Your favorite conductor

[wryter2000]

In keeping with the musical theme. Who's your favorite conductor? (Specify whether of those alive today or of all time.)

All time -- ??? maybe Calvin Simmons because he was my homie
Alive today -- James Levine

[terrya]

1. Sir Georg Solti

Longtime conductor of the CSO.

Terry

[demnan]

2. Mine

All Time - Leonard Bernstein
Now - Leonard Slatkin (I go see the NSO alot).

[Fovea]

11. Yah, Unka Lenny is great.

Saw him all the time with the StL Symphony.


I love the way he conducts The Planets. Nice guy, too.

I like Ozawa a lot too.

[Richardo]

3. Either Yttrium or Bismuth

I'm torn... :shrug:

[Bozola]

15. Call me old fashioned, but I like Gold

but Bismuth is certainly tastier

[LuLu550]

4. Not of all time, but a real gem

is David Allen Miller of the Albany (New York) Symphony.

[chiburb]

5. The guy on the 6:35 train...

He always has a smile and kind word for everyone...

[pagerbear]

7. Metro-North has

...some hunky conductors!

[terrya]

9. You Metra riders have all the luck...

While we CTA riders have a disembodied voice to entertain us...

:-)

Terry

[pagerbear]

6. I know this sounds ignorant

...especially since I've been pretending to know a lot about opera, but I'm not that discerning where conductors are concerned. I could recognize a bad job of conducting, and I could recognize interpretive choices I might or might not agree with, but beyond that, I'm sort of lost.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. There is only one - Leopold

[bif]

10. Neeme Jarvi

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. Alive today: Andre Previn.

All time: Arturo Toscanini.

[T Roosevelt]

13. Peter Schickele

And that PDQ Bach was a helluva composer too!

[pagerbear]

14. "And they're off!"

[Richardo]

16. "Would you call that four-note idea a "theme" or a "motif"?

"Little trouble with the violins there, they weren't watching."

:D :thumbsup: LOL, T Roosevelt and pagerbear...

[pagerbear]

17. I used to have all the PDQ Bach LPs

Got rid of all my LPs in a major purge I did during one move. One of the stupidest things I've ever done.

[Richardo]

25. Arrrrrgh!

:spank:

[Iverson]

22. Well, technically, Pete, it's a motif that you use to build a theme.

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Bob!

[Richardo]

26. You're welcome, Pete.

:)

[Burma Jones]

36. I'm off to do a Baton Commercial

Why Peter Schickele hasn't been given one of them there Kennedy Center honors is beyond me.

[Richardo]

40. W-double O-F....gives you the time of day....

[Burma Jones]

41. In weather news

There is a weatherman's strike called by local 30.2 and rising, However, some weathermen have indicated that they will cross the picket lines, so look for widely scattered weather tomorrow.....

[wryter2000]

18. And orchestra

I've always been partial to I Solisti di Hoople.

[Fovea]

35. The Baptism Album with Joan Baez

Is simply amazing.

[twistedliberal]

19. Oh...MUSICAL. I'm an idiot.

I was gonna say copper.

:silly:

[Emboldened Chimp]

20. Carlos Kleiber hands down

He didn't record much, but what he did put out is as close to perfection as you can get. The second movement of Beethoven's 7th is pure heaven.

[Rooktoven]

21. Not a nice person but

Herbert von Karajan for all time.

I think today I'd say James Levine or Claudio Abado.

[Iverson]

23. Fritz Reiner ...

for Prokofiev, anyway. Generally, I like Christopher Hoagwood and Sir Neville Mariner and others too.

[Zomby Woof]

24. Pierre Boulez

Also a composer. He is the best interpreter of the past century of music, and an accomplished avante-garde composer. He has conducted Debussy, Bartok, and Zappa in his career.


On edit: Boulez is alive, though nearing 80.

Favorite of all time... I'd have to mention Zubin Mehta, although the list could be long.

[CanuckAmok]

27. Goo ol' copper. No pretense, and very reliable.

n/t

[TXlib]

32. Damn, you beat me to it!

But I prefer gold.

[mac56]

28. Casey Jones, of course!

That's what you meant, rignt?

(photo credit: pavekmuseum.org)

[NightNurse]

29. Maestro Riccardo Muti

Thank you, Maestro!:yourock:

[jimbo fett]

30. Does Sir Topem Hat count?

[catzies]

31. Sir Neville Mariner of the Academy of St. Martins in the Fields

My favorite interpreter of Mozart.

Least fave: Leonard Bernstein.

[Whitacre D_WI]

33. Well...

There once was a conductor of a streetcar. He was a good conductor, but he was a poor conductor. It was a poor line that he traveled on, day after day. His salary was 5 cents out of every 10 cents fare he collected.

He had a pretty good time running his streetcar, collecting the fares, and taking a nickel out of each fare. That is, until one day a very beautiful woman got on his car. She was wonderful!

Day by day she would get on his car, and when he saw her, he would go crazy and get 'tingles' inside. Finally he got up enough nerve to propose to her. "I would like to marry you," he said, "but I'm just a poor conductor."

"That's all right," she said, and married him anyway.

Now, they were delightfully happy. She was the thrifty type, and decided one day she wanted a fur coat. He said, "I have no money, I am just a poor conductor."

She replied, "Never mind that. Just save one penny out of every five you take in, and soon you will have enough for my coat!"

When he caught on to how much he could save, he saved 2 cents out of every 5 cents and bought her a dishwasher. He saved 3 cents out of every 5 cents and bought her new furniture. He saved 4 cents out of every 5 cents and bought her a washer and dryer. He saved 5 cents out of every nickel and bought her a new car. But, she still wasn't completely satisfied.

"What we need to buy is a new house," she said. And that seemed like a reasonable request. "Only, " he said, "I can only take 5 cents out of each fare."

"You must take 6 cents out of each fare!" she demanded, "They probably won't even notice."

Well, he did and they did notice it. The boss called him in and they hustled him off to jail.

Now, in those days if you were caught stealing you were immediately sentenced to the electric chair. So, they took him and strapped him in. They turned on the juice and nothing happened. They tried turning off all the lights in the jail... still nothing. They even tried using some of the towns electricity... but still nothing.

Finally, after a huddle with the warden, they decided they would just have to let him go.

After all... he was just a poor conductor.

[eyesroll]

39. And, here we go, right on cue

(although this is a severely abbreviated version)

[TheMightyFavog]

34. Mr. Conductor!

The Ringo Starr Mr. Conductor, not the George Carlin Mr. Conductor.

[Burma Jones]

37. John Eliot Gardner

Choral, Orchestral, Whatever you want, he rocks.

[eyesroll]

38. I am going to reply without looking at the other replies

and assume that Whitacre D_WI has already told the "poor conductor joke."

[Snow]

42. For Shostakovich, and Russian stuff in general,

Viktor Yampolski. He really loves that music, and he knows how to make that love come across. I've sung under him, and he's very expressive, emotional, communicates very well without being patronizing. One I remember was the Hayden Cecila Mass, another piece Viktor really likes, and what a joy it was to perform it under him.

I'll dispute two of the choices other posters made, just because I feel disputative. To my ear, von Karajan is a very pedestrian conductor. He recorded tons, but I've never really heard anything special in any of it. If someone can tell me differently, I'll listen.

Second, I've heard some of the old-timers - was it Stokowski or Toscaninni - or both? - had outrageous tempers. Maestro Yampolski has more temper than he needs, and that's really a relic that he needs to get rid of. It's not effective, it gets in the way, and if you're a really shrieking maniac temper tantrum thrower (Vktor is not that bad), then you really compromise your musicianship.

[stopbush]

48. Non-pedestrian recordings by Karajan:

Prokofieff 5
New Vienna School - Berg, Webern, Schoenberg
Boris Godunov
Madama Butterfly
La boheme
Beethoven Cycles from 1963 & 1977

...there's more.

[mitchum]

43. Nelson Riddle

[GoddessOfGuinness]

44. Of those I've worked under...

Antony Walker, Joseph Colaneri, Hugh Wolf, and Joel Revsen.

Of those I've enjoyed from an audience/listener's perspective, Eugene Ormandy, Otto Klemperer, Simon Rattle, Neville Marriner, Pierre Monteux...too many to mention!

[La_Serpiente]

45. Anton Armstrong of St. Olaf College

[stopbush]

46. Karajan

is still my favorite.

Among living conductors, I'd rate Maazel, Gatti, Claudio & Roberto Abbado very highly.

There's too many dead guys who were great to list them here, but Szell, Furtwangler, Ormandy, Fiedler, Markevitch and Martinon spring instantly to mind.

[NightTrain]

47. The African-American who...

...worked on the Essex Steam Train Ride when I was a kid. Can't recall the man's name, but he was a great conductor!

[pagerbear]

50. Willie Anthony Waters

...is a pretty damn good African American conductor of the musical sort.

[Deja Q]

49. John Barry

Alive today, probably of all time. That might change in 5 years, but oh well.

Mozart and Bach are great, but if we all stuck repeating history, nothing new would be made and we'd lose our sense of creativity. (Note to movie makers, make something NEW and not a rehash or remake of something old, thank youuuuuuuuu...)