Many leading orchestras or choirs, and a fair number of less accomplished ones too, can quite easily navigate their way through even the most complex works without anyone waving a baton in front of them. Where the greatest conductors earn their corn is in turning a workaday performance into something potentially special. Their knowledge, preparation, artistic vision and leadership are all important, but above all, they are there to inspire.
But which of their peers and forebears are the conductors themselves inspired by? We put this question to 100 of today’s best, inviting them to name three each.
Of the names that emerged, some are the great pioneers whose research into and championship of their chosen field, notably early and contemporary music, has opened up whole new worlds of both repertoire and performance style.
Then there are those who have built up great orchestras over the years, winning admiration and fondness in equal measure.
Others still are great communicators, while some simply make one go ‘wow’ with their insight of interpretation and power of performance. We counted up the votes of our 100 conductors, and present the Top 20. The results are fascinating…
Listen to tracks from the winning conductors here:
Contents
- Greatest conductors: numbers 30 to 26
- 25 to 21
- 20 to 16
- 15 to 11
- 10 to 6
- 5 to 2
- And the greatest conductor of all time is…
Greatest conductors of all time: numbers 30 to 26
30. Riccardo Muti (b. 1941), Italian
Riccardo Muti has made a great impact in the worlds both of opera and orchestral music, and you can easily enjoy his Verdi Requiem every bit as much as his Tchaikovsky Pathétique Symphony. What will shine through in both is an intense musicality, attention to detail, and a passion for the music, of whatever field.
The big appointments of Muti’s career included his early ten-year sojourn at the head of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, from 1972 to 1982, and of course his near-two-decade sojourn as music director of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, one of the world’s leading opera houses. Muti’s time at La Scala was a golden era for the opera house, featuring groundbreaking productions of a wide range of operas as well as acclaimed performances from the symphonic repertoire. The operas of Verdi and Mozart, as well as the Italian bel canto tradition, were the cornerstones of Muti’s acclaimed time at La Scala.
Elsewhere, from 1980 to 1992, Muti served as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the ‘Big Five‘ American orchestras. He had some big boots to fill, taking over from Eugene Ormandy (see number 20 below), who had endowed Philadelphia with its own distinctive sound – lush, full-toned, carried along by one of the world’s most potent string sections. Muti made his own mark in Philly, delivering acclaimed accounts of the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms among others.
Riccardo Muti best recording
Tchaikovsky Complete Symphonies and Ballet Music
Philharmonia/Philadelphia (Warner 0979992)
29. Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958), Finnish
Conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen crosses several divides: conductor and composer, he’s an insightful interpreter of standard repertoire who’s also dedicated to new music and new ways of presenting that music. One of many gifted Finnish conductors of his generation, Salonen studied at the Sibelius Academy and early on developed an affinity with the music of major 20th-century composesr such as Stravinsky, Ligeti and Lutosławski.
Salonen made a dramatic entrance on the world stage in 1983 when he stepped in as a last-minute replacement to conduct Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. It was a great performance, and it saw him launched onto the classical music landscape.
Since then, he’s been perhaps best known for a long and fruitful spell with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1992–2009), when he transformed that unit into one of the world’s best orchestras, admired for its adventurous programming, often mixing traditional and contemporary works. Salonen was in charge at the LA Phil when its iconic new home, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, opened in 2003.
Esa-Pekka Salonen best recording
Lutosławski Symphony No. 3
LA Philharmonic
28. Iván Fischer (b. 1951), Hungarian
Conductor Iván Fischer co-founded, in 1983, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which has since become one of the classical world’s most acclaimed ensembles, with a reputation for innovation (including some adventurous concert settings), and a finely judged mix of emotional depth and technical precision.
Fischer is also a passionate advocate for music’s wider social role, devoted to musical education and community outreach. He can be said to have helped revitalise Hungary’s classical music scene. This is, after all, the land that brought us some of the great conductors of the past – Georg Solti, Georg Szell, Eugene Ormandy and Fritz Reiner, to name but four.
Iván Fischer best recording
Brahms Symphony No. 1
Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics)
27. Natalie Stutzmann (b. 1965), French
French conductor and contralto Natalie Stutzmann is another to have made a huge impact in two areas of endeavour. As a singer, she’s celebrated for her powerful performance of a wide range of Baroque, Classical and Romantic music, with a particular focus on the works of Bach, Handel, Beethoven, and Mahler.
More recently, Stutzmann has made a name for herself as a conductor, with an intense, passionate, and deeply committed conducting style and a laser focus on clarity, structure, and emotional depth.
In 2009, she founded the chamber orchestra Orfeo 55, specializing in Baroque and Classical repertoire. She has led some insightful interpretations of the works of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, and is also a vivid interpreter of her fellow French composers such as Debussy and Ravel. In 2021 she was named the next music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, making her the second-ever female conductor of a major American orchestra, after Marin Alsop showed the way at Baltimore in 2007.
Natalie Stutzmann best recording
Dvořák Symphony No. 9 / American Suite (Erato)
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
26. Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010), Australian
Somewhat uniquely, perhaps, Charles Mackerras grew to specialise in the music of a country far from his country of origin.
Born in New York, brought up in Australia, it was after moving to Prague to study with Václav Talich that Mackerras fell in love with Czech music. In particular, he became a lifelong advocate of Janáček, conducting the UK premiere of Janácek’s opera Kátya Kabanová in 1951.
Known for his eye for detail, exuberance and phenomenal musical memory, Mackerras was also at the forefront of the authentic performance movement. Equally at home conducting Handel as Wagner, other musical enthusiasms close to his heart included Mozart and Arthur Sullivan.
‘I owe Sir Charles Mackerras a huge debt. He was one of the very few conductors generous enough to treat his colleagues not as rivals, but as co-interpreters, with whom to impart and exchange personal findings, hints, tricks, or shared enthusiasms.
‘Over the years he would often invite me to his home in St John’s Wood to discuss scores (Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Dvořák, Martinů) or to give me a ‘driving lesson’ in whichever Janácek opera I was conducting at the time. A great guy who is only just beginning to get posthumous recognition.’ – Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Charles Mackerras Best Recording
Janáček Jenůfa
Elisabeth Söderström etc, Vienna PO (Decca 475 8227)
Greatest conductors of all time: numbers 25 to 21
25. Herbert Blomstedt (b. 1927), Swedish
Herbert Blomstedt has been conducting for an incredible 70 years, having made his debut in 1954 with the Stockholm Philharmonic. He has had three major tenures, with the Staatskapelle Dresden (1975-1985), San Francisco Symphony (1985-1995), and the venerable Leipzig Gewandhaus (1998-2005). During that time Blomstedt has led performances and recordings of core Germanic and Nordic repertoire (the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Sibelius, and Nielsen) that are recognised as aming the best of their kind ever made.
In particular, his recordings of the Beethoven symphonies (in both Dresden and Leipzig) and the Sibelius and Nielsen symphonies in San Francisco are miracles of orchestral clarity, insight and drama.
Impressively, Blomstedt continues to conduct well into his 90s, maintaining an active schedule with many of the world’s top orchestras. His stamina and vitality, even at an advanced age, are often highlighted by critics and colleagues alike. His conducting is marked by clarity, elegance, and a profound sense of musical structure, traits that have remained consistent throughout his long career.
Herbert Blomstedt best recording
Nielsen Symphony No. 4
San Francisco Symphony (Decca)
Beethoven Symphony No. 7
Staatskapelle Dresden (Berlin Classics)
24. Emmanuelle Haïm (b. 1962), French
French conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haïm is a key figure in Baroque music performance. She is the founder and music director of the ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée, an acclaimed ensemble with some vivid recordings of Baroque opera and instrumental music under its belt. As a conductor, Emmanuelle Haïm is a dynamic and expressive interpreter of works by the likes of Handel, Rameau, Monteverdi, and Purcell. She’s also notable for making a considerable impact on the traditionally male-led world of conducting, and of early music performance in particular.
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- Why the early music revolution of the 1970s was truly a moment to savour
Notably, Emmanuelle Haïm was the first woman to con duct the venerable Berlin Philharmonic in 2008.
Emmanuelle Haïm best recording
Purcell Dido and Aeneas
Susan Graham, Ian Bostridge et all; Le Concert d’Astrée/Emmanuelle Haim (Erato 5034222)
This recording came top in our survey of Dido and Aeneas best recordings.
23. Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961), British
Thomas Beecham is widely remembered for his acidic wit, which belies his importance to Britain’s musical scene.
Though essentially self-taught, he founded two major orchestras – the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic – vastly raised the standard of British opera productions, and as a great lover of French repertory championed Berlioz, and (stylistically not quite unconnected) Delius.
Thomas Beecham Best Recordings
Grieg Peer Gynt
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (EMI 965 9342)
Schubert Symphonies 3, 5 & 6
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
22. Eugene Ormandy (1899-1985), Hungarian-American
Few conductors are so indelibly associated with one orchestra as Eugene Ormandy is with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Across an incredible 45-year tenure as chief conductor from 1936 to 1980, Ormandy built the Philadelphia into one of the world’s most recognisable and bankable orchestras, known everywhere for its lush, rich sound, often called the ‘Philadelphia Sound’.
Ormandy is remembered as one of the 20th century’s most influential conductors, celebrated for his vast recording legacy, technical precision, and commitment to a wide repertoire that ranged from the Romantic era to contemporary music.
Eugene Ormandy best recording
Sibelius Symphony No. 7
Philadelphia Orchestra (Sony Essential Classics)
21. Sir Colin Davis (1927-2013), British
In some ways, it’s hard to reconcile the admired, avuncular Sir Colin Davis we knew latterly with the brilliant but difficult firebrand who first came to notice in the late 1950s – but then come moments such as his live recordings of Nielsen’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies to remind us that, on stage at least, the fire and passion never really disappeared. And it’s that fire and passion that make him one of Britain’s, and indeed classical music’s, greatest conductors.
In the many years between, Sir Colin enjoyed a string of important posts, not least as principal conductor of the LSO for 11 years, excelling in composers such as Mozart, Elgar, Sibelius and, most outstandingly of all, Berlioz.
Colin Davis Best Recordings
Berlioz Les Troyens (‘The Trojans‘)
Ben Heppner, Michelle DeYoung etc, London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live LSO 0010)
Sibelius The Symphonies
Boston Symphony Orchestra (Decca)
Greatest conductors of all time: 20 to 16
20. Yevgeny Mravinsky (1903-1988), Russian
Yevgeny Mravinsky inherited the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in 1938 from the Austrian conductor Fritz Stiedry, and was largely responsible for maintaining the Austro-German tradition through the fraught years of Stalin’s Terror.
He also conducted the hugely successful 1937 premiere of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, a performance that almost certainly saved the composer’s life, and went on to premiere five more of Shostakovich‘s symphonies. We named Mravinsky one of the best Shostakovich conductors ever.
Mravinsky’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s work – powerfully expressive yet with a masterful sense of structure – was legendary.
Mravinsky Best Recording
Tchaikovsky Symphonies Nos 4-6
Leningrad PO (DG 477 5911)
19. Marin Alsop (b. 1956), American
Like Emmanuelle Haïm above, American conductor Marin Alsop has a major distinction to her name. She was the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, in 2013 (she’s since conducted two more, more recently at the 2023 Proms). The milestones don’t stop there, however: Alsop is also the first woman to serve as the head of a major orchestra in the United States, South America, Austria and Britain. And she’s been a key figure in the emergence of more female conductors.
She’s currently serving as music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, chief conductor of both the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival, and – as of June 2023 – artistic director and conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. She’s also recently taken on the roles of principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal guest conductor.
Alsop founded the New York String Ensemble in 1981. Three years later she set up Concordia, a 50-piece orchestra that specialised in 20th-century American music. A major landmark in her career came in 2007, when she became chief conductor a Baltimore – the first-ever woman to lead a major American symphony orchestra.
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Marin Alsop best recording
Schumann Symphonies 3 & 4 (arr. Mahler)
Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra / Marin Alsop Naxos 8.574430
From our review: ‘The lively tempo and crisp articulation in the Fourth’s first movement are very welcome (…). The timpani part at the start of No. 3’s first movement is radically thinned, and the rewriting of the brass includes thrilling hand-muted horns as the recap approaches. But it still sounds like Schumann.’
18. Pierre Monteux (1875-1964), French
Early in his career Pierre Monteux conducted several premieres for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, including the Rite of Spring: while the audience rioted, Monteux coolly conducted that complex score to the end.
Toscanini considered his baton technique the best he had ever seen, and Monteux shared with the Italian the belief that the composer’s score was sacrosanct – with the difference that Monteux was dearly loved by his players. His conducting pupils include Sir Neville Marriner, André Previn and David Zinman.
Pierre Monteux Best Recording
Debussy Images
London Symphony Orchestra (Eloquence 476 8472)
17. Georg Solti (1912-97), Hungarian-British
Georg Solti enjoyed an illustrious 22 year tenure at the head of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he performed and recorded acclaimed cycles of the Brahms, Bruckner, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, among others. Under his leadership, the CSO became a world-leading orchestra, famed particularly for its powerful brass sound (from principal trumpeter Adolph ‘Bud’ Herseth and others).
Think of Solti and another famous endeavour comes to mind: his mighty traversal of Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Der Ring des Nibelungen), a landmark recording project which remains one of the most iconic recordings in classical music history. Indeed, the latter finished strongly in our top 50 best recordings of all time.
Georg Solti best recordings
Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen
Christa Ludwig, Birgit Nilsson, Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter et al; Vienna Philharmonic/Solti (Decca)
Schubert Symphony No. 9
Vienna Philharmonic/Solti (Decca)
16. Bernard Haitink (1929-2021), Dutch
Bernard Haitink’s career was launched in 1956 when he stepped in for an indisposed Carlo Maria Giulini and conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Just five years later he became the orchestra’s youngest-ever principal conductor.
A believer in close collaboration with few ensembles rather than fleeting appearances with many, Haitink’s lengthy stints with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden made him a firm fixture in the UK’s musical life.
A master of symphonic architecture, he is perhaps best known for his Mahler and Bruckner, though he has won plaudits for much beyond.
Bernard Haitink best recording
Beethoven Symphonies Nos 4 & 8
London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live LSO087)
Greatest conductors of all time: numbers 15 to 11
15. George Szell (1897-1970), Hungarian
Famously dictatorial and autocratic, Hungarian émigré George Szell bullied, cajoled and coached the Cleveland Orchestra (another of America’s Big Five orchestras) from post-war provincial obscurity to one of the world’s great virtuoso bodies. For his feats at Cleveland, he deserves entry into any list of classical music’s greatest conductors.
A formidable orchestral trainer with a clear, incisive stick technique and what some judged the best left hand in the business, Szell was also respected for his cultured musicality, though he was undoubtedly objectivist in his musical inclinations. Rare recordings with European orchestras show him at his most spontaneously expressive.
George Szell best recording
Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 Clifford Curzon, LSO (Decca 478 1386)
Haydn Symphonies 92 ‘Oxford’, 94 ‘Surprise’, 96 ‘Miracle’
Cleveland Orchestra (Sony Classical SBK 46 332)
14. Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963), Hungarian
Had he lived to become a ‘Grand Old Man’ among conductors, Hungarian-born Ferenc Fricsay, who died of cancer aged just 48, would surely be mentioned in the same breath as, say, Arturo Toscanini.
A superb orchestral trainer and musician of great integrity, who himself studied under Bartók, he was at the height of his powers in the mid-1950s when he forged his reputation with a number of German orchestras.
Masterful in the music of his teacher, and also Beethoven and Mozart, his Berlin Phil recording of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth is outstandingly blazing and dramatic.
Ferenc Fricsay Best Recording
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Archipel ARPCD0200)
13. Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970), British
‘Glorious John’. Vaughan Williams called Barbirolli that, and although Sir John successfully conducted the great orchestras of London, New York, Berlin and Vienna, it’s an appellation merited mainly for his work with Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, which he rebuilt from wartime decimation to international stature.
String phrasing of great warmth and expressivity was a particular hallmark, Barbirolli himself being originally a cellist. He always conducted ‘con amore’, not least in British music, which he championed indefatigably.
John Barbirolli Best Recording
Elgar Symphony No. 2
Hallé Orchestra (EMI 968 9242)
12. Sir John Eliot Gardiner (b. 1943), British
His star has fallen of late thanks to reported incidences of bullying. And certainly, there’s no condoning that. Yet, while acknowledging this major flaw to his character, we feel we should still salute the musical talents of John Eliot Gardiner. Any conductor who can persuade players and singers to join him on a year-long, 40,000-mile tour performing just one composer – as Gardiner did with his Bach Pilgrimage in 2000 – must have a certain something.
Long before that epic journey, Gardiner had established himself as one of the leading pioneers of the period instrument movement, founding three ensembles in his drive towards presenting the music of the Baroque period in a new light.
Best known for Bach and his contemporaries, Gardiner has also made acclaimed discs of repertoire reaching well into the 20th century. His exciting Beethoven symphonies cycle with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique is well worth a listen.
John Eliot Gardiner Best Recording
JS Bach Christmas and New Year Cantatas
Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra (Soli Deo Gloria SDG 137)
11. Rafael Kubelik (1914-96), Czech
Conductor, composer, and violinist: Rafael Kubelik had many strings to his bow. It’s undoubtedly as conductor that he is best remembered, though. Kubelik had a certain style – very lyrical and poetic, somehow steeped in humanity. His Mahler symphonies may not be the most tightly drilled of them all (though there’s absolutely nothing lack in that department) – what they are, though, is radiant with emotion and lyricism.
In that way, Kubelik as a conductor somewhat resembles Leonard Bernstein, whose Mahler cycles were often set against Kubelik’s as the finest cycles available before the market widened so considerably. His Dvořák symphony cycle is also right up there among the finest.
Kubelík’s illustrious career featured spells at the helm of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Rafael Kubelik best recording
Mahler Symphony No. 1 ‘Titan’
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (DG Originals)
Greatest conductors of all time: 10 to 6
10. Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), French
Return to the pounding rhythms of the Cleveland Orchestra’s 1969 Stravinsky Rite of Spring recording, and you begin to hear why Boulez was renowned for combining intensity with pinpoint precision. On the podium he shunned flamboyance in favour of a cool, analytical conducting style, in which minimal gestures get straight to the sound he wants.
Historically, too, no one has done more to simultaneously promote and determine the direction of music. After World War II, he organised concerts in Paris with the Domaine Musicale concert society. He was also a hugely influential voice of the avant-garde movement of the 1950s and ’60s, and a leader at Darmstadt.
What did Pierre Boulez do?
Later, in the 1970s, he opened new music up to wider audiences as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and music director of the New York Philharmonic, with informal concerts in London and New York. He also set up IRCAM (the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris, unveiling the science of music with his Ensemble InterContemporain.
As a conductor, Boulez explored and inspired in equal measures, teaching leading orchestras around the world about 20th-century music and building audiences for works by the Second Viennese School, Bartók, Stravinsky and Mahler.
Pierre Boulez Best Recording
Ravel Piano Concertos
Krystian Zimerman, Cleveland Orchestra (DG 449 2132)
9. Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005), Italian
With a naturally aristocratic sense of style, Carlo Maria Giulini also brought to the works of composers he loved a sense of refinement, and even spirituality, that raised him above other conductors of his time.
Starting out as an orchestral viola player, he played in the Accademia di Santa Cecilia under many leading conductors before transferring to the baton following the liberation of Italy during World War II.
After the war he worked regularly with Italian radio; then, encouraged both by Toscanini and Victor de Sabata, he succeeded the latter as La Scala’s principal conductor in 1953.
He remained there only three years, leaving because of audience behaviour, but maintained important relationships with Maria Callas and directors Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli, whose integrity and sense of artistic vision he shared.
Created in close harness with Visconti, the production of Verdi’s Don Carlos he conducted at Covent Garden in 1958 instantly passed into operatic legend as an ideal collaboration that enhanced the work’s status.
Which orchestras did Giulini conduct?
A strong association with the Philharmonia Orchestra and appointments with the Chicago Symphony (1969-72) and Los Angeles Philharmonic (1978-84) proved memorable, though it is arguable that Giulini was temperamentally unsuited to formal positions.
In 1968 he abandoned opera, feeling unable to maintain the standards he aspired to in the rough and tumble world of the theatre, though he returned to the form in 1982 with Falstaff, both in Los Angeles and London. His finest work, both in symphonic works and opera, forms a shining beacon of authority without ego. One of the least self-aggrandising, yet clearly one of the greatest conductors of all time.
‘As apprentice conductor at the Paris Conservatoire in the early ’90s, I had the privilege to play Verdi’s Requiem at the piano for Carlo Maria Giulini during his rehearsals with soloists and chorus. I remember vividly his clear eyes, which seemed to have seen the most beautiful sunrises, and also his amazingly soft old-man hand-shake.
‘Breathing music with him, I received the most important lesson I ever had: to believe in the miracle of sharing music together! In his apparently very simple gestures, there was not even an atom of doubt, he was fundamentally sure that everybody would give him the best they ever did.’ – Stéphane Denève
Carlo Maria Giulini Best Recordings
Mozart Don Giovanni
Eberhard Wächter etc, Philharmonia (EMI 966 7992)
Bruckner Symphony No. 9
Vienna Philharmonic (DG)
8. Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), Italian
Through his much vaunted attention to the composer’s score – which he considered sacrosanct – his single-mindedness in pursuing seriousness and high standards, his strength of personality, and not least his status as a US national figure as conductor of the NBC SO (1937-54), Toscanini became one of the musical legends of the 20th century.
A consistently hard worker, and fierce with musicians who gave less than 100 per cent, he rose to prominence in Italy with premieres of works by Puccini and his contemporaries (notably La bohème), as well as championing Wagner, Verdi and Debussy.
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- Best of Debussy: nine inspirational works
Which orchestras did Toscanini conduct?
Given the top job at Italy’s leading opera house at 31, he swept like a whirlwind through La Scala, revolutionising its operation much as Mahler was doing for the Vienna Opera. He resigned from La Scala twice, both times on matters of principle – one artistic, the other political. His opposition to Fascism, not only in his homeland but also in Germany and Austria, was vocal and unswerving.
America beckoned, first in the case of the Metropolitan Opera (1908-15, where he initially shared conducting duties, uncomfortably, with Mahler), then at the New York Philharmonic (1928-36), and latterly (1937-54) with the NBC Symphony, formed especially for him and giving him a national platform.
His performances of Beethoven, Brahms and Debussy’s La mer were regularly considered definitive, while his view of the conductor’s role and responsibilities influenced a generation. For the way he helped to define the modern conductor, as much as his own feats in the field, Toscanini must be considered one of the greatest conductors of all time.
Arturo Toscanini Best Recording
Debussy La mer, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune etc
NBC Symphony Orchestra (Guild Historical GHCD 2271-2)
7. Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886-1954), German
‘He was the opposite of a gramophone record’. Hans Keller’s typically provocative epitaph on Furtwängler pithily encapsulates why, in an age obsessed with technology and the instantly gratifying soundbite, the great German conductor remains a crucially important figure in the history of music-making.
Furtwängler hated the artificiality of recording, preferring visceral contact with a live, flesh-and-blood audience. If his conducting technique was often imprecise (as many claimed it was), it was deliberately so, as he sought to elicit from his players not clinical precision but the ‘melos’, or specific emotional atmosphere, of a particular work or passage.
Furtwängler’s conducting style
Footage of Furtwängler on the podium reveals a figure totally immersed in music, conjuring sounds rather than conducting them, twitching, swaying, hovering and convulsing, not for personal effect, but in unselfconscious response to the narrative drama unfolding in the orchestra. Frequently branded a subjectivist, he understood and articulated the formal structures of the great 19th-century Austrian and German composers repertoire as no other conductor, shaping works with an utterly compelling architectural logic.
For Furtwängler, music had the power to challenge, invigorate and spiritually change the individual listener. That is why he stayed in Nazi Germany conducting his beloved Berlin Philharmonic when many say he should have departed: he thought his fellow-Germans needed the civilising influence of great music more than ever.
Many have imitated him (Daniel Barenboim in particular), but few if any have matched his extraordinary combination of intellectual grip and emotional intensity.
We named Wilhelm Furtwängler one of the greatest Beethoven performers ever
Wilhelm Furtwängler Best Recording
Wagner Tristan und Isolde
Kirsten Flagstad, Ludwig Suthaus etc, Philharmonia (EMI 585 8732)
6. Sir Simon Rattle (b. 1955), British
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was a decent band when Simon Rattle became chief conductor in 1980. When he left 18 years later, it had become one of the best orchestras in the world.
Rattle’s stringent standards combined with his irrepressible energy and sheer enthusiasm for the repertoire he championed (he never seems to conduct anything unless he is fully convinced of its worth) not only won over the critics but also persuaded Birmingham’s council to provide the orchestra with a world-class concert hall, so making the city a major cultural centre.
Rattle had been talent-spotted early, even before he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, when he organised a student performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. He has since been most closely associated with Mahler, yet he has demonstrated a wide-ranging grasp of repertoire, from stage works by Rameau and Mozart (he has often conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) through to modern repertoire.
Championing underestimated composers
Rattle has been a staunch champion of contemporary composers, most famously Nicholas Maw (whose Odyssey he made a precondition of signing to EMI), while also raising the profile of such underestimated composers as Szymanowski, Grainger and Gershwin. He’s also passionate about music education (he himself was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain), and loves to help bring on the next generation of conductors, as you’ll see from the clip below (not half bad German either, Sir Simon!).
It is a measure of his rapport with the musicians he works with that in 1999 he was elected by the members of the Berlin Philharmonic to succeed Claudio Abbado as their chief conductor in 2002. In 2008 they voted to keep Sir Simon Rattle for a further decade, but in 2015 the London Symphony Orchestra announced that the maestro would be returning to Britain as their music director in 2017.
Simon Rattle Best Recording
Mahler Symphony No. 2
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (EMI 345 7942)
Greatest conductors of all time: the top five
5. Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016), Austrian
One-time cellist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, pioneering Baroque specialist and renowned conductor in just about every musical style, including Johann Strauss operetta and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Nikolaus Harnoncourt was a musician who refused to be pigeon-holed. He was an ace of all trades, the sworn enemy of routine and provocative to the last.
In the musical world he was much admired both by peers and disciples for his fearless quest for musical truth – his founding, in 1953, of the period-instrument ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien and his lengthy project with Gustav Leonhardt to record all of JS Bach’s cantatas, begun in 1971, were both moments of fundamental importance in inspiring a generation of historically informed performance scholars and enthusiasts.
What was Harnoncourt’s style?
But Harnoncourt was no zealot. In fact, he proved to be the most pragmatic of conductors. Who would have guessed, listening to those early Telefunken discs of orchestral Bach on authentic instruments, with their unvarnished, vibrato-free sound that Harnoncourt would fully embrace the sonority of the modern symphony orchestra? But a late Harnoncourt performance does not go in for luxuriant string tone, so honeyed warmth is not on the agenda in his interpretations of the Romantics.
This certainly pays off in his Beethoven performances, which have a refreshingly lean sound, while Brahms, Dvořák and Bruckner, too, appear with greater transparency.
Nikolaus Harnoncourt Best Recording
Dvořák Symphony No. 7 / The Wild Dove
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Warner 3984 25254-2)
4. Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989), Austrian
Herbert von Karajan was unquestionably the most famous conductor of the second half of the 20th century. Even those of a non-musical bent recognised his name. For many, he ruled the classical music world and his concerts and recordings represented the peak of excellence.
Also never to be forgotten was his directorship of the Salzburg Festival, often controversial but always imaginative. Karajan has been accused of megalomania, with justification, but he knew what he wanted and how to get it, and his cunning at internal politics was second only to his musical skills.
Although he embraced new technology and, on hearing digital recording for the first time, famously proclaimed that ‘everything else is gaslight’, his Beethoven recordings with the Philharmonia from the 1950s are both fiery and noble whereas his final ones, although pristine, are comparatively bland.
Was Karajan the greatest conductor?
Whatever one feels about Karajan’s ultimate status in musical history, there is no denying that, at his best, he was a phenomenal musician, not only on his home turf with Wagner, Bruckner and Richard Strauss but also with the orchestral works of Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, the operas of Verdi and Puccini and much else.
He left a vast recorded legacy to be wondered at and argued over. Though he conducted little ‘modern’ music’, his set of recordings of the Second Viennese School is a thing of wonder, both awesomely powerful and astonishingly beautiful, while he was also rather good at ‘lollipops’: listening to his Philharmonia recording of Waldteufel’s Skaters’ Waltz one witnesses a little miracle.
Best Karajan Recordings
Sibelius Symphony No. 4
Berlin Philharmonic (DG 457 7482)
Beethoven The Symphonies
Berlin Philharmonic (1963 recordings, DG 42732084)
3. Claudio Abbado (1933-2014), Italian
Taciturn, placid, shy and private, Claudio Abbado was an unlikely Italian and an even less likely great conductor. He detested overt shows of power. He mumbled in rehearsal. And he never lost his rag. Taken as a boy in Milan to watch Toscanini rehearse, he remembered thinking how ‘horrible’ it was when the maestro screamed at the orchestra.
What orchestras did Claudio Abbado conduct?
Yet this gentle, self-effacing man held the most important conducting positions in Europe. Early in his career he was made music director of Milan’s great opera house La Scala, where he mixed scintillating Rossini with boldly revived rarities.
Then came memorable stints at the helms of the LSO, Vienna State Opera and Berlin Philharmonic, in between which he founded two of the world’s finest youth orchestras.
Cancer struck in 2000 and after half his stomach was removed, Abbado’s days seemed numbered. What followed, however, was arguably his finest achievement: the formation of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
Handpicked from his friends in top orchestras, it has given a series of performances and live recordings that many music-lovers rank as the most sublime they have ever heard.
Abbado’s interpretations of Mahler and Bruckner symphonies, or epic operatic explorations of spirituality such as Fidelio or Parsifal, now seem to reach far beyond the realms of music. They are journeys of the soul and affirmations of humanity. Abbado was a subtle and sophisticated conductor, but can also be counted as one of the most profound visionaries of our age.
Claudio Abbado Best Recording
Mahler Symphony No. 3
Lucerne Festival Orchestra (Medici Arts DVD 205 6338)
2. Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), American
Perhaps no one has possessed a more comprehensive collection of the traits conductors view as assets in their profession: Leonard Bernstein was almost impossibly musical, talented, versatile, creative, handsome, energetic, inquisitive, intelligent, charismatic and articulate.
Those who encountered him knew they were in the presence of a force of nature; love him or hate him, Lenny was difficult to ignore.
- Five essential works by Leonard Bernstein
- West Side Story, an FBI warning, Beethoven by the Wall: Leonard Bernstein’s eventful and inspiring life
His celebrated last-minute debut with the New York Philharmonic (1943) ultimately resulted in a tenure there (1958-69) during which he championed the work of American and avant-garde composers, reached out to audiences through the televised Young People’s Concerts, and helped a troubled decade to find itself in the music of Gustav Mahler.
Before this stint his life involved composing (Candide, West Side Story), to which he later added mentoring young conductors and cultivating an international reputation (Vienna became a second home).
- We named West Side Story one of the best stage musicals of all time
- Bernstein’s best musicals
What was Leonard Bernstein like?
Bernstein’s strength was his emotional connection with the music he led; given his larger-than-life personality, his performances often contained exaggerations that perturbed critics (toward the end, his tempos could become indulgently lethargic), and one seldom came away from a Bernstein performance with the impression that he had polished the orchestral textures and sonorities to the extent that many of his colleagues considered desirable.
Instead, his was a flamboyant, sincere, persuasive style. Others might offer more scintillating detail and specifically musical insight, but Bernstein energised his listeners, prompting them to revel in the sheer joy of being alive.
Best Leonard Bernstein recording
Shostakovich Symphonies Nos 1 & 7
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (DG 477 7587)
Greatest conductors of all time: the greatest of them all
1. Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004), Austrian
To hear or, far better, to see (there are quite a few DVDs) Carlos Kleiber conducting is always an exciting, inspiring, moving experience. It makes you want to find out how many recordings of him there are.
And you immediately get a shock. In his 74 years, he conducted one Haydn symphony, two by Mozart, four by Beethoven, two by Schubert, one by Borodin, and two by Brahms. And he accompanied a concerto on only one occasion, performing Dvořák with pianist Sviatoslav Richter, fittingly one of the greatest pianists of all time. In the opera house Kleiber conducted two operas by Richard Strauss, one by Weber, one by Wagner, one by Berg and three by Verdi.
Like all great musicians, he adored the music of the Strauss family (Johann and relations), and conducted Die Fledermaus and many waltzes, polkas and marches. Apart from a very few other pieces that he had a fleeting relationship with, that was it. Yet Claudio Abbado called him ‘the most important conductor of the 20th century’, and it seems that many of his colleagues agree.
Who was Carlos Kleiber’s father?
The decisive factor in Carlos Kleiber’s life was his being the son of a great conductor, Erich, whose repertoire was far larger than his son’s, and included almost all the works the latter performed. Erich left recordings of them, which Carlos listened to obsessively, convinced that he could never do as well.
Erich was strongly opposed to his son becoming a musician, so Carlos tried studying chemistry, loathed it, and turned to music early on. He followed the traditional path of the great German conductors, working in small opera houses and learning his trade out of the limelight.
When he moved to Stuttgart in 1964 he had his breakthrough. There is a wonderful DVD of him rehearsing the Stuttgart Radio Symphony in two overtures, turning a collection of bored musicians into smiling collaborators: he seduces everyone by his boyish manner and his almost continuous commentary on the music as he rehearses it; and he looks happy and intense throughout. At the end we see the overtures – to Die Fledermaus and Weber’s Der Freischütz – played to an ecstatic audience.
During the late 1960s, the 1970s and ’80s, all the videos of him are like that. He rarely conducts in the ordinary sense at all. What he does is much more choreographic, though it is his arms rather than his legs that dance.
What was Carlos Kleiber like as a conductor?
He swoops, sometimes stands motionless in a dandyish pose, even laughs, sometimes closes his eyes and listens in rapture. To see him conduct Brahms’s Second Symphony or Beethoven’s Fourth is enough to make you levitate. The tenor Plácido Domingo, who regards him as the most musical person he has ever met, says that when Kleiber was conducting an opera everyone was looking at the pit, not at the stage.
Yet he conducted just 96 concerts in his life, and about 400 operatic performances. Many conductors would notch up those totals in less than a couple of years. He rehearsed so exhaustively that at the performance he could improvise, but with precise effect. That is his unique secret – the music really does seem as if it is being composed as it is played, and played immaculately.
The only trouble with such perfectionism is that there is the constant fear that you can’t keep it up, and Kleiber’s joy in music-making soon turned to continuous anxiety, so that he cancelled many concerts, and only gave one or two a year in the decade before his last one, in 1999. The trajectory of his career is similar to that of the great opera singer Maria Callas.
They both concentrated on a small number of works of which they gave performances which will almost certainly never be equalled. Their dedication to music became a torture, their fame something to be looked on almost with horror. Thank heavens they left such incomparable legacies.
Best Carlos Kleiber recordings
Brahms Symphony No. 4
Vienna Philharmonic (DG 457 7062)
R Strauss Der Rosenkavalier (DVD)
Felicuty Lott, Barbara Bonney et al; Vienna State Opera
Also, try this DVD featuring scenes of Kleiber in rehearsal, to get a feel for his magical, alchemical way with music and performers:
Carlos Kleiber: in Rehearsal and Performance (DVD)
Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (Arthaus Musik 101 062)
This article first appeared in the April 2011 issue of BBC Music Magazine.