Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan enjoyed fast cars, ocean sailing, skiing, and flying his own private Learjet. On this side of the Atlantic, Leonard Bernstein had an estate in Fairfield, Connecticut, a Park Avenue apartment (now owned by Spencer Hays, executive chairman of Southwestern-Great American, the Nashville-based direct-sales conglomerate), and then a pad in the storied Dakota.

Karajan and Bernstein lived lavishly thanks to their superstar incomes. When Karajan died, in 1989, Der Spiegel reported that his annual income from record sales and conducting fees was “over $6 million.” His third wife, Eliette, inherited a fortune now worth about 250 million euros—nearly $400 million—according to a recent article in Die Welt. In his later years, Bernstein earned the world’s highest conducting fee, a “basic DM 40,000 (£13,000) per night,” or around $100,000 in today’s dollars, says Norman Lebrecht in his book The Maestro Myth.

Their fame and paychecks remain unmatched among maestros to this day. Last year, James Levine, music director of both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, earned a salary of $3.5 million. Lorin Maazel currently gets the most pay from a single source—$2.6 million as music director of the New York Philharmonic.

Bitter rivals during their lifetimes, Karajan and Bernstein are posthumously going head-to-head again this year. April 5 marks what would have been Karajan’s centenary birthday, while August 25 would have been Bernstein’s 90th. And the classical music industry, which has contracted in recent years, is poised to take full advantage.  

To recognize Bernstein, Brandeis University will have a dedicated festival from April 9 to 13; musical tributes to him will be included in countless festivals this summer. A new revival of West Side Story will premiere at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and move to Broadway next year. Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic will present more than 30 performances of his compositions in seven different venues in the fall. And Deutsche Grammophon has recently released a dozen DVDs of Bernstein conducting Schumann, Brahms, and Mozart, as well as a documentary tribute, Leonard Bernstein: The Gift of Music.

While performances such as the Vienna Philharmonic’s February 29 concert at Carnegie Hall are being dedicated to Karajan’s memory, he wasn’t as well-liked, limiting the the commemorations to massive reprinting of recordings. D.G. has a new 10-CD set, Herbert von Karajan Master Recordings, from the 1950s to the 1970s, and that is dwarfed by EMI’s massive Karajan set, The Complete EMI Recordings, 1946–1984, totaling 159 CDs, out this month. Bernstein’s recordings have already been released in previous years by Sony/BMG Music Entertainment and D.G., placing Karajan ahead in the race for new dollars from music lovers.