Greatest living conductor?

[Beetzart]

These are very celebrated living conductors; whom do you choose as the greatest? I will vote for Abbado.

[Orpheus]

Missing Kurt Sanderling and George Pretre...

[Teresa]

My favorite living conductors were not listed so I choose my favorite on the list Seiji Ozawa.

My favorite living conductor is Neeme Järvi son Paavo Järvi.  I am not a big fan of Neeme, he is good at some stuff but not others.  However his son Paavo is fantastic, he brings everything he touches to life! 

I also love these living conductors: Ivan Fischer, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Eiji Oue, Yoel Levi, Robert Spano, David Zinman, Jesús López-Cobos, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Leonard Slatkin, André Previn and Edo de Waart 

[Lethevich]

Harnoncourt and Barenboim stand out most on this list, I voted the former. Rozhdestvensky could do with a mention.

[not edward]

No Janssons? No Boulez? Did they die during the night?

[Beetzart]

No Janssons? No Boulez? Did they die during the night?

No Gardiner no Marriner no Levine no Previn!!!!  The list will be too long!!

[springrite]

My favorite is not on the list, so between Abbado and Haitink, I picked Haitink.

[Opus106]

No Gardiner no Marriner no Levine no Previn!!!!  The list will be too long!!

So use an other option, to make it an 'exhaustive' list.

Also, a banana option would make a lot of people here happy, although I'm not compelling you to add it.

[Todd]

The list is too short.  And there is no banana option.  One is needed here.

[springrite]

The list is too short.  And there is no banana option.  One is needed here.

otherwise we have nothing but banana skin options...

[Gurn Blanston]

Christopher Hogwood & John Eliot Gardiner. My other choice, Charles Mackerras, no longer qualifies.

[greg]

No Janssons? No Boulez? Did they die during the night?

Yeah, I would have liked to see them and Chailly on the list, too. I probably would have voted for Chailly, but Ozawa gets my vote now.

[karlhenning]

Oh, I've just had too many negative experiences with Ozawa to sign on, there.

I'd be tempted to say Boulez, so fond I am of these Sony reissues . . . just box after box of good stuff!

Edit :: typos

[Sergeant Rock]

Hard to pick. Objectively, either Abbado or Haitink is probably the greatest living conductor, but I haven't heard many Abbado recordings I'd place near the top (but that has nothing to do with his talent, and everything to do with my taste) and Haitink can veer on the boring at times. Harnoncourt is superb in his long-established neighborhood: 17th to the early 19th century. I'm not entirely convinced by his work beyond Schubert, though (except for his Dvorak tone poems...less enthused about the symphonies).

Of the options given, I'm most in tune with Colin Davis and Barenboim. Davis is great in Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Tippet, Britten. Barenboim excels in the core 19th, early 20th century Germanic repertoire, including Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, my personal trinity. I'll go with Danny boy.

Sarge

[Opus106]

My other choice, Charles Mackerras, no longer qualifies.

He lives on in our hearts and in the music of the recordings he made.

(Now, there's a brilliant out-of-the-box solution! )

[Sergeant Rock]

Oh, I've just had too many negative experiences with Ozawa to sign on, there.

I'd be tempted to say Boulez, so fond I am of these Sony reissues . . . just box after box of good stuff!

Edit :: typos

If Boulez had been a choice, I might have gone with him too...although I've never heard anything by him from the classical era...and if you don't conduct Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, can you really lay claim to being the greatest? His Mahler, Wagner and Bruckner, though, can't be faulted, and of course he's the master of the twentieth century.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

...and if you don't conduct Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, can you really lay claim to being the greatest?

A hundred years ago, the answer to that would have to be no, Sarge.

But now, I wonder.  Not to appear at all, at all to marginalize Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven;  but the literature is much bigger now.  I think it must be possible to become a great conductor, without reinventing the Viennese Classical Wheel.

[Todd]

and if you don't conduct Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, can you really lay claim to being the greatest?

Boulez has conducted works from the era, particularly when he was in charge at New York, and there are a few recordings out there.  (Below is a shot of his most recent Mozart effort.)  So someone could make the claim.  I don't think he would.  I will say that his Mozart below is good if not great, and the few other classical era works I've heard conducted by him earlier in his career were on the aggressive side, but not particularly great.  And keep in mind he's also recorded some Handel commercially, so he goes back in time even more.  (One wonders what he might do with Bach.)

I agree with your assessment of his post-classical recordings.

[Sergeant Rock]

A hundred years ago, the answer to that would have to be no, Sarge.

But now, I wonder.  Not to appear at all, at all to marginalize Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven;  but the literature is much bigger now.  I think it must be possible to become a great conductor, without reinventing the Viennese Classical Wheel.

I agree, you don't need the classical trio to become a great conductor...but I do think you need to conduct those three well in order to qualify for the title Greatest Conductor. While I've personally had enough Beethoven and Mozart in the concert hall (Haydn is not so often played) and rarely get excited when I see them programmed now, the fact remains they hold a preeminent spot, and any conductor who ignores them is going to be thought less of by many. Not necessarily by me...I did say I might have gone with him had he been a choice. Wish he'd conduct some Sibelius though. That might be very interesting.

Sarge

[Franco]

I don't think it matters that Boulez' focus has not been in the music from the Classical era.  IMO, the qualities that make someone a great conductor transcend period.