Do Current Conductors Measure Up To The Greats Of The Past?

[Beef Oven!]

Prompted by a comment on another thread, I got thinking about how current and recently deceased conductors compare with the greats of the 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s. Karajan, Furt, Kna, Toscanini, Bohm, Klemperer, Bernstein, the Russians et al ......

Is the role different, or the industry different and therefore comparisons aren't possible?

Is it too early to say?

A quick scan of my iTunes library throws up quite a formidable list .........

Mark Elder
Andris Nelsons
Ludovic Morlot
Esa-Pekka Salonen
JEG
Roger Norrington
Yannick Nezet-Seguin
Christian Thielemann
Pierre Boulez
Richard Hickox
Tod Handley
Christopher Hogwood
Michael Gielen
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A few burblings:

The Great Conductor concept grew with the development of the big recording industries and seems to be fading with them. This is not to say that the reputations of the famous conductors of the past is just marketing hype - audiences are much more savvy, and various attempts in the late '70s to over-promote a promising talent beyond his (they always were then) didn't succeed. But the "clout" of powerful recording company advertising was essential to a conductor's "star" status, even with a conductor such as Celibidache, who could be promoted as a conductor who hated recording. I've made (I hope) very clear my great admiration of and gratitude to Karajan for his profound influence on my individual Musical "growth", but it is significant that he made sure that his talents were used by most of the major recording companies throughout his career - that talent, without the support of those companies, simply would not have had the influence it had. (And, to be clear - those companies needed that talent.)

With the decline of interest in the Classical Music repertoires by the large, powerful recording companies (why bother spending huge fees for new recordings when you can keep flogging the treasures of the back catalogue?) has come the idea amongst some enthusiasts of those repertoires that "there aren't any greats any more" - and even, for some, the dangerous idea that there can't be - which isn't borne out by the wealth of exciting talent around, not to mention the wider range of repertoires being explored and performed by these marvellous Musicians, which makes most of the chosen repertoire by most of the figures of the past seem limited by comparison (but then, of course, some people will always believe that the number of Great Works is as rare as the number of Great Conductors).

Were I given a choice of when I'd most like to be alive to hear Music, I would unhesitatingly choose now, today. I'd've loved to have heard Furtwangler, Klemperer, Kleiber. Leinsdorf, and countless others, Live in concert, but I'm content with the recordings I have of what they did - and thrilled to have the opportunity to hear what Musicians (many of them now younger than I am, which seems to be against the natural order of things, if I'm honest!) have to offer me, both in works I like to think that I know well (insert obligatory reference to Krivine's Beethoven Symphony cycle), and in repertoire I've never encountered before. Music Lives!

[Nevilevelis]

A few burblings:

The Great Conductor concept grew with the development of the big recording industries and seems to be fading with them. This is not to say that the reputations of the famous conductors of the past is just marketing hype - audiences are much more savvy, and various attempts in the late '70s to over-promote a promising talent beyond his (they always were then) didn't succeed. But the "clout" of powerful recording company advertising was essential to a conductor's "star" status, even with a conductor such as Celibidache, who could be promoted as a conductor who hated recording. I've made (I hope) very clear my great admiration of and gratitude to Karajan for his profound influence on my individual Musical "growth", but it is significant that he made sure that his talents were used by most of the major recording companies throughout his career - that talent, without the support of those companies, simply would not have had the influence it had. (And, to be clear - those companies needed that talent.)

With the decline of interest in the Classical Music repertoires by the large, powerful recording companies (why bother spending huge fees for new recordings when you can keep flogging the treasures of the back catalogue?) has come the idea amongst some enthusiasts of those repertoires that "there aren't any greats any more" - and even, for some, the dangerous idea that there can't be - which isn't borne out by the wealth of exciting talent around, not to mention the wider range of repertoires being explored and performed by these marvellous Musicians, which makes most of the chosen repertoire by most of the figures of the past seem limited by comparison (but then, of course, some people will always believe that the number of Great Works is as rare as the number of Great Conductors).

Were I given a choice of when I'd most like to be alive to hear Music, I would unhesitatingly choose now, today. I'd've loved to have heard Furtwangler, Klemperer, Kleiber. Leinsdorf, and countless others, Live in concert, but I'm content with the recordings I have of what they did - and thrilled to have the opportunity to hear what Musicians (many of them now younger than I am, which seems to be against the natural order of things, if I'm honest!) have to offer me, both in works I like to think that I know well (insert obligatory reference to Krivine's Beethoven Symphony cycle), and in repertoire I've never encountered before. Music Lives!

Burblings they may be, but I would call them cogent and stimulating analyses.

[Bryn]

. . . (insert obligatory reference to Krivine's Beethoven Symphony cycle) . . .

Krivine's Beethoven Symphony cycles (or, rather, surveys) please. The later one on YouTube is also to be considered

[Richard Tarleton]

A few burblings:

The Great Conductor concept grew with the development of the big recording industries and seems to be fading with them.

It's a while since I read it, but I recall similar burblings ( actually agree with everything you say) in Norman Lebrecht's The Maestro Myth which graces my shelves to this day.

Were I given a choice of when I'd most like to be alive to hear Music, I would unhesitatingly choose now, today.

Indeed - not least, if not mainly, for areas of music that have nothing to do with conductors....

I'd've loved to have heard Furtwangler, Klemperer, Kleiber. Leinsdorf, and countless others, Live in concert,

Having that extra few years I heard one of those live and would have heard another had he not pulled out two days beforehand

[Nick Armstrong]

Burblings they may be, but I would call them cogent and stimulating analyses.

With you entirely with regard to the ferneyburbles

Couldn't put it better than he did.

[jayne lee wilson]

This very Proms season has given us many reasons to be cheerful....
Karen Canellakis, Ben Gernon, John Storgards, Otto Tausk, Thomas Dausgaard (impressively versatile!), Edward Gardner, Morlot...Currentzis (the negative reactions to whom are dismaying, implying that still too prevalent music-lovers' tendency to protect a museological past)...elsewhere, there are the fresh approaches of Venzago, Cornelius Meister, or Nézet-Séguin to seek out...but relatively few do, preferring to guard the flame offered repeatedly by those vast boxset integrales of those older, over-revered artists. (Which while offering value-per-disc often require considerable outlay - perhaps at the expense of more adventurous choices).

The 20th-C figure of the great conductor was both myth and reality - a real, sometimes too authoritarian, authority often over a limited repertoire (which itself became too exclusive and iconicised, at the expense of wider repertoire); the selling of the Great Artist figure (dating back to Mahler at least) as Godly and remote, almost beyond a critique. (This has been applied to soloists, especially pianists, at least as much).
But you can learn much from them of course, about say, subjective vs score-reverential interpretation, about how earlier music, especially the repertoire which has become the "mainstream" concerthall "canon" was played and heard by earlier generations. No wonder the Gramophone has been so important to many of us in offering the balanced, knowledgeable view - and increasingly, highlighting (positively!) new approaches and new performers..

The industry is changing fast with the development of high-value, high-quality streaming services. Which should be welcomed, embraced by listeners as a way to hear far more of the new for themselves - new performers, new music, without the older, expensive commitment to limited purchases. But will it be?

(Next Monday night finds Dausgaard (back again...!) conducting Nørgård's 3rd... that is what we need far more of, but...and if few listeners attend to it, why do you expect anyone to try to sell more of it?.)

[cloughie]

This very Proms season has given us many reasons to be cheerful....
Karen Canellakis, Ben Gernon, John Storgards, Otto Tausk, Thomas Dausgaard (impressively versatile!), Edward Gardner, Morlot...Currentzis (the negative reactions to whom are dismaying, implying that still too prevalent music-lovers' tendency to protect a museological past)...elsewhere, there are the fresh approaches of Venzago, Cornelius Meister, or Nézet-Séguin to seek out...but relatively few do, preferring to guard the flame offered repeatedly by those vast boxset integrales of those older, over-revered artists. (Which while offering value-per-disc often require considerable outlay - perhaps at the expense of more adventurous choices).

The 20th-C figure of the great conductor was both myth and reality - a real, sometimes too authoritarian, authority often over a limited repertoire (which itself became too exclusive and iconicised, at the expense of wider repertoire); the selling of the Great Artist figure (dating back to Mahler at least) as Godly and remote, almost beyond a critique. (This has been applied to soloists, especially pianists, at least as much).
But you can learn much from them of course, about say, subjective vs score-reverential interpretation, about how earlier music, especially the repertoire which has become the "mainstream" concerthall "canon" was played and heard by earlier generations. No wonder the Gramophone has been so important to many of us in offering the balanced, knowledgeable view - and increasingly, highlighting (positively!) new approaches and new performers..

The industry is changing fast with the development of high-value, high-quality streaming services. Which should be welcomed, embraced by listeners as a way to hear far more of the new for themselves - new performers, new music, without the older, expensive commitment to limited purchases. But will it be?

(Next Monday night finds Dausgaard (back again...!) conducting Nørgård's 3rd... that is what we need far more of, but...and if few listeners attend to it, why do you expect anyone to try to sell more of it?.)

You omitted two ‘M’s - Manze and Mena!

[teamsaint]

This very Proms season has given us many reasons to be cheerful....
Karen Canellakis, Ben Gernon, John Storgards, Otto Tausk, Thomas Dausgaard (impressively versatile!), Edward Gardner, Morlot...Currentzis (the negative reactions to whom are dismaying, implying that still too prevalent music-lovers' tendency to protect a museological past)...elsewhere, there are the fresh approaches of Venzago, Cornelius Meister, or Nézet-Séguin to seek out...but relatively few do, preferring to guard the flame offered repeatedly by those vast boxset integrales of those older, over-revered artists. (Which while offering value-per-disc often require considerable outlay - perhaps at the expense of more adventurous choices).

The 20th-C figure of the great conductor was both myth and reality - a real, sometimes too authoritarian, authority often over a limited repertoire (which itself became too exclusive and iconicised, at the expense of wider repertoire); the selling of the Great Artist figure (dating back to Mahler at least) as Godly and remote, almost beyond a critique. (This has been applied to soloists, especially pianists, at least as much).
But you can learn much from them of course, about say, subjective vs score-reverential interpretation, about how earlier music, especially the repertoire which has become the "mainstream" concerthall "canon" was played and heard by earlier generations. No wonder the Gramophone has been so important to many of us in offering the balanced, knowledgeable view - and increasingly, highlighting (positively!) new approaches and new performers..

The industry is changing fast with the development of high-value, high-quality streaming services. Which should be welcomed, embraced by listeners as a way to hear far more of the new for themselves - new performers, new music, without the older, expensive commitment to limited purchases. But will it be?

(Next Monday night finds Dausgaard (back again...!) conducting Nørgård's 3rd... that is what we need far more of, but...and if few listeners attend to it, why do you expect anyone to try to sell more of it?.)

Star systems are just bad news.

As we have seen elsewhere, the problem of abundance is a real one.
Those interested in seeking out the new and interesting have a world open to them that was scarcely imaginable even 25 years ago. Touch of a button brings you music of almost any kind, from anywhere on the globe, both professional and amateur. And the DIY ethic and cheap tech has enabled many of those interested in the new and interesting to do it for themselves, rather than solely as audience members.That in part is where your audiences have gone.we no longer have to rely in the main on that handed down from high at the BBC, DG, wherever.
I wandered into work the other day, and mentioned to a knowledgeable former semi pro musician about a Jazz disc that is a current favourite of mine, and which is pretty much outside the regular listening of either of us. One way and another three or four people got talking about it, and suddenly wanted to hear it.So the curiosity and enthusiasm are there, of that I am sure. Music “events” , including the Proms, are often really well attended, but in a crowded market you still need the pull of a name or a glamorous location to get people in to listen to the new, young or different somewhere on the bill. People will commit the time and money if they have it. But many jobs pay poorly and demand long , non 9-5 hours and pressures on family life are often very great. Look at all the A level result hand wringing.

Its a busy world out there, I suppose.

[antongould]

Star systems are just bad news.

As we have seen elsewhere, the problem of abundance is a real one.
Those interested in seeking out the new and interesting have a world open to them that was scarcely imaginable even 25 years ago. Touch of a button brings you music of almost any kind, from anywhere on the globe, both professional and amateur. And the DIY ethic and cheap tech has enabled many of those interested in the new and interesting to do it for themselves, rather than solely as audience members.That in part is where your audiences have gone.we no longer have to rely in the main on that handed down from high at the BBC, DG, wherever.
I wandered into work the other day, and mentioned to a knowledgeable former semi pro musician about a Jazz disc that is a current favourite of mine, and which is pretty much outside the regular listening of either of us. One way and another three or four people got talking about it, and suddenly wanted to hear it.So the curiosity and enthusiasm are there, of that I am sure. Music “events” , including the Proms, are often really well attended, but in a crowded market you still need the pull of a name or a glamorous location to get people in to listen to the new, young or different somewhere on the bill. People will commit the time and money if they have it. But many jobs pay poorly and demand long , non 9-5 hours and pressures on family life are often very great. Look at all the A level result hand wringing.

Its a busy world out there, I suppose.

Well observed ts ..... I don’t think R3 will ever win back the audience it had because, as you say, there is so much of everything out there .....

[Petrushka]

Well, I look at my own shelves and see acres of Karajan, Klemperer, Solti, Kubelik etc, etc. Over the past few years I've been taking huge advantage of the big box re-issues of the back catalogue - and have no regrets whatever.

I was amazingly lucky to have started my concert-going in 1972 (I was nearly 18) when Rudolf Kempe was the first conductor I saw and I soon went on to attend London concerts. The 1970s & 1980s were a true golden age, the big names of the podium appearing night after night at the RFH, never mind the Proms. In the space of just one month 40 years ago (Feb/March 1978) I met Messiaen (in Manchester), saw Haitink (twice), Solti, Boskovsky and Abbado. It was unbelievable and I was travelling around everywhere. Of the 'great' names on Beefy's list I saw three and met two of them (Böhm and Bernstein)

Recordings don't even tell half the story. When you've seen Karajan conduct Bruckner, Kempe conduct Strauss, Bernstein conduct Mahler you really do know that nothing will ever truly, truly compare however good.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

When you've seen Karajan conduct Bruckner, Kempe conduct Strauss, Bernstein conduct Mahler you really do know that nothing will ever truly, truly compare however good.

Well, you might "know" this, Pet - but speaking as someone bowled over by Karajan's Brahms #1, Bernstein's Mahler #9, and Tennstedt's Mahler #6 (etc, etc, etc) I get far greater comfort than your comment offers from the knowledge that Brahms # 1 is greater than Karajan or any of its performers (and, likewise Mahler for Bernstein and Tennstedt) and that those works are going to keep offering new generations of performers the opportunity to bowl me over afresh.

[Lat-Literal]

They reflect their times. The 19th Century context is purely music - Mendelssohn. Spohr, Berlioz, Wagner etc. The modern world is essentially three periods - early 20th century figures: seriousness; grandeur; the advent of film; sound recordings. (Beecham, for example, was definitely an ac-TOR). Next, the period referred to in the OP is largely post film. The era of broadcasting, accessibility, questions about the class system (eg Bernstein - post film; Previn - television; Barenboim is also very much in that sort of domain; Boulez too). That is what those key figures were, other than themselves. Post 1980s it is mainly the era of diversity emanating from accentuated consumerism. (eg Alsop, Dudamel). Consequently, I don't think there has been a plummeting. In 50 years time, it will be different. There is no reason why there should not be a blander uniformity. All of the transitions will have been done. That is not to say there won't be some splendidly solid people who are capable of producing huge excitement (eg in the vein of a Handley or a Mariner or a Manze), especially if "specialising".

[Petrushka]

Well, you might "know" this, Pet - but speaking as someone bowled over by Karajan's Brahms #1, Bernstein's Mahler #9, and Tennstedt's Mahler #6 (etc, etc, etc) I get far greater comfort than your comment offers from the knowledge that Brahms # 1 is greater than Karajan or any of its performers (and, likewise Mahler for Bernstein and Tennstedt) and that those works are going to keep offering new generations of performers the opportunity to bowl me over afresh.

I hope they do me as well. I'll be at the Budapest FO/Fischer Brahms 1 Prom next week so we'll see. Of current conductors who I think DO match up, I'll give you Manfred Honeck, Mariss Jansons, Thomas Hengelbrock and the name to really watch, Karina Canellakis, who I think does have what the 'greats' had.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... the name to really watch, Karina Canellakis, who I think does have what the 'greats' had.

- I saw (and heard) her conduct the Hallé in Leeds Town Hall last year in Beethoven #4 and the Brahms d minor Piano Concerto and was ... bowled over!