Famed for his very dry sense of humour, the German-born conductor assisted Mahler and then became a close friend (and later champion). As a young man, he performed a lot of new music—he was also a composer—but gradually focused on the classics to meet the demand of his audiences. He was the Los Angeles Philharmonic's music director in the late '30s, but it was after the war that he was rediscovered by the impresario Walter Legge, and his Indian summer began. He gave us a magnificent Beethoven symphony cycle, followed by much of the great Austro-German repertoire.