Thread: Who are your favorite conductors, Past and Present?

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Post by Windsurfer January 12, 2006 (1 of 65)
This is to transfer an interesting discussion away from one supposedly about a certain pianist's Chopin.

I was surprised no one mentioned Yakov Kreizburg in the aforementioned discussion, also that no one mentioned George Szell, Klaus Tennstedt or Bruno Walter. Was Carlos Kleiber mentioned? How could Carlos Kleiber not be mentioned?

Anyway please have at it guys! Give reasons and name examples on record or it isn't that much fun.
Post by Peter January 12, 2006 (2 of 65)
Windsurfer said:

This is to transfer an interesting discussion away from one supposedly about a certain pianist's Chopin.

I was surprised no one mentioned Yakov Kreizburg in the aforementioned discussion, also that no one mentioned George Szell, Klaus Tennstedt or Bruno Walter. Was Carlos Kleiber mentioned? How could Carlos Kleiber not be mentioned?

Anyway please have at it guys! Give reasons and name examples on record or it isn't that much fun.
In addition to some already mentioned:

Fricsay - either recording of Tchaikovsky's 6th, and 5th and 4th - very exciting. The two 6ths are very different; try to hear them both.

Fricsay - Mozart piano concertos with Haskil, all his Bartok recordings.

Van Beinum - Bruckner Symphonies 5, 7, 8, 9, still wonderful! Mendelssohn violin concerto with Campoli set the standard at the start of the LP era, Elgar cello concerto with Anthony Pini. Debussy La Mer and Nocturnes - beautiful performances superbly recorded in stereo.

Collins - Sibelius symphonies - edge of your seat playing. His other recordings for Decca of Delius, Elgar and Vaughan Williams can still hold their heads up today.

The first two are conductors from the past who put the music first and who had excellent rapport on a personal and musical with their orchestras.

Szell - yes, I was surprised, too, that he's not been mentioned. Hope Sony/BMG will issue his SACD's at midprice. His live recordings are just as exciting. He achieved great orchestral discipline without sacrificing warmth and soul.

Chailly - the Bruckner symphonies are particularly successful, as are his recordings of Varese and Messiaen's Turangalila symphony (the last still available on SACD). He did an excellent job in Amsterdam, and I hope will be a complete success in Leipzig.

Vanska - wonderful Sibelius for a start. Has he made a "bad" recording?

Haitink - who has had more rave reviews for his concerts with the LSO last week. Perhaps some of those will appear on LSO live.

Finally, Furtwaengler: His recording of Bruckner's 9th is cataclysmic. Do listen if you've not heard it, but I warn you, you may not like it. Some find his performances (live and recorded) over-interpreted, but I still always get the feeling he largely thought that's what the composer intended.

PS Hugo Rignold and Louis Fremaux were regular conductors when I started to go to concerts as a schoolboy; I have very fond memories of their performances. They weren't showmen, and the orchestra loved both. Any of their recordings is worth having! (No SACDs unfortunately.)

PPS Kondrashin and Svetlanov? Both have great live and studio recordings in the catalogue. And then there's Mravinsky.... and Ancerl, and.....
Post by seth January 12, 2006 (3 of 65)
Windsurfer said:

This is to transfer an interesting discussion away from one supposedly about a certain pianist's Chopin.

I was surprised no one mentioned Yakov Kreizburg in the aforementioned discussion, also that no one mentioned George Szell, Klaus Tennstedt or Bruno Walter. Was Carlos Kleiber mentioned? How could Carlos Kleiber not be mentioned?

Anyway please have at it guys! Give reasons and name examples on record or it isn't that much fun.
Dead:

Szell:
Dvorak: Slavonic Dances; Brahms: Piano Concertos (Fleisher and Serkin); Kolday: Hary Janos Suite; Mendelssohn: AMND; Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 35, 39 & 41; Mozart: Piano Concertos (Casadesus); Schubert: Symphony No.9; Sibelius: Symphony No.2 (Sony); R. Struass: Don Juan, Don Quixote, Till Eulenspiegl & Tod und Verklargun; Walton: Variations on a Theme by Hindemith.

Ancerl:
Janacek: Taras bulba, Sinfonietta & Glagolitic Mass; Martinu: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6; Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet Suites; Stravinsky: Rite of Spring, Oedipus Rex & Les Noces; Smetana: Ma Vlast.

Living:

Gielen:
Beethoven: Symphonies; Mahler: Symphonies; Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 8; Feldman: Coptic Light; Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra; Zemlinsky: Lyric Symphony.

Gardiner:
Bach: Cantatas BWV 64, 140 & 147; Beethoven: Symphonies; Berlioz: "Romeo et Juliette", Symphonie Fantastique, "Les Troyens;" Mozart: 7 mature operas, Symphonies Nos. 40 & 41, Piano Concertos Nos. 21-34 (Bilson), Requiem; Schumann: Symphonies; Verdi: Requiem; Weber: "Oberon."

Mackerras:
Brahms: Symphonies & Serenades; Dvorak: Slavonic Dances & Rusalka; Mozart: Symponies Nos. 35-41; Martinu: The Greek Passion, Field Mass & Les Fresques; Janacek: Kata Kabanova (Suprahphon), Cunning Little Vixen, Taras bulba & Sinfonietta (Decca or Supraphon); Smetanan: Ma Vlast
Post by Polly Nomial January 12, 2006 (4 of 65)
Windsurfer said:

This is to transfer an interesting discussion away from one supposedly about a certain pianist's Chopin.

I was surprised no one mentioned Yakov Kreizburg in the aforementioned discussion, also that no one mentioned George Szell, Klaus Tennstedt or Bruno Walter. Was Carlos Kleiber mentioned? How could Carlos Kleiber not be mentioned?

Anyway please have at it guys! Give reasons and name examples on record or it isn't that much fun.
Dead (but alive on disc):

First and foremost - Karajan for all the usual reasons. Great mind, great sound (from the orchestra - DG & EMI didn't always serve well) and performances as "depersonalised/timeless" as you can get in a certain sense. Favourites are Mahler 9 (live), Mahler 6, Honegger 3 & 4, Stravinsky RoS (70's recording), Prokofiev 5, Tchaikovsky symphonies, Shostakovich 10, R Strauss (anything he recorded), NYD 1987 concert (IMHO *the* best one ever recorded), Liszt - Les Preludes (the best I have heard to date), Verdi - Overtures (BPO) & Aida (VPO on EMI), Wagner (EMI recordings of highlights), Bruckner (DG's BPO cycle, 7 & 8 on DG with VPO, Te Deum on Andante), Debussy - La Mer & Prelude, Sibelius 4, 5 & Tapiola...

Bohm - he just sounds "right" when it works, especially in LvB 6 & late Mozart.

Boskovsky - pace Karajan, did anyone understand the music of the Strauss family so well?

Kubelik - for his seemingly innate understanding of Czech music (particularly Dvorak & Smetana)

Sinopoli - highly contraversial at times but always thought provoking and frequently inspirational

Stokowski - the sound, the sound!!! In any of the Bach transcriptions he made and also the expanded soundtrack to Fantasia.

Alive, in alphabetical order:

Abbado - surely the greatest Mahlerian of our day (if not all time) but not just in this music; Mahler 1 (BPO), 2 (LFO), 3 (BPO), 5 (LFO), 6 (BPO), 7 (BPO), 9 (BPO), Brahms - Symphonies (BPO), Schubert - Symphonies (COE), Rossini - Il Viaggio a Riems, Beethoven - Symphonies (BPO on DVD)

Fischer - for his fresh & vital approaches to slavic music (Dvorak symphonies, Rachmaninov 2, Liszt - Faust)

Gardiner - possibly the finest exponent of HIP; Bach cantatas, B-minor mass & passions, Berlioz series, Schumann cycle, Monteverdi Vespers

Gergiev - has really put Russian operas on the map for me: anything Russian!

Haitink - for his simple, straightforward honesty. Shostakovich symphonies (especially 15), LvB Piano Concertos (with Perahia)

Harnoncourt - again, like Rattle, provocative but not always my preferred way. Weber - Freischutz, Verdi - Requiem

Mackerras - who else understands Janacek as well these days? Any of his Janacek recordings...

Oramo - A brilliant successor to Rattle in Birmingham (no particularly fantastic recordings apart from the Sibelius/Walton violin concerto disc on this site as yet but maybe they should do some live stuff...)

Pletnev - IMHO the best at Russian symphonic music around at moment; Tchaikovsky & Prokofiev ballet scores, Tchaikovsky symphonies

Rattle - I may not always like what he does but it is always highly thought provoking and makes me re-examine music I thought I knew. His commitment and success with contemporary music is also very commendable. Favourites: Szymanovski violin concerti & sinfonia concertante, Walton - Belshazzer's Feast, Elgar's violin concerto, Mahler 10 (BPO), Schoenburg - Gurrelieder, Mahler 8

Ruud - looks like BIS will be issuing the most exciting Greig cycle I could hear

Vanska - for me, the greatest Sibelian alive today and more than matches the achievements of previous greats in this music.
Post by mdt January 12, 2006 (5 of 65)
Karajan, for the sound he could get from an orchestra, i'll never forget the experience and i haven't heard anything equal since.

Abbado, his Verdi operas with La Scala forces. The Lucern Festival Orchestra.

Carlos Kleiber some favourites on disc: Brahms 4th Symphony, Beethoven 4th Symphony, Tristan und Isolde
Post by Edvin January 12, 2006 (6 of 65)
Karajan, see above.

David Atherton, for his Stravinsky, Tippett and just about everything I have heard from him. Excellent and grossly underrrated.

Kubelik, still the best Gurre-Lieder. A great composer also. Great man.

Bernstein, Lenny with the whole world. A showman with a big and sincere heart.

Colin Davis, for giving us Berlioz and Tippett.

Ormandy, for his diversity.
Post by DSD January 12, 2006 (7 of 65)
CLASS A
The finest conductors whose performances are nearly always exciting, with excellent timing and they pour their very soul into their music.
* Ansermet, Ernest - Everything on London/Decca Blueback especially French music and Stravinsky.
* Boult, Adrian, Sir - Vaughan Williams Symphonies, just about anything he conducted.
* Dorati, Antal - Everything he recorded for Mercury Living Presense especially his Prokofiev and Bartok
* Goossens, Eugene, Sir - Everything he did on Everest
* Järvi, Paavo - the best Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 I've ever heard, fantastic Stravinsky, Debussy and anyone else he choose to conduct. I think he is so great because he studied percussion and he only conducts works he loves! Everything he has done for both Telarc and PentaTone is the definitive performace.
* Munch, Charles - Anything French: Ravel, D'Indy, Debussy, etc.
* Paray, Paul - Again anything French especially Saint-Saens 3rd Symphony
* Reiner, Fritz - Bartok, Ravel, and everything he did for RCA Living Stereo.
* Ruud, Ole Kristian (tentative as no can touch is Edvard Greig but I will need to here him conduct other composers before this becomes a permanent placement)

CLASS B
Enjoyable performances not quite as tight and exciting as Class A
Abravanel, Maurice
Barbirolli, John, Sir
Bernstein, Leonard
Botstein, Leon
Boulez, Pierre
Chailly, Riccardo
Chung, Myung-Whun
Clark, Keith
De Billy, Bertrand
De Waart, Edo
Fiedler, Arthur
Fistoulari, Anatole
Fremaux, Louis
Gerhardt, Charles
Gibson, Alexander, Sir
Golschmann, Vladimir
Gould, Morton
Handley, Vernon
Hanson, Howard
Järvi, Kristjan (tentative listing haven’t heard enough yet)
Järvi, Neeme
Jochum, Eugen
Johanos, Donald
Kertesz, Istvan
Kosler, Zdenek
Kubelik, Rafael
Kunzel, Erich
Maazel, Lorin
Martinon, Jean
Mehta, Zubin
Monteux, Pierre
Oue, Eiji
Ozawa, Seiji
Sargent, Malcolm, Sir
Sawallisch, Wolfgang
Scherchen, Hermann
Schwarz, Gerard
Serebrier, Jose
Shaw, Robert
Skrowaczewski, Stanislaw
Slatkin, Felix
Slatkin, Leonard
Solti, Georg Sir
Spano, Robert
Steinberg, William
Stokowski, Leopold
Susskind, Walter
Thomas, Michael Tilson
Walter, Bruno
Zander, Benjamin
Zinman, David

CLASS C
Usually enjoyable performances, sometimes-missing tiny details and accents but will do if noting better for the work is available
Alsop, Marin
Alwyn, Kenneth
Ashkenazy, Vladimir
Barenboim, Daniel
Beecham, Thomas Sir
Brion, Keith
Butt, Yondani
Caetani, Oleg
Comissiona, Sergiu
Davis, Carl
DePreist, James
Dmitriev, Alexander
Dohnanyi, Christoph Von
Fricsay, Ferenc
Groves, Charles, Sir
Harnoncourt, Nikolaus
Jansons, Mariss
Karajan, Herbert Von
Lane, Louis
Leibowitz, Rene
Leinsdorf, Erich
Levi, Yoel
Litton, Andrew
Lopez-Cobos, Jesus
Maag, Peter
Macal, Zdenek
Mackerras, Charles, Sir
Marriner, Neville, Sir
Mata, Eduardo
Neumann, Vaclav
Ormandy, Eugene
Pletnev, Mikhail
Previn, Andre
Rattle, Simon
Salonen, Esa-Pekka
Sanderling, Kurt
Schippers, Thomas
Schmidt-Isserstedt, Hans
Somary, Johannes
Szell, George
Temirkanov, Yuri
Thielemann, Christian
Tjeknavorian, Loris
Wallenstein, Alfred
Wand, Gunter

CLASS D
These conductors just don’t get it, they miss all the important moments in the music they try to conduct.
Black, Stanley
Boughton, William
Braithwaite, Nicholas
Dankworth, John
Davis, Colin Sir
Gardiner, John Eliot
Giulini, Carlo Maria
Haitink, Bernard (His Shostakovich would actually be Class B, but other composers especially Franz Liszt Tone Poems he misses too many details.)
Hogwood, Christopher
Levine, James
Masur, Kurt
Muti, Riccardo
Nagano, Kent
Simon, Geoffrey
Sinopoli, Giuseppe

CLASS F
These conductors are so bad that their performances cannot be enjoyed even as background music.
Abbado, Claudio (everything he touches turns to mush)
Batiz, Enrique (he misses the beat)
Blomstedt, Herbert (the absolute worst Neilson and Edvard Grieg I have ever heard!)
Bohm, Karl (boring in the extreme)
Davies, Dennis Russell (blah performaces)
Davis, Andrew (where is the rhythm Andrew?)
Dutoit, Charles (He completely destroys the music of Maurice Ravel)
Gergiev, Valery (very poor performaces all around)
Guilini, Carlo Maria (fair)
Joo, Arpad (bad, bad Bartok)
Lockhart, Keith (a very poor replacement for the great Arthur Fiedler!)

Basically I like conductors with great timing, rhytmn and heart and who really makes the music come alive.

My favorite living conductor is Paavo Jarvi. Every recording he has done so far is not only amoung the very best but the most enjoyable to boot. I know of no living conductor whose performances are as exciting as Paavo Jarvi who already has surpassed his father Neeme.

I look forward every single release of his, if it's conducted by Paavo Jarvi and it's on SACD or DVD-Audio IT WILL BE IN MY COLLECTION, period. I am not missing one single minute of his glorious exciting music!

Happy listening,
Teresa
Post by Edvin January 13, 2006 (8 of 65)
LOL.
Post by Peter January 13, 2006 (9 of 65)
Edvin said:

LOL.
but.....I really don't understand why you feel Abbado, just to mention one conductor, is so bad. I'm only sorry I missed out on all those concerts in London.

Blomstedt's Nielsen, both in Denmark and San Francisco seems pretty idiomatic to me though I've a very soft spot for Ole Schmidt's LSO cycle, sounding quite good really on Regis (at superbargain price). My obsessive compulsive collecting disorder has ensured that I've accumulated far too many Nielsen recordings! I heard Blomstedt conduct in the Danish Radio Symphony Hall, an unforgettable evening.

Poor Dutoit. I thought he was such a fine musician. His records are equally delightful to me whether they be from Montreal, Paris or London. I haven't his recording of Haydn's Paris symphonies. Does anyone here have these?

Some well-respected conductors don't hit the spot for me in certain of their recordings and this is probably my loss. I'm not going to give any examples except to say that a universally praised recording of an orchestral work which I know pretty well didn't give me any satisfaction though I know from postings here that some view this one very highly indeed, one of the greats. I truly wish I did, too. It just goes to show......

Has anyone mentioned Toscanini?

PS I've just read yet another review of Rattle's recording of Schubert's Ninth, newly out on EMI. So far I've come across the complete spectrum of opinion and boy do I mean complete! I'm even tempted to listen for myself, and one thing's for sure, I'm certainly not going to read another review of this disc; I think I've read it all!
Post by Polly Nomial January 14, 2006 (10 of 65)
Teresa

So that I (& others) can understand your preferences a little better, could you indicate which conductors, of those you listed who are currently alive, you have seen in concert?

Regards
PN
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