Favourite ORCHESTRA Director / Conductor

[alejo_90]

Hi there everyone!

I don't know if a thread like this has been created, whatever...
Who's your favourite orchestra director?
Mine is Karl Böhm, followed by Fritz Reiner and Riccardo Muti.

Best
Alex

[pianistimo]

tell me more about karl bohm.  i don't know as much about him as i'd like to.

[mikey6]

I thought you meant film director from the subject!
my favourite conductor - ahm...Karajan for the gorgeous sound he pulls from the orch.  Batiz is rather good from what i'm hearing.  Kleiber coz he's a freak.  Previn's Rachmaninoff and Colin Davis' Haydn.
I have Bohm's Mozart Symphony's and i'm not a huge fan of them.

[soliloquy]

Boulez

[prometheus]

I like Akira Kurosawa. Hmm, can't really say I have a sharp taste in cinematics though.

I can't stand most hollywood movies. I mean contemporary shallow action movies, they have nothing going for them. Cops, guns and cars...

[stevie]

hahaha, who is the conducting equivelant of takashi miike?

[soliloquy]

hahaha, who is the conducting equivelant of takashi miike?

Penderecki 4sure.

[trunks]

Favourite combination:
Montreal Symphony Orchestra - Charles Dutoit

Favourite orchestras:
Berlin, Vienna, London, Chicago, Cleveland

Favourite conductors:
Otto Klemperer, Leopold Stokowski, Eugene ormandy, Herbert von Karajan (early)

Most disliked conductor:
Herbert von Karajan (late, with some of the most abasive brass sounds I've ever heard)

[berceuse]

I've always liked Neeme Järvi when he was with the Detroit Symphony. I'm also a big fan of his son, Paavo, with the Cincinnati Symphony. I really do enjoy the Detroit Symphony in general, I think it's an underrated orchestra. I just love the older recordings on Mercury with Antal Dorati and Paul Paray, check them out if you haven't already.

[pianistimo]

never heard some of these conductors live - but the recordings are pretty great.  i'm so peeved tonight.  my hubby and i had tickets to ricardo muti's performance at the kimmel center this weekend - and he up and gets sick with the flu.  this is horrible.  of course, i don't wish that he get sicker  - so i suppose that him taking a break is what he needs.  but, i was SO looking forward to it.  it's like being told you are not having a gourmet meal adn now having cheerios.

get well, ricardo!

[berceuse]

never heard some of these conductors live - but the recordings are pretty great.  i'm so peeved tonight.  my hubby and i had tickets to ricardo muti's performance at the kimmel center this weekend - and he up and gets sick with the flu.  this is horrible.  of course, i don't wish that he get sicker  - so i suppose that him taking a break is what he needs.  but, i was SO looking forward to it.  it's like being told you are not having a gourmet meal adn now having cheerios.

get well, ricardo!

ha! Funny you should mention the kimmel center because Neeme Jarvi will be there this weekend also. I have only been to Verizon Hall once but I hope to go back soon. It's beautiful!

[pianistimo]

wow.  i guess we won't have cheerios then.  suppose since i've already heard some recordings of muti - to hear a different conductor will be good.  see you there, figuratively speaking.  i think we are going saturday night.  we'll be in the cheap seats - but i figured why spend all the money in one place.  we want to eat, too. 

[berceuse]

yeah it should be a good performance. I wish I could go but I recently moved to Michigan so its around a nine hour drive. No way I'm going to do that! I could never sit in the cheap seats though, I am terrified of heights so I have to spend a bunch of money for floor seats and then I have nothing left for food or anything. Have fun!

[pianistimo]

recently MOVED all the way to michigan?  what did you do that for?  you're worse than ingagrozyna.  i mean, moving from russia and having to speak american.  now you'll be speaking philadelphian - and when you cheer for the eagles - everyone will think you're strange.

[berceuse]

actually its not that strange to root for the eagles here since the lions stink so bad. I'm actually from Delaware but I am now at the University of Michigan for Environmental Engineering, so I guess I should have said displaced instead of moved since I don't plan on staying here when I am done with school. Oddly enough we have a quite a few Bostonian accents over here, I figured they all would be at Harvard or MIT but oh well.

[Waldszenen]

Favourite conductors are Karajan, Bernstein, Ozawa, Bohm and Haitink, amongst others.

[pianolist]

Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. There's a wonderful hint of wildness about them.

They played at the Proms this year, and after the two encores, one of which was a gypsy trio (yes, just three string players), the audience carried on applauding loudly until the very last member of the orchestra had left the stage. It takes a while, what with percussion instruments to close down. I've never ever seen that before.

[pianistimo]

berceuse, good luck on the environmental engineering degree!  interesting how many bostonians go midwest to me, too.  they know how to save money!  good luck! 

hmm.  pianolist, i've not even really heard of ivan fischer.  shows how much i know about conductors nowdays.  i bet the budapest festival orchestra IS really great - as i've heard it on public radio - but didn't know who conducted. 

only three more days to hear neeme jarvi at the kimmel center.

[kreso]

my favourite combinations:

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra-Karajan
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra-Mravinski
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra-Walter
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra-furtwangler
London Symphony orchestra-Stokowski
Chicago Symphony orchestra-Reiner
Marijanski orchestra from St.Petesrsburgh-Gergiev
Svetlanov with some russian orchestra (Moscow I think..)
Chelibidache with Munchen PO
Academy of St.Martin in the fields-Neville Mariner
New York PO and Vienna PO-Bernstein

and maybe some others that I can't remember..

[pianolist]

i've not even really heard of ivan fischer. shows how much i know about conductors nowdays. i bet the budapest festival orchestra IS really great - as i've heard it on public radio - but didn't know who conducted.

The best ones are by no means always the most successful, it seems to me. You'd have to hear Fischer with his own orchestra, but for me they play more musically than any other orchestra I have heard. I hear quite a lot of orchestras around Europe, and without a doubt the Berlin Philharmonic Musicians are the best technically. But I like wildness and a little bit of anarchy, and perhaps it's the gypsy blood coming out of Budapest that excites me. Music needs a few off notes to make it human.

By the way, the Berliner Philharmoniker means exactly what I said above, and it specifically doesn't mean the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. "Philharmoniker" is plural, and refers to the musicians themselves, since they are self-governed.

I'll think of you at Kimmel - I heard the Berliners there, when Tasmin Little played the Ligeti Violin Concerto about three years ago.

[kreso]

The best ones are by no means always the most successful, it seems to me. You'd have to hear Fischer with his own orchestra, but for me they play more musically than any other orchestra I have heard. I hear quite a lot of orchestras around Europe, and without a doubt the Berlin Philharmonic Musicians are the best technically. But I like wildness and a little bit of anarchy, and perhaps it's the gypsy blood coming out of Budapest that excites me. Music needs a few off notes to make it human.

Hey, I've also heard Fischer when Budapest Festival Orchestra (I think that this is their name) played in Zagreb. It was fantastic concert-they played a mix of orchestral and choral works by Bartok and Stravinski (they finished with his Symphony of Psalms). Glorius performances, with fantastic balanced orchestra, and phenommenal choir. Maestro Fischer is temperament person  and he is always into music..
Great musician and his orchestra.. hope I'll listen them again..

[elspeth]

In February, I'll be spending an evening being paid to attend the a concert by the St Petersburg Phil, playing Mussorgsky 'Dawn on the Moscow River', Tchaik piano concerto no 1 and Rach symphony no 2. Sickening, isn't it...

But seriously, my favourite orchestras are those of Opera North and Northern Ballet Theatre, mostly because I know most of the players and the conductors... Carl Davies is one of my favourite conductors, I've worked on several of his concerts and he's fab.

[pianolist]

my favourite orchestras are those of Opera North and Northern Ballet Theatre, mostly because I know most of the players and the conductors.

And there was I thinking you must live in the frozen North. You take a good polar bear pic!

[arensky]

George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Karl Ancerl and the Czech Philharmonic.

Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

[elspeth]

And there was I thinking you must live in the frozen North. You take a good polar bear pic!

I'm in the frozen north of England, not of Canada - not much different in some ways, although the local fauna here in Yorkshire is a bit less impressive... Thanks for the compliment! I will be going back to see the bears as soon as I have the money...