activities there to almost nil because of a row with his musicians over a woman clarinetist. Mr von Karajan has cancelled concert tours, recordings, arid television performances because musicians of the democratically-run. 100-year-old, male-dominated orchestra overruled his bid to hire Sabine Meyer, aged 23, of the Bavarian Radio Symphonic Orchestra.

Members of the Berlin Philharmonic gave her the thumbs-down after an audition. As a result, their conductor has cancelled all his appearances until they agree to let her play for a year’s trial.

The campaign began when Mr von Karajan called off televising a traditional New Year’s concert at a loss of 100,000 marks (about $NZ380.000) to his musicians. Fiercely defending their prerogative — almost unique in the world of music — to elect their own conductor and employ new musicians, some of them are talking of a possible strike for the first time in the orchestra’s history.

Last year the philharmonic hired its first and only woman musician, Madeleine Karuzzo, a violinist.

The West German daily newspaper, “Bild” has said that the- row over Miss Meyer smacked of antifeminism since the orchestra judged her “a good soloist, but one who doesn’t fit in with the orchestra.”