Well, here we are at last- the final five conductors in our \u201cReal\u201d Top 20 of conducting.<\/p>\n
Part I is here,<\/a> II here<\/a>, III here<\/a> and my feature on Conductor Composers is here.<\/a><\/p>\n A bit of background on process. I made my basic Top 20 list in about 25 minutes. The first 15 names on this list appeared here just as I wrote them down after that careful period of consideration.<\/p>\n However, now that we\u2019re near the end of our arbitrary number of slots, the decisions are getting tougher. I suppose I\u2019ve decided the most important goal here is not to be fair or realistic, or even to be completely honest about who my favorites are, but simply to give readers the most interesting list I can. With that in mind, some obvious choices have been bumped aside in favor of more marginal, but hopefully more interesting figures.<\/p>\n The person cut from the final five was the toughest decision to make. Toscanini. Of course, like Szell (who knew enough about Toscanini to poach most of his handpicked principals at the NBC Symphony for Cleveland, although Reiner got Frank Miller to lead the cellos in Chicago), he certainly is more than important enough to be included. For me (and this is my blog, after all), his mainstream repertoire hasn\u2019t stood the test of time- it is as a Verdi and Respighi specialist that he will be always be remembered best. (FYI- Szell was nearly cut in favor of both Tennstedt and Kondrashin, and I reserve the right to change my mind on that final slot).<\/p>\n Arturo Toscanini<\/strong><\/p>\n Pity poor Toscanini- it would break his heart to know that he makes this list not for his Beethoven or Wagner, but for his Italian repertoire. The greatest Verdian ever, and his Respighi will never be beaten. I listened to his Pines of Rome with the NBC Symphony 187,429 times on LP as a kid, always incredibly loud (okay, I made the number up, but it was a lot).<\/p>\n PROS- Amazing rhythm, especially in Verdi. Great orchestral trainer- may have been a tyrant, but somehow got the musicians to believe they were doing something truly unique and important.<\/p>\n CONS- Didn\u2019t seem to have any interest in quality of sound at all. Passion and intensity? Yes.\u00a0 Clarity, ensemble and intonation? Yes. Beauty, color,\u00a0 resonance, bloom? No way. Not the Brahms and Wagner conductor he wanted to be because of it.<\/p>\n So, of the final 5, 2 were added in final deliberations- Georg Solti, and Vaclav Neumann. Others who almost, almost made it include\u00a0 Talich, Svetlanov, Ancerl, and I still wish I had Tennstedt on here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 16. <\/strong>Leopold Stowkowski<\/strong><\/p>\n I really can\u2019t believe Stowkowski didn\u2019t make the BBC Mag list- his name and Mitropoulos were the two I was most surprised to see were missing . Asahina and Suitner are more connoisseurs\u2019 conductors, but Stokowski was one of the giants of all time, both artistically and commercially. Are we just punishing him for his sins? Yes, he re-wrote things, but Szell and Toscanini did too- they just hid their tracks and largely got away with it.<\/p>\n PROS- The sound. The hands. The ability to get orchestras to play completely beyond themselves, to listen and to create multiple levels of color. Did more premiers than any other conductor in history, including Boulez. My conducting teacher, Gerhard Samuel, played under Stoki often in the Minneapolis Symphony when he was associate concertmaster and associate conductor there in the Dorati years. Gerhard, whose own conducting was, at its best, more in the Walter Weller\/Bernard Haitink school, always said Stoki had the greatest technique of any conductor he had played for or watched. He rehearsed even less than Beecham, who also worked there a lot in those years, but the concerts were always superb: \u201che was so clear and so in control, that anything we already knew needed no rehearsal at all. All the phrasing, balance, color and flexibility was just there in his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n CONS- Okay, his re-write of the ending of the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet is an abomination.<\/p>\n http:\/\/youtu.be\/74yutVPJjHk<\/p>\n http:\/\/youtu.be\/74yutVPJjHk<\/p>\n http:\/\/youtu.be\/74yutVPJjHk<\/p>\n 17. <\/strong>Otmar Suitner<\/strong><\/p>\n Right up there with Adrian Boult and Jochum for most under-rated conductor of all time. Unlucky to spend his best years in Berlin in Karajan\u2019s shadow. Suitner is a bit of a German Kondrashin- a very no-nonsense interpreter, who got a very beautiful and distinctive (and authentically German) sound out of all his orchestras.<\/p>\n PROS- The quinisential Suitner sound and interpretation are focused, honest, energized but stable and unfussy. His technique is beautifully simple and looks just like the orchestra sounds. An amazing Dvorak conductor.<\/p>\n CONS- Could have used a little bit more charisma, as a musician as well as a market force. One wishes he\u2019d had better orchestras for some of his recordings- his Brahms 1 on CD suffers from very shaky woodwind and horn playing, but the cycle gets better and better and ends up rather cosmically good.<\/p>\n