A girl at Ross just recommended I listen to this and I’m glad I did! If you’re somehow reading this I hope you become the music teacher you dream of being! ❤️
I hoped to see Celibidache here. I've searched on Google so many lists, and some didn't even have him on the top 20, which is a disgrace to the man who probably understood the philosophy of music the best. Tho they did put Simon Rattle either in the top 5 or 10, which I have nothing against him, but the man doesn't rise to the understanding that Celibidache had. Very happy to see him in your ranking especially this high up
Tchaikovsky number one should have been way further up in the standings, but is very hard to find a truly authentic rendering of that piece even nowadays.
I discovered my local music store had a 34 cd set called "the great ollection of classical music by melodiya of Russia" I have never had any melodiya recordings before so I had to buy it. Includes recordings made rozhdestvensky and all russian orchestras. Verybhard to track down melodiya cds. Oddly, made for Korean market with a hardcoverbook in Korean.
I don't know if I'd have them in quite the same order, but I can say that my list would include 8 of the 10 here... So it looks like we've got similar taste in conductors
As I adore opera, as well as symphonic music, my list, in no particular order, would be: - Arturo Toscanini - Antal Dorati - Karl Bohm - Leonard Bernstein - Charles Munch - George Szell - Eugen Jochum - Ferenc Fricsay - Rafael Kubelik - John Barbirolli
1. Furtwangler 2.Celibidache 3.Kurt Sanderling 4. Otto Klemperer 5.Bernstein 6.Barbirolli 7.Harnoncourt 8.Ancerl 9.Giulini 10.Reinhard Goebel. Most over-rated: 1.Karajan- made even Beethoven sound like Mantovani. 2.Toscanini: Arturo Furioso 3. Mravinsky: I've yet to hear one bar of 'innigkeit', apart from Dawn on the Moscow River. 4.George Solti: lighting hitting a shithouse. 5.Sir Simon Rattle: Look, how clever am I! 6: Carlos Kleiber;: Sound and fury signifying nothing. 7. John Elliot Gardiner: can make Beethoven's Missa Solemnis sound like sheep bleating. 8. Norrington: No, Sir Rog, conducting is NOT a race to the finish line. 9.Neville Marriner: good for lollipops, rest good cure for insomnia. 10.Chailly: weird, weird, weird. 11.Neemi Jarvi: Competence personified; everything he did is second rate: everything
An impossible task when one considers that different conductors master different composers and have varying output. Leaving Carlos Kleiber out fails to recognize his genius though his output was small. His sense of music and its orchestration may leave him in a class by himself. Sorry to miss him here.
Top 100 would still not be enough, so many great conductors are dead, but luckily new great ones take their places. But of all those there is one whom I love and admire: Herbert Blomstedt.
these lists by their very nature are bullshit (and, by the way, what is meant by "top" conductors--best paid, most handsome, most charismatic, most popular, most graceful on the podium--what?), but, having said this, I am surprised that your list didn't include Carlos Kleiber, George Szell, John Elliot Gardiner, Otto Klemperer, Fritz Reiner, and Charles Nordman (my junior high school music director, who brought out the repressed music instincts of a group of pubescent, distracted, hormone fueled kids--miraculous!). But really, what these lists do is, by omission, dishonor a multitude of deserving artists who gave every last bit of their sweat and energy to provide us listeners with inspiration and enjoyment. Also, unfortunately, these lists elevate individuals who may be unworthy of distinction.
Next time, safer to go with the best 1,000 conductors. That will make almost everyone happy. OK - maybe Joanowski's agent might object to that twit's being left off the list.
Finally someone who recognizes Rachmaninov's other concertos, I was definitely expecting his 2nd concerto but I'm glad to see that you wisely chose the 4th, and that passage you took is absolutely breath taking
