Best conductors?

[barber olly]

A few which have missed the Radar so far whose absence would leave voids in my collection where stunning recordings adorn my shelves:
Fritz Reiner
Eugen Jochum
Lorin Maazel
Zubin Mehta
Charles Munch
Antal Dorati
Jean Martinon
Igor Markevitch
Paul Paray
Karel Ancerl
Charles Dutoit
Bryden Thomson
Alexander Gibson
Rudolf Kempe
Paul Kletzki
Anthony Collins
Ernest Ansermet
and on the basis of his Naxos Debussy Orchestral Works 1 to 6 Jun Markl

[gurnemanz]

When I was quite young and just getting into classical music I remember being utterly bowled over and riveted by the 85-year-old, unable to stand Otto Klemperer on television in the Beethoven symphonies from the Festival Hall.

Here's a really slow Seventh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxELUSMZo

It wasn't in colour on our telly, as far as I can remember.

[barber olly]

When I was quite young and just getting into classical music I remember being utterly bowled over and riveted by the 85-year-old, unable to stand Otto Klemperer on television in the Beethoven symphonies from the Festival Hall.

Here's a really slow Seventh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxELUSMZo

It wasn't in colour on our telly, as far as I can remember.

I remember it well, and thinking at the time a) Would he make it to the end of the Symphony. b) Did the Orchestra know the work and his interpretations so well that his presence made little difference. But I was so much younger then I'm kinder than that now!

[Dave2002]

I remember it well, and thinking at the time a) Would he make it to the end of the Symphony. b) Did the Orchestra know the work and his interpretations so well that his presence made little difference. But I was so much younger then I'm kinder than that now!

This might be an antidote to K's version -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWGzRffHoM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

It is good, and this K is much more flamboyant than I'd expected. While on Ks I always liked Konwitschny in this piece, and another conductor not mentioned so far is Kondrashin.

I never noticed before that Klemperer had the basses at the back left. I assume the cellos are somewhere around there too. The video is a bit muddy, and hard to see. Kleiber has the basses on the right.

Klemperer's very slow tempo always struck me as plodding, though there are aspects of that performance which are fine. I rather resented it when the flute player seemed to want to push the tempo up a bit. Klemperer wasn't always slow, and some of his earlier recorded performances were much faster.

[Ferretfancy]

salymap,

Our housemaster at school had a rather grand radio, and invited some of us to hear those Toscanini Brahms concerts, and sit up late with mugs of tea. I remember them very well. You probably know that Toscanini decided to retire soon afterwards, he had started to conduct the Tragic Overture instead of the Academic Festival ( or it may have been the other way round ) in any event the Philharmonia saved the day and few noticed.
The concerts were issued on Testament few years ago, and I'm sorry to say that I found them a little disappointing, but the memory is still fresh.

[Chris Newman]

A few which have missed the Radar so far whose absence would leave voids in my collection where stunning recordings adorn my shelves:
Fritz Reiner
Eugen Jochum
Lorin Maazel
Zubin Mehta
Charles Munch
Antal Dorati
Jean Martinon
Igor Markevitch
Paul Paray
Karel Ancerl
Charles Dutoit
Bryden Thomson
Alexander Gibson
Rudolf Kempe
Paul Kletzki
Anthony Collins
Ernest Ansermet
and on the basis of his Naxos Debussy Orchestral Works 1 to 6 Jun Markl

And I would add all of those conducors to my list of greats which goes to prove that a list is a list is a list.

Low fat spread
Broccoli
Carrots
Tea bags

In fact I heard them all live except

Reiner
Munch
Markevitch
Paray
Kletzki
Collins and Ansermet

[amateur51]

A great list #51 Chris

In addition, I've greatly enjoyed live and recorded performances by Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos in the past, and by Gustavo Dudamel, Vladimir Jurowski and Esa Pekka-Salonen more recently too.

[aeolium]

Here's a really slow Seventh

Here's another one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh1snnMN0pI

Not what LvB wanted, perhaps, but I loved it.

[ostuni]

The American (but resident in the UK) conductor Kenneth Woods writes a thoughtful blog which is always worth reading. The BBC mag article inspired him to produce his own top 20: he admits that he's 'intentionally been a little bit arbitrary and perverse with the numerical ranking' - and he's excluded all living conductors from the list, for reasons which he explains. Here's the first five; the post links to subsequent instalments, all nicely illustrated by Youtube clips. (If you can't be bothered to click the link, his first 5 in order are Furtwängler, C Kleiber, Jochum, Fricsay, Mitropoulos. ) One interesting snippet from the post: it's unlikely that E Kleiber was Carlos's biological father (and probable that Alban Berg was).

And in a post last month, he breaks his 'no living conductors' rule, and writes about the undervalued Walter Weller - a commenter on the post goes farther than Ken in suggesting that Weller is ' the greatest living conductor, and I understand that Haitink, Boulez, and Abbado are still alive'.

[vinteuil]

horses for courses...

Of course I have a lot of respect for Furtwangler, Toscanini, Klemperer, Mengelberg, Knappertsbusch, Krips, Walter, Bohm, Jochum, Wand, ...

but for the repertoire that is most important for me, those who have 'made the most impact' would include -

Gustav Leonhardt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Masaaki Suzuki
William Christie
Christophe Rousset
Philippe Herreweghe
Jos van Immerseel
Roger Norrington
John-Eliot Gardiner
Marc Minkowski
Christopher Hogwood
Trevor Pinnock

[aeolium]

the undervalued Walter Weller

I saw him conduct the CBSO in Birmingham last month in a very impressive performance of Brahms PC 1 and Schubert 9. The orchestra obviously had enormous respect and affection for him. I very much like his set of Prokofiev symphonies.

[silvestrione]

Taking my cue from this, the conductors who have had, and still have, a major impact on my life either through concerts or recordings (or both) are:

Bernard Haitink
Klaus Tennstedt
Claudio Abbado
Sir Georg Solti
Herbert von Karajan
Leonard Bernstein
Sir Simon Rattle
Gunter Wand
Rudolf Kempe
Karl Bohm

.

A great list, Petrushka. I find almost the same top ten occurring to me for much the same reason.

By the way, your fingers slipped at the end and you added an eleventh name by mistake, Willi Boskovsky

[BBMmk2]

Live?

Ole Schmidt
Sir Andrew Davis
Erich Leinsdorf
Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Andre Previn
Rudolf Kempe
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Daniel Barenboim
Leopold Stowkowski
Bernard Haiitink

(the list goes on!)

As with Petrushka, conductors who have made an impact on my life are:-

Karajan
Kempe
Sir Andrew Davis
Sir Colin Davis
Andre Previn
Bermnard Haitink
Georg Szerll
Otto Klemeperer
NikolaUs Harnoncourt
Wilehlm Furtwangler
Eugen Jochum
Claudio Abbado
Carlos Kleiber
Reiner

[Petrushka]

By the way, your fingers slipped at the end and you added an eleventh name by mistake, Willi Boskovsky

Slip of the finger? Not at all! i would certainly not grant him status as a 'great' but measured as 'impact on my life' absolutely no question about it. I adored his New Year Concerts in Vienna and collected all his records. I owe my great love of the Strauss family to him (especially Josef) and will always be grateful for those New Years which started off in such brilliant style with the VPO under his direction.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Great conductors I have seen in concert:

Barbirolli (many times)
Boult
Ashkenazy
Bernstein
Maazel
Bohm
Abbado
Rattle
Marriner
Davis (Andrew)
Masur

That's about it. Living away from the great concert venues has its disadvantages, but is outweighed by a better quality of life in other respects.