Favorite / overrated conductors

Favourites:
Thomas Beecham
Daniel Barenboim
Neville Marriner

Overrated?
Herbert Von Karajan (especially doing Beethoven)

As usual, my humble opinion....

Chris L

As for overrated conductors, I'll come to Karajan's defense and say that he is too harshly criticized even though some of his music making is not especially convincing (Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert - shudder). I will also write perhaps the ultimate heretical statement: I think Toscanini is overrated. He was a great conductor, mind you, but I think he is sometimes overly praised.

Historical:

Klemperer - Mahler, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner

Walter - Brahms, Mahler, Schumann

Fricsay - Bartok, Mozart

Furtwangler - Everything (the exception to the rule)

Toscanini - Brahms, Beethoven (Overrated or not, he deserves mention)

Beecham - Schubert, Mozart, Delius (of course)

Stravinsky - Stravinsky

Last Generation:

Karajan - Sibelius, Honegger, Bruckner, Mahler

Celibidache - Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven (the 6th Symphony especially)

Kubelik - Dvorak, Smetana, Mozart, Schumann

Bernstein - Ives, Schuman, and most other American music, Mahler (selectively)

Bohm - Schubert, Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner; Basically all things Viennese

Tintner - Bruckner

Current Conductors:

Boulez - Boulez, Webern, Ravel, Debussy, Mahler's 1st & 6th

Salonen - Stravinsky (a Concertgebouw concert I heard was the best version I've ever encountered), Revueltas

Abbado - Brahms, Prokofiev, Verdi (the new Requiem release is fine)

Slatkin - Haydn, Barber, Prokofiev

Hogwood - Beethoven, Bach

This in only my own opinion and I do not want to influence anyone's judgment about this person or his work

Cheese

It's a one horse race.......Furtwangler

Regards

Mick

Did you really mean that? Somehow didn't imagine you spending time listening to mono 40s and 50s recordings.

---

The conductors that I have most enjoyed over the last few years are:

1) Gunther Wand - not counted as this generation though - if you haven't had the opportunity, then see him while you still can.
2) Bernard Haitink - probably the most reliable conductor for opera at present
3) Simon Rattle - also performs better live than on record, and seems to be able to galvanise orchestras in more modern music
4) Nicolaus Harnoncourt - has a way with dynamics which is quite unlike any other conductor
5) Trevor Pinnock - probably not on most peoples list, but the BBC Prom performances of Bach, Haydn and Mozart I remember were all excellent - I think he has given up to focus on harpsichord playing.

David

To get into the Furt debate:

Furtwangler - Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, even a good Tchai 6th...excellent in everything that he conducted (but not a lot of Bartok, for example)

Toscanini - Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Dvorak, Mozart, evreything he did that I've heard...every time I think Furt did the definitive Beethoven symphony, for example, I'm amazed that T did the same piece definitively, too (but much differently of course) :-)

Overrated:

Karajan - bad for orchestral music in general. his egomania and manipulationof recorded music (not to mention his lies about his Nazi connections and attacks on Furt) have earned him a very special place in hell - a constant ear diet of Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, ABBA, Britney Spears...

Chailly - 3 lousy concerts with the Chicago Symphony. The only thing I remember is that I was bored to tears 3 times in 3 different seat locations. I'd love to go to Amsterdam to hear the RCOA - not while Chailly is around, though

Solti - never moved me with the CSO live

Roger Norrington - I heard a broadcast concert of his last night - really fu**ed up Leonore Overture and Eroica. I've tried to sell my Norrington CDs, but I can't find a buyer. I've got to forget last night's broadcast....

Underrated:

Horenstein

Franz Welser(-Moest) - heard a GREAT GREAT Brahms vln cto with Shaham and the CSO - tentative conclusion. I can't imagine whta happened in London.

Ormandy

Erich Kleiber - Beet, Tchai, Mozart - all GREAT

Phil

Cheese

The most overwhelming 5th is Furt's 5/47 concert recording - his reunion with the BPO after his de-nazification.

[This message was edited by Phil Barry on SUNDAY 13 January 2002 at 01:37.]

Don't you listen to any 20th century music? There's a reason there's a dirth of same in Furt's discography.

Phil

I wouldn't say Maazel is overrated as I can't ever remember talking to someone who actually liked his conducting.

Re: Rattle - He probably is the most overrated. Nevertheless, I have seen him conduct some wonderful performances of a broad range of music. On some of the core repertoire, I think he needs a few more years before it's fair to judge either way.

David

[This message was edited by David Hobbs-Mallyon on MONDAY 14 January 2002 at 12:54.]

Phil,

it's interesting how chailly is rejected in the US and the UK. Maybe it's the fussy way he likes to point out that Mahler (and even Bruckner) were 'actually' avant garde composers, rather than taking it from their 19 th C roots? The way he prefers to er, complicate the score, rather than go for the jugular? Is that it?

I do feel he's great in a lot of 20th C stuff. This weekend I heard a glorious RCO concert under Chailly, with the orchestra at their absolute soaring best in a Prokofiev R & J suite.

Virtually no one manages to get the big tune in Juliet's funeral right, i.e. a big overwhelming tutti (like those Tchaikovsky unisono's) that is sweet rather than shouting, but these guys got it right.

And I heard they're going to the US soon, so watch out, Phil!

Herm

It looks like Chailly is lurking in the Music Room. Since Phil's last post (like: "I'm ready to come to Amsterdam, but first the Bearded One has to go") rumours started, and today the news is official.

Chailly is resigning from the Concertgebouw Orchestra as of 2004, after which he's going to the Leipzig Gewandthaus Orchestra. That's where Masur was before he moved to the NYPh.

It's a disappointing move, and a little weird too, since the Dresden is also looking for a conductor, after Sinopoli collapsed and died. (Haitink is temping in Dresden.) The Dresden is a better orchestra than the Leipzig. Goes to show there's something strange about the Bearded One.

"See him while you can," wrote David Hobbs-Mallyon.

Well, count yourself lucky, David, because you can't any longer.

Wand died thursday, ninety years old, at home in Ulmiz, Switzerland.

Too bad. It was a strange spectacle, seeing this fragile old guy shuffling towards centre-stage. Nonetheless a powerful music maker.

Bruckner, Brahms, Schubert. Somehow I can see him, shuffling the same old way, somewhere in the afterlife, humbly shaking hands with the great ones, telling Bruckner (the odd uneasy one, even up there!) he recorded him many many times. Did all he could do.

I'm going to listen to some Bruckner Wandt now.

Herm

Certainly in the last couple of years he was looking particularly frail on the platform, but the performances were still excellent, no doubt helped by the number of rehearsals he always insisted on. I have some very good memories, particularly a Bruckner 8 at the Proms a few years ago which was absolutely awe inspiring - I had travelled back from Japan that day, and had to run to hall to get in on time. The performance exceeded my very high expectations - it actually left me in a bit of a daze for a few days afterwards. He's never quite managed to record a performance of this great symphony which quite matches that performance, but the latest Berlin Phil is close. Maybe one day the BBC will get round to releasing the recording.

He was certainly not overrated.

David

So you barely missed each other...

I have a friend (yes I really do) who I got to know say in 1990, and we found out we'd been at an identical European would-be Woodstock outdoors mudfest in 1971 - and it's like you want to scan the crowd looking for that head (with al lot more hair, admittedly).

RCA has just released a couple of Wand boxes: remastered recordings of Bruckner, Beethoven and Brahms recordings with the Nord-Deutsch Radio Orchestra. These eighties recordings may be interesting. Maybe these NDRO performances are better than the Berlin PO of the nineties.

Sad he is gone though.

Herm

Herm, I've not heard too many comparative Wand recordings, but I do prefer the old Schubert 9, to the BPO 8/9 released later.

David

[This message was edited by David Hobbs-Mallyon on SUNDAY 17 February 2002 at 21:07.]

Alex

couldn't agree with you more. Rattle is a very engaging personality, but the energy that is so infectious live, turns into hectoring when you listen to the records.

Herm

David

As an opera conductor, maybe yes. This weekend I compared a bunch of Zauberflötes I have and compared to Christie and Gardiner Haitink was slow and dull. (Early eighties EMI digital doesn't help either.)

Haitink as a symphonic conductor is a different story. At the Concertgebouw any given programme usually is performed three times, and with Haitink you wanted to go to the last night because by that time he'd really loosened up and cast aside his (admirable) modesty.

I remember an eighties Mahler Nine (when it was OK to go to Mahler symphonies), which lasted over five minutes longer in the last performance.

Too bad he can't be persuaded to do live recordings. Often the recordings present the more modest Haitink, but hey, that's pretty still outstanding. Take his Shostakovich recordings (esp 8 and 15).

With Haitink you get a lot in both cases (live and on the record); my suspicion with Rattle is, you get carried away by his presence, and at home you find out he's not that great after all.

Herm