Who are your favourite five conductors, seen live.?

[cloughie]

Ah, yes. Arvid Jansons. I'd almost forgotten him. He was a very well respected guest conductor with Barbirolli's Halle Orchestra in the late 60s. Better than his son, possibly...

Indeed so Alps I saw him at Sheffield City Hall conduct as a guest with the Halle around that time but also with the Leningrad Phil delivering an electric Tchaik 4!

[Nick Armstrong]

Arvid Jansons.

Indeed so Alps I saw him at Sheffield City Hall conduct as a guest with the Halle around that time but also with the Leningrad Phil delivering an electric Tchaik 4!

Me too, saw him in 1982 with the Leningraders (in Leningrad) delivering a fantastic Rachmaninov 2

[Richard Tarleton]

Haitink
Horenstein
Colin Davis
Giulini
Solti

This really is impossible. I've had several goes at this list (Haitink the one fixture ). Mackerras, whom I saw several times in the opera house, deserves to be on it. Pappano, with 2 Rings, a Meistersinger and a Parsifal under my belt, is coming up fast on the rails. My concert going career kicked off just as a cadre of great mid 20th century conductors were reaching the end of their lives or careers - I could make another list for "conductors I'm glad I saw live", like Stokowski, Leinsdorf, Kempe and Krips. I had a ticket for Klemperer but he didn't make it to the rostrum......

[Dave2002]

Jochum
Gergiev
Haitink
Andris Nelsons
John Pritchard

This is hopeless - I can think of at least 5 more. I've had to knock some off the list because I didn't actually see/hear them in an outstanding performance - and that includes Barbirolli, and there are some whose performances were outstanding but with only five allowed ... !!

Thinking back as to what were outstanding live performances:

Gergiev: Shostakovich 4, Proms;
Haitink: Many - Shostakovich 10 (several times), Mahler symphonies - various.
Jochum: Brahms symphony 1
Andris Nelsons: Rachmaninov Symphony 2
Pritchard: Bartok, Miraculous Mandarin;Ravel, Daphnis and Chloe
Rhozdestvensky: Rite of spring, Tchaikovsky 4
Previn: Turangalila Symphony
Mackerras: Stravinsky, Petrushka
Boult with Menuhin: Elgar violin concerto (the performance of Mendelssohn in the same concert was disappointing)
Zubin Mehta: Stravinsky, Rite of Spring (OK - he's not fashionable now, but that was, IMO, a really stunning performance)
Levine: Brahms Symphony 1
Solti: various, Berlioz: Romeo and Juliet, Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - I thought he could be really good live, very different from recordings IMO.

Memory is a bit hazy about a few others. Possibly I heard Sargent in Walton Belshazzar - very good.
I heard Colin Davis many times, and he was always very good. His way with Mozart was special. His Sibelius and Nielsen in recent years were very good.
I mentioned Barbirolli earlier, but I only saw/heard him once in Mahler 6 - which was OK.
I saw Aida at the ROH around 1970ish - superb. I'm not sure who the conductor was.
I think Boulez was good. Mahler and Schoenberg.

[Karafan]

Me too, saw him in 1982 with the Leningraders (in Leningrad) delivering a fantastic Rachmaninov 2

You were both, clearly ARVID fans of his!! Arf, arf! (I'm here all week)

[Madame Suggia]

Jansons
Haitink
Rattle
Abbado
Kleiber - on a live DVD wonderful Brahms 4

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Kleiber - on a live DVD wonderful Brahms 4

Oo, that's a teeny weeny bit naughty.

[DublinJimbo]

We don't have as wide a choice here as folk in the UK, but we manage to entice some fine orchestras from abroad to the National Concert Hall, and the music group I'm part of travels each year to a major European city for an enhanced diet of concert performances and opera.

Top of the list is Iván Fischer, both here and in Budapest with the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
Albert Rosen was an inspirational chief conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and had a long and hugely successful association with the Wexford Festival. He led an extraordinary performance of the Turangalîla Symphony as part of the Dublin Festival of Twentieth Century Music when Messiaen was the featured composer and attended the performance. To this day, that concert remains my greatest ever musical experience. The hall was packed on the night, with late-comers standing in ranks at the back and along the sides. The ovation for both composer and conductor lasted for twenty minutes and I was among those who dashed up to the stage chanting Albert! Albert! Albert!
Marek Janowski, conducting the Missa Solemnis in the Philharmonie in Berlin.
Daniel Barenboim's Ring at the Staatsoper Berlin.
Hannu Lintu, chief guest conductor of the NSOI for three years. Imaginative programming (Rouse and Rautavaara, for example, among composers receiving a first airing in Ireland).

Five definitely isn't enough, but this lot have been very special for me.

[cloughie]

Barbirolli, Giulini, Rattle, Tennstedt and Abbado. Two I regret not having seen were Bernstein and Solti.

[teamsaint]

I wish Lintu would come to the Uk and programme Rouse and Rautavaara.

[Beef Oven!]

Sinopoli
Abbado
Wand
Boulez
Sir Colin

.

I've seen all them too

My list includes:

Giulini
Dohnányi
Rattle
Haitink
Gergiev

With Esa Peka Salonen on the bench

[slarty]

Jansons
Haitink
Rattle
Abbado
Kleiber - on a live DVD wonderful Brahms 4

That's more than naughty, because in that case I could add that I have a DVD of Furtwängler conducting and of .........and so on.
I think that we should stick to "conductors we have seen live".

[Richard Tarleton]

I think that we should stick to "conductors we have seen live".

Quite. I'd love to have seen Sinopoli, had a ticket to see him, only he...died. Sadly.

[gradus]

Monteux
Solti
Haitink
Klemperer
are the ones whose live concerts/opera performances stay in the memory.
Time travelling allowed? If so, Furtwangler, Beecham, Toscanini, Walter, Kleiber (E).

[Ferretfancy]

It's impossible really, but here goes in no particular order

Stokowski, especially his Mahler Resurrection Symphony and Shostakovich 10 at the Proms in the 1960s

The wonderful Pierre Monteux

Barbirolli, again wonderful at the Proms in a surprisingly wide range of compositions

Boult - perhaps a bit forgotten today, but his Vaughan Williams and Brahms performances were sublime, Bartok's Concert for Orchestra as well.

Today ? A tough one, perhaps Jurowski ?

If I hadn't stood in front of Mr Francombe at school waving his arms as we sang Byrd and Tallis et al, I probably would have missed a great deal of marvellous music, so he's a sixth choice !