...so surely it's worth a mention here.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080322/entertainment/ent...music_people_karajan

Why?

Ah yes, a signpost on the road to discussion, Fred. I could write reams and reams on this - you could too - and if Ritz sees this post, well ... wow!
But let others come on the grand debate, and not least with respect to what Karajan is deemed to have done for the emergence of the compact-disc format either.

I have a huge amount of respect for von Karajan. I still have a recording of his Mozart Requiem which I like a great deal. Anecdotal evidence that he was a dictator doesn't faze me.

Now I am really confused, guys. Why is there controversy? Is it because he was a member of the Nazi party, his personality, or his artistic abilities?

dg some people think/ one person thinks him grossly overrated

Thanks Fred. It wasn't because of his Macedonian ancestry then?

I don't think I know enough yet to compare one conductor with another, but I have been listening to Mozart's symphony no. 25 this week, which I like very much.

I read a comment in a newspaper or magazine a while ago (or maybe I heard it on the radio) about trhis very subject. The piece was discussing Karajan and opined "It is important not to turn the myth into a monster; and it is equally important not to turn the monster into a myth." That's pretty good.
Everybody's heard of Karajan, and not just opera lovers and concert-goers. Like juan, I feel he did some fine things. He was certainly a looming presence for decades, dedicating, in his early years, long hours to rehearsing opera singers who could not read music, such was his drive for perfection. He didn't start and end his career as the "what-I-say-goes" conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.
But he did have a reputation as a bit of a tyrant and a bigot, driven by a passion to be first in all he did. (He once even tried to force his elder brother Wolfgang von Karajan to change his name, because he'd seen a poster for a concert that he (Wolfgang) was giving in the same town where he himself was conducting!!)
Since (Herbert's) death the "Whom the gods made great they then destroy" scenario has come into its own (much the same is just starting to happen to Sir Simon Rattle these days, I fear, and it will be interesting to see what happens next.
The following link is somewhat over the top but it gives a good, short potted history of what Karajan achieved. If you read it for the info alone, dance girl and others who may be interested, you'll find it a good starter-kit to his legacy. Myth? Monster? I sit on the fence. But for his contribution to music he well merits a mention on these pages. In my view.
http://www.winternet.com/~davion/karajan.html

I think if you go back in time, a number of the greats were idiosyncratic: Arturo T, Bruno W, Lenny. Perhaps subsequent ones not so much: Mehta, Ozawa. I had the great pleasure and honor decades ago to chat with Neville Mariner after a concert, and he was absolutely great. He had me roaring with his anecdotes.