Favourite Conductor

[HaydnFan]

Watching the videos posted by Chris of Kleiber conducting Beethoven, it made me want to ask the board: who is your favourite conductor and why?


I would personally have to go with Leonard Bernstein because in his flamboyance, you can really tell that he just loves the music!

[JA Gardiner]

Watching the videos posted by Chris of Kleiber conducting Beethoven, it made me want to ask the board: who is your favourite conductor and why?


I would personally have to go with Leonard Bernstein because in his flamboyance, you can really tell that he just loves the music!

For me no question its Kleiber - I'm just so frustrated how little we have of him on record - if Orfeo could come up with a recording of him doing the 9th I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven! I agree though that Bernstein is infectious in his passion for the music. Less flamboyant but even more insightful in my view is Claudio Abbado who I first got to appreciate when he was with the LSO and who first introduced me to Mahler, and I'll always have a soft spot for Andre Previn without whose TV broadcasts in the 60's and 70's I might never have got into Classical music at all.
For earlier music John Eliot Gardiner is incomparable IMHO and his current Bach Cantata pilgrimage is pure joy.
Of conductors from before my time i have come to revere Toscanini who seems to have been before his time in his electrfying approach to the Beethoven symphonies and much else, but I love Adrian Boult and John Barbirolli whose sensitive and loving approach, especially to so-called English music has not I think been surpassed. The latter's recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto and Sea Pictures with Jacqueline Du Pre and Janet Baker has to stand in contention for greatest recording of all time, and whilst it may be apocryphal that this was played to Jacquie as she died, I could think of few better ways of being issued out into the eternal after a life well spent.

[Peter]

The latter's recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto and Sea Pictures with Jacqueline Du Pre and Janet Baker has to stand in contention for greatest recording of all time, and whilst it may be apocryphal that this was played to Jacquie as she died, I could think of few better ways of being issued out into the eternal after a life well spent.

Of course Jacqueline du Pre was and always will be associated with the Elgar concerto, but from what I recall reading it wasn't actually her favourite! I may be wrong here (and it certainly is nit-picking) but I think it was the Schumann concerto that was played to her as she lay dying on that dreadful night of the UK 'great storm' Oct '87.

[Peter]

Watching the videos posted by Chris of Kleiber conducting Beethoven, it made me want to ask the board: who is your favourite conductor and why?


I would personally have to go with Leonard Bernstein because in his flamboyance, you can really tell that he just loves the music!

It all depends on the composer as a pianist does also - Schnabel for instance was supreme in Beethoven but hopeless at Chopin. For Beethoven conductors I admire Kleiber - his father Eric was also a fine conductor. My other top Beethoven conductors are Günter Wand, Karl Bohm, George Szell (his Pastoral is one of the greatest), and Franz Brüggen (period instrument).

[JA Gardiner]

Of course Jacqueline du Pre was and always will be associated with the Elgar concerto, but from what I recall reading it wasn't actually her favourite! I may be wrong here (and it certainly is nit-picking) but I think it was the Schumann concerto that was played to her as she lay dying on that dreadful night of the UK 'great storm' Oct '87.

As always i bow to your more accurate knowledge . I have her recording of the Schumann too which again is very special.

[Sorrano]

I will have to go with Toscanini. There is always a fiery spirit in the music and an ernestness that I think is tops.

[Johan]

Wilhelm Furtwängler. His spiritual depth and human width places him in a league of his own. Then there are many other good conductors f.ex. father and son Kleiber.

[DavidO]

When it comes to Beethoven, my favorite conductor is George Szell. He strikes me as the most consistently lean, mean & astute Beethoven conductor of the last 50 years or so, at least in the United States. I think Szell was at his Beethoven best conducting his own Cleveland Orchestra, although there are some excellent recordings of him leading European orchestras in Beethoven music.

I love several other conductors & orchestras, including Neville Marriner & the Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields (splendid Vaughan Williams & Elgar), Solti & Chicago (Wagner &c.) & Sir Adrian Boult (whose Vaughan Williams symphonies are peerless).

[Rutradelusasa]

Gardiner and Spering.
They just do it like I'd do it, Gardiner being more controlled and Spering borderline maniac. Me likes it maniac

[Chris]

Mine is probably George Szell as well, although it is extremely difficult to choose.

[ruudp]

I've got szels rendition with the cleveland orchestra of the ninth symphony....WOW..that last movement...WOW....the final quartet of the soloists....pure poetry...a great rendition..allthough I enjoy gardiners set of the nine aswell..esp the first eight with respect to tempi.

[HaydnFan]

I have said before that I have the entire set of symphonies from Karajan and the Berlin Phil. (the later set). I know I have heard people here panning these but I like them very much!

[susanwen]

I have said before that I have the entire set of symphonies from Karajan and the Berlin Phil. (the later set). I know I have heard people here panning these but I like them very much!

Me too. These are the only DVDs I have of Beethoven's symphonies, everything else I have is on CD. It's nice to SEE it performed. I really appreciated Chris posting about the on-line Kleiber videos - how NICE.

[Sorrano]

I have said before that I have the entire set of symphonies from Karajan and the Berlin Phil. (the later set). I know I have heard people here panning these but I like them very much!

I've heard that the earlier set is better, but it would be interesting to compare!

[HaydnFan]

I've heard that the earlier set is better, but it would be interesting to compare!

But this is what people say about a lot of recordings and forgive me, but it is mostly the older generation who make statements like these and I think that it is because they have grown up with those older recordings. That is not a bad thing but in this case, the "newer" versions could never compare to the the versions they are used to.

I am sure there will be many comments to refute this such as "...actually, I though this and this newer recording was better than the old set..." but I stick by my argument...Just because it is from the 50's or 60's, it doesn't mean that it is better. Maybe it is just what you are used to...