The greatest conductor in the world?

Carlos Kleiber

Originally published July 7, 2011

Alas, it's not me.  As I have mentioned in several previous posts, I continually run across "top ten" or "greatest" lists throughout the internet and often feel as though they are worthy of comment.  While this is perhaps old news, it only recently crawled across my Facebook newsfeed:  a November 2010 BBC poll of 100 "leading conductors" proclaimed Carlos Kleiber, who died in 2004, as the "greatest conductor of all time."

The link above includes the "top twenty," which includes only one American (Bernstein of course, clocking in at number two) and seven living conductors:  Claudio Abbado (#3), Nikolaus Harnoncourt (#5), Simon Rattle (#6), Pierre Boulez (#9), John Eliot Gardiner (#11), Bernard Haitink (#15), and Colin Davis (#18).  One could argue this kind of list until one was blue in the face, and it is very interesting to read come of the commentary contained here.

Of course all of these conductors are/were products of the video era:  we do have actual photographic documentation of their work.  But what of the "greats" of the past, those hailed in their times as truly outstanding conductors:  the Berlioz's, Wagner's, and von Bulow's of their time?  This article shines light on one conductor--arguably the most well known musician in New York City in the early part of the twentieth century:  Gustav Mahler.  Here was a conductor who ruled both the Metropolitan Opera and the Philharmonic for all-too-short a time; he arrived at the Met in 1907, left after two seasons, and spent the final three seasons of his life at the helm of the Philharmonic.

Gustav Mahler

Despite having to overcome the death of his four-year-old daughter, his wife's blatant affair and the health problems that would lead to his early death, Mahler defined the role of the "maestro" of one of the world's leading orchestras.  Current Philharmonic musicians will attest to a very close affinity to Mahler when performing one of his symphonies; he was, after all, one of them.  As Mr. Davis tells us:  "It was Mahler’s freshly imagined interpretive style of orchestral performance, its special qualities of instrumental blend, dynamic nuance and rhythmic plasticity that both inspired the musicians of the Philharmonic and mesmerized New York audiences all those years ago. What did a typical Mahler concert sound like? We will never know. But the sheer expressive boldness of those vast, risk-taking late-Romantic symphonies tell us that Mahler the composer and Mahler the conductor surely inhabited the same musical world."

Otto Klemperer

For my money, I have little room for these kinds of lists, except for their value in sparking conversation.  For my money, Otto Klemperer's recording of Brahms German Requiem remains untouched by anyone before or since.  But, of course, most of the video record of Klemperer exists following his debilitating stroke, during which time he had to sit and conducted with a constant scowl and very limited movements.  So, if we have no visual "record," does that mean that a conductor was not "great"?

I have gone through my life worshiping at the feet of various conductors, being convinced that their's was the ultimate performance, especially when comparing Beethoven recordings of Toscanani, Gardiner, and yes, even Carlos Kleiber.  The latter's recording of the Fifth Symphony (with the Vienna Philharmonic) is to me the most detailed yet enthralling performance of that work; but then again, that's how I feel at this specific point in time.

As for the "list" itself?  Well, I've not been able to identify the "100 experts" and have to question the inclusion of five Brits in the top 20.  Let's be honest:  Great Britain did not produce a truly "great" native composer from the late Renaissance until the twentieth century (except possibly Purcell, whose output is not that great).  And a great orchestra?  Would any of the the British bands measure in a list of the best in any poll not conducted by the BBC?

Sir George Solti

Where are the great conductors who have led the Chicago Symphony, from Theodore Thomas to Georg Solti (I discount Daniel Barenboim--personal preference)?  Where are the creators and inheritors of the "Philadelphia Sound"--Stokowski and Ormandy?  And again, one must ask, only one American on the list?

Leopold Stokowski

As in determining the greatest composers or the cause of the death of Mozart, these will remain possibly interesting exercises in futility.

Of course Norman Lebrecht disagrees with all of the other experts, as witnessed here. But here is some video of the BBC's greatest.