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Conductors you trust, and ones you don’t

Alex S

Alex S

carbon based lifeform
I guess Bernstein is the conductor I trust most, hardly ever lets you down if you like gusto but he can do finesse. Dutoit I almost always like. Perhaps Sir Simon is near the other end. I’m generally a fan but he’s hardly trustworthy.
 
Andrew Davis, always a disappointment.

Older conductors, Boult, Beecham, Barbirrolli, Sargent, Solti, almost always good.

Karajan excellent until late on when he was ill, generally good for Opera.

Current conductors, Martin Brabbins, Mark Elder usually good some others not so much.

I`m with you on Rattle, very variable.

I`ve come to greatly appreciate Constantin Silvestri, a somewhat forgotten man now.

Many others on both sides.
 
With one or two exceptions I find that Boulez misses the point of 20th century music. This is a shame as he is all over it!
 
Even writing some of it. I quite like his Mahler and his Sacre du Printemps could be the best of the lot.
 
Bernstein? really? he distorts and inflates all over the place, its more about him than the composer's music. Sometimes he's good, but not that often.

High Trust:
Claudio Abbado... almost nothing bad and a lot excellent
Eugen Jochum
Gunther Wand
Haitink always good but sometimes a bit lacking in intensity
Vladimir Jurowski - always good, whatever the music
Paavo Jarvi - never heard a dull record from him.
Riccardo Chailly - very few disappointments
Carlos Kleiber.... sad he only made about 6 or 7 commercial recordings, all of them superb.
Herbert Blomstedt.... maybe the best?

Low Trust:
Gergiev. Sloppy and quit often makes exciting music dull.
Rattle - seems more interested in the texture and sound rather than what the music is saying
Celibidache.... god awful
 
We can certainly agree on Jurowsky, and Paavo Jarvi in the main. I’m rather uncouth and self centered so I like Bernstein.
 
Herreweghe is pretty reliably good.

Agree on Gergiev, apart from his Bluebeard I have yet to hear anything worthwhile.
 
Paray for French repertoire, Dorati for anything Slavic or Eastern European
 
Trust:
Walter
Kubelik
Savall
Erich Kleiber
Carlos Kleiber
Hengelbrock
Honeck
McCreesh
Krauss
Schuricht
Martinon
Giulini
Salonen
Wit
MTT
Monteux
Szell
Ancerl
Beecham
Bernstein
Bohm
Karajan (I know what's good and what's not)


Not so much:
Solti
Furtwangler
Haitink
Barbirolli
Scherchen
Gergiev
Kertesz
Dudamel (too uneven; I hope his move to New York energizes him and the band)
 
I've heard Michael Sanderling conduct a highly enjoyable Shostakovich 5 with the BBC SSO, and Thomas Søndergård has done good things with the RSNO, conducting Mahler. These two guys are going places!
 
windhoek said:
I've heard Michael Sanderling conduct a highly enjoyable Shostakovich 5 with the BBC SSO, and Thomas Søndergård has done good things with the RSNO, conducting Mahler. These two guys are going places!
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Sondergaard is older than he looks.... He's been going places for a while but has not got there yet.... I agree he's doing great things for the RSNO, and I also have seen a live stream of him conducting Sibelius with the Berlin Phil and that was superb! So how so few recordings available from him? I'd buy them.
 
I suspect the only ones I ‘trust’ are the historically correct, period instruments lot, but they are hardly ever the ones I’d choose to listen to!
 
alanbeeb said:
Sondergaard is older than he looks.... He's been going places for a while but has not got there yet.... I agree he's doing great things for the RSNO, and I also have seen a live stream of him conducting Sibelius with the Berlin Phil and that was superb! So how so few recordings available from him? I'd buy them.
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Wow, I had Søndergård down as being a good few years younger than me (I was born in '73). Turns out, he was born in '69, so yeah, he's been around longer than I'd thought. Still, some conductors keep on conducting till they get really old so he might well be going places for some time yet, and with a bit of luck, he might end up at one of the marquee orchestras.
 
Tony L said:
I suspect the only ones I ‘trust’ are the historically correct, period instruments lot, but they are hardly ever the ones I’d choose to listen to!
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I enjoy listening to Neville Marriner's set of Beethoven symphonies with The Academy of St. Martin in The Fields, using period instruments.

It's a nice stripped back alternative to the usual interpretations.
 
narabdela said:
I enjoy listening to Neville Marriner's set of Beethoven symphonies with The Academy of St. Martin in The Fields, using period instruments.

It's a nice stripped back alternative to the usual interpretations.
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ASMF - Smaller forces than major orchestras but not period instrument

Trustworthy conductors not mentioned
David Zinman
I'd add Marin Allsop and possibly John Eliot Gardiner
DGP
 
DGP said:
I'd add Marin Allsop and possibly John Eliot Gardiner
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Gardiner is a great example of someone I’d trust implicitly, but don’t tend to play. I’ve got his Bach St Matthew Passion, but if I ever want to play it I reach for Klemperer’s outdated, grandiose and unbelievably slow-motion version on Columbia. Many examples of this, e.g. I prefer my Bach on a piano to a harpsichord as it’s just a much better instrument! (ducks, covers)
 
Tony L said:
Gardiner is a great example of someone I’d trust implicitly, but don’t tend to play. I’ve got his Bach St Matthew Passion, but if I ever want to play it I reach for Klemperer’s outdated, grandiose and unbelievably slow-motion version on Columbia. Many examples of this, e.g. I prefer my Bach on a piano to a harpsichord as it’s just a much better instrument! (ducks, covers)
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Its OK, I prefer Bach on a synthesizer. (Partially joking, Bach is one composer I really struggle to like....)
 
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