Carlos Kleiber was a singular conductor. “There was, in fact, only one guiding force in his life — music — and he gave himself to it with almost supernal passion and intensity. Every concert and opera performance he conducted was a genuine event, and not simply because he conducted so seldom. His painstaking preparation, his abhorrence of routine, his fanatical musical idealism made it so. ‘Difficult’ was the word most commonly used to describe the Berlin-born Austrian conductor, who was the son of another famous conducting Kleiber, Erich.”