Greatest Living Conductor: Chailly or Masur?

"Greatest" living conductor for what music? To my ears, no one surpasses Charles Dutoit (Montreal Symphony) for Ravel and Debussy.

But even at a broader level than Fred suggests, there are very different genres to play the game in. Will your "greatest conductor" for a kichen-sink and all symphony like Schosta 5 be able to deliver the goods on, say, "Spem in Alium" equally well? I have my doubts...

Pete.

You must be joking, mustn't you?

As for a Kapellmeister, to which category I ascribe Masur, I have to say that Wand is evidently superior interpretatively.

Chailly strikes me as being more a good orchestra trainer than a conductor.

I think that Carlos Kleiber, Simon Rattle, Nikolaus Harnoncourt are on another planet.
Second to those, Haitink, Abbado, Colin Davis, Michael Gielen....

Hell, I even prefer Daniel Harding to your two.

Igor

Of course I was joking. Can anyone actually say that Masur is an exciting conductor? Masur? I think not. He can't even make Lizst's Second Rhapsody exciting for goodness sake. At least he's technically competent. Chailly is both boring and technically inept. Quite the combo.

I think I have an acceptable Chailly recording. I don't listen to it, since I've heard 3 Chailly conducted concerts that were all in the bottom 5 (bottom 3?) concerts I've ever attended.

Todd, For crying out loud! Don't joke like this again! ;-)

Regards.

Phil