What Conductor do you most identify with?

[Chalkperson]

If I wanted to identify with a conductor, it would be Herbert von Karajan. Now there was style! Not to mention power and the will and skill to use it.

I would go for Carlos Kleiber, one of classical music's greatest enigma's, a small but superb discography, and who, like Stanley Kubrick, redefined the meaning of the word meticulous.

[josé echenique]

Maybe Rafael Kubelik or Carlo Maria Giulini. Urbane, kind, but very sure of what they want.

[RebLem]

Although I love many of the results of the OIP and HIP movements, I think temperamentally I relate most to Sir Thomas Beecham, who was given to all manner of acerbic and impolitic comments on many subjects.

[Istvan]

It depends what is meant by "identify with". Does this mean from a musical point of view or from that of the conductor's personality? From the past, I would choose Solti and from today's maestros, Muti. For their superb command of the orchestra and the excitement of their music making, which does not preclude lyricism when appropriate. Also both have shown themselves always ready to study new or unusual works. As for their personalities, I admire them both for their authority as well as their sense of humour and warm-heartedness (not all will agree on this latter point as it was not always readily apparent). On a purely personal note, I often wish I had their ability to glare at someone and have them trembling in their shoes.

[jbuck919]

I'll probably get les boos for saying Boulez.

[THEHORN]

I suppose I identify with Neeme Jarvi for his tireless efforts to think outside the box when it comes to programming .
So many conductors stick to pretty much the same old familiar masterpieces ; Carlos Kleiber conducted only a tiny handful of works in his career .
But Jarvi has given both live audiences and classical CD collectors a chance to hear music by the likes of Eduard Tubin,
Zdenek Fibich,Nikolai Myaskovsky, William Grant Still, George Whitefield Chadwick , Wilhelm Stenhammar,
Franz Berwald, Johan Svendsen, Sergei Taneyev, Mily Balakirev, and so many other obscure but interesting composers .

[stenka razin]

The overall brilliance and uniquenesss of Leonard Bernstein and he had loads of charisma, too.

[some guy]

The conductor of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

[Wallingford]

I identify most with Enrique Jorda. He articulated what would be my own philosophy towards interpreting a score:

When a real conductor is on the podium a transference takes place. Players and conductor think together, feel together. It is like pigeons wheeling in flight. One does not point out the leader; there is an invisible leader, though. The one who propels them all is the composer. The conductor who can make himself the channel for the composer's thoughts and feelings is the great conductor.

Jordá believed the conductor must not start by saying, "Now what shall I do with this Tchaikovsky work?" He will get nowhere that way. The question is, how will the the Tchaikovsky work use the conductor? Jordá thought the medium through which this transformation takes place was love. "I fervently believe that life is love. If one acts through pure love one sees the most beautiful things. What one sees is much in the person who looks." He believed it was the "feel" one has that one is a medium for the composer's intentions, one blessed with the gift of clairvoyance in music; this was something he felt could not be taught.

[piston]

This question has given me time to pause and to name any particular conductor is actually to name the composers this conductor expressed so well and, indirectly, the composer you prefer. Karajan with most French music?! Forget it!!

Another dimension to this question is whether or not otherwise respectable conductors were given the resources to perform to the max. The real advocate of Myaskovsky's music was Evgeni Svetlanov but several of these recordings were done with hardly any financial resources to the extent that musicians were not really being paid.

To answer this question satisfactorily, one cannot avoid the conductor-composer symbiosis, such as, who is the best conductor of Faure's Requiem. No Karajan comes to mind here.

[jbuck919]

To answer this question satisfactorily, one cannot avoid the conductor-composer symbiosis, such as, who is the best conductor of Faure's Requiem. No Karajan comes to mind here.

Well, none is going to, if you choose a single work that lacks the range of possibilities for a great conductor to shine. The best performance of that work that I ever heard was conducted in a church by my college organ teacher. He did a mean Poulenc Organ Concerto, too.

[Chalkperson]

To answer this question satisfactorily, one cannot avoid the conductor-composer symbiosis, such as, who is the best conductor of Faure's Requiem. No Karajan comes to mind here.

Well, none is going to, if you choose a single work that lacks the range of possibilities for a great conductor to shine. The best performance of that work that I ever heard was conducted in a church by my college organ teacher. He did a mean Poulenc Organ Concerto, too.

That dreaded Rutter chap did it quite well, I thought,..

[jbuck919]

To answer this question satisfactorily, one cannot avoid the conductor-composer symbiosis, such as, who is the best conductor of Faure's Requiem. No Karajan comes to mind here.

Well, none is going to, if you choose a single work that lacks the range of possibilities for a great conductor to shine. The best performance of that work that I ever heard was conducted in a church by my college organ teacher. He did a mean Poulenc Organ Concerto, too.

That dreaded Rutter chap did it quite well, I thought,..

Yes, and the whole point is that every Anglican choirmaster with adequate forces can handle it. I chose Boulez because he can conduct his own music and was also sought out for Bayreuth. I admire him in other ways as well, but that's enough for me.

[John F]

When Boulez first conducted at Bayreuth, "Parsifal" in 1966, Wieland Wagner had for years been looking for a conductor who would do for the musical side what he had done on the stage: strip Wagner's operas of the trappings of Romantic Germanic traditionalism, which he held were not only wrong for the times but discredited by Bayreuth's Nazi-era history, and give them a genuinely modern gestalt. While Hans Knappertsbusch was alive, this wasn't going to happen, as Wieland not only respected his musicianship but relished his personality. But Kna had died in October 1964. André Cluytens filled the gap in 1965 but then left Bayreuth for good. So Bayreuth needed a "Parsifal" conductor.

On the face of it, Boulez was the most unlikely choice imaginable. Not only had he never conducted a Wagner opera, or any opera at all (and very little 19th century music), he was hostile toward the genre, or at least toward opera houses which he declared should all be blown up. Inviting him to Bayreuth was a big gamble, but Wieland Wagner had never shrunk from the new and unconventional, and in this case he deliberately sought it out.

Unconventional is what Boulez's "Parsifal" certainly was - the fastest ever heard at Bayreuth, rhythmically sharp and firm (no rubato), and with none of the special "Parsifal" atmosphere that Knappertsbusch and Karl Muck before him had brought to Bayreuth. For me this is perverse and harmful in the outer acts, but Wieland must have liked it; he and Boulez shared the opinion that "Parsifal" is musically Wagner's most forward-looking work (to Debussy and beyond). So he invited Boulez back for the 1967 Festival, and when Karl Böhm wasn't available for the tour of two Bayreuth productions to Osaka, Boulez was chosen to conduct "Tristan und Isolde," which likewise he had never conducted before. Wieland himself died shortly after the 1967 Festival ended, so it's impossible to know what course their collaboration might have taken. But it would surely have continued. Indeed it did continue outside Bayreuth; they collaborated on "Wozzeck" in Frankfurt and were to do "Pelléas et Mélisande" at Covent Garden if Wieland Wagner hadn't died.

In my view, Boulez is a bad Wagner conductor. Not only is his style hostile to Wagner's late Romanticism, but he seems to ignore the drama and the stage action, and on the other hand can be rather laissez-faire about the singers' accuracy. No such problem with the orchestra, which is not only well prepared but notably transparent in its textures, even when this isn't what the music seems to call for. If we heard his performances without knowing who was conducting, I'm sure we'd dismiss them as not just unidiomatic but wrong-headed. Whatever Wieland Wagner might have thought.

Boulez has given fine performances and made fine recordings of other repertoire, of course, and he's unquestionably a major conductor. But not of Wagner.

[RebLem]

To answer this question satisfactorily, one cannot avoid the conductor-composer symbiosis, such as, who is the best conductor of Faure's Requiem. No Karajan comes to mind here.

Well, none is going to, if you choose a single work that lacks the range of possibilities for a great conductor to shine. The best performance of that work that I ever heard was conducted in a church by my college organ teacher. He did a mean Poulenc Organ Concerto, too.

That dreaded Rutter chap did it quite well, I thought,..

Yes, and the whole point is that every Anglican choirmaster with adequate forces can handle it. I chose Boulez because he can conduct his own music and was also sought out for Bayreuth. I admire him in other ways as well, but that's enough for me.

Not long after Szell's death, when Boulez was musical advisor or whatever the devil his title was with the Cleveland Orchestra, he did an excellent Schubert Symphonies cycle there. I head concert tapes of some of them, and I do hope someone will see his way to getting them released in a CD set.

[jserraglio]

I would go for Carlos Kleiber, one of classical music's greatest enigma's, a small but superb discography, and who, like Stanley Kubrick, redefined the meaning of the word meticulous.

Yes Carlos Kleiber

[Chalkperson]

Musicians like The Horn criticizes Kleiber for having a small discography, as do music fans and especially critics, but as a fellow artist (photographer) I see it slightly differently.

For The Horn music is a Job, for Kleiber it was WORK, and there is a huge difference...

He simply Conducted only what he wanted to, what is wrong with that, maybe every other Conductor learned and recorded more Music, but who say they HAVE TO...

I only shoot on commission, never for fun, in fact I can't even use the camera on my iPhone, why? because I have no interest in using it, I turn down a lot of jobs, but when I do work the quality is as good as humanly possible...

And whilst I get well paid, money is not the reason I do it, if it was I could have earned vast sums, I do it when I feel the job is right for me, and when I think I am right for the job...

[jbuck919]

He simply Conducted only what he wanted to,

Now I'm waiting for someone to identify with Danny Kaye.

[piston]

Perhaps a medical analogy applies! You've got the generalists, prolific, energetic, who bring their own style or identity in everything they interpret. It's a work from [fill in the blanks] by ... Karajan. You know what to expect because it's Karajan, not because it's expectable from the composer. (Karajan's take on Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is best remembered for it tremendous energy (and drum effect) but not particularly for its Hungarian sensitivity).

And you have the specialists, such as Pretre with Poulenc. You may not like Pretre as a conductor but it's a bit like saying you don't like Poulenc as an orchestral composer.

A good question would be "What conductor do you most identify with [interpreting Mahler]? There's so many of them that it's virtuallly impossible to find a "specialist"!

[THEHORN]

Chalkie, if I were conductor , it would be unbelievably boring and frustrating to have a repertoire as small as Kleiber's.
You could compare this to your choice of foods . We all have certain favorite foods, but if you love steak, it would get awfully boring to eat steak every day for dinner , not to mention your cholesterol going through the roof .
I'm the kind of person who craves variety and gets bored with constant repetition . I love the Beethoven symphonies as much as anyone, but I don't want to hear them every day . You get jaded .

[John F]

Oh, I think it's just fine not to like Georges Prêtre as a conductor, since he has not limited himself to music he conducts well but has conducted everything from Wagner and Mahler to Johann Strauss, much of it badly. Prêtre's performances of "Parsifal" at the Met in 1966 were part of Rudolf Bing's continuing revenge on a composer he disliked but was obligated to program.

This thread has wandered from its topic, which can be paraphrased as which conductor you'd most like to be, to which conductor's recordings you most like. Who would want to be Carlos Kleiber, that deeply unhappy man? He conducted as little as he could, walked out of recordings in progress and other obligations when they weren't going as he wished, and seems to have felt himself very much in his father's shadow, from his choice of repertoire to using his father's conducting scores. One may like Kleiber's work from the outside, as I do, without wanting to be on the inside.

[Istvan]

"Carlos Kleiber, that deeply unhappy man."

A friend of mine, usually very reliable on such background, told me that Kleiber had several nervous breakdowns and had to be hospitalized. I haven't read his biography (still available only in German) but if it is true I can only sympathize but wouldn't want to share such a fate.

[John F]

I've read no biographies but there are two documentaries on YouTube that I've seen and believe.

[josé echenique]

Oh, I think it's just fine not to like Georges Prêtre as a conductor, since he has not limited himself to music he conducts well but has conducted everything from Wagner and Mahler to Johann Strauss, much of it badly. Prêtre's performances of "Parsifal" at the Met in 1966 were part of Rudolf Bing's continuing revenge on a composer he disliked but was obligated to program.

This thread has wandered from its topic, which can be paraphrased as which conductor you'd most like to be, to which conductor's recordings you most like. Who would want to be Carlos Kleiber, that deeply unhappy man? He conducted as little as he could, walked out of recordings in progress and other obligations when they weren't going as he wished, and seems to have felt himself very much in his father's shadow, from his choice of repertoire to using his father's conducting scores. One may like Kleiber's work from the outside, as I do, without wanting to be on the inside.

Often he (Kleiber) didn´t even understand himself. When he walked out in the middle of a recording session of a new DG La Bohéme that was being recorded in La Scala with Freni and Domingo, he later admitted he could find anything wrong when he heard the tapes. DG used the remaining sessions to record in great haste the Verdi Requiem with Abbado.

[Chalkperson]

Chalkie, if I were conductor , it would be unbelievably boring and frustrating to have a repertoire as small as Kleiber's.
You could compare this to your choice of foods . We all have certain favorite foods, but if you love steak, it would get awfully boring to eat steak every day for dinner , not to mention your cholesterol going through the roof .
I'm the kind of person who craves variety and gets bored with constant repetition . I love the Beethoven symphonies as much as anyone, but I don't want to hear them every day . You get jaded .

But, he was an absolute perfectionist, the Work required to get an Orchestra into shape for a Concert was a tremendous task for him, also, when you have a father like his (Erich) and you convince yourself your recordings have to be almost definitive in nature it add a great strain.

He was not like ordinary Conductors, he did not want to do it every day, he did not want to play that many pieces, he did not want the responsibility of a residency, I can totally relate to all that...

PS, I do eat the same thing every day, there is no variety in what I eat, it's only food after all...

[jserraglio]

I admire Kleiber's disdain for what he evidently saw as distractions from music. His biographer, Vancouver City Opera conductor Charles Barber, answered the imputation of mental instability, echoed again in this thread, noting that CK was far saner than many other conductors with unconventional personal lives.

The rehearsals I have looked at on YT are electrifying as are the excerpts from Carmen, Boheme and Otello. He even gave an interview early in his career. [link below]

And according to Bernard Haitink and Barber, his private musical repertoire was extensive.

[Istvan]

It is conductors I can't identify with, against popular opinion, which puzzle me most . For instance, I read the following in today's "Guardian" about Barenboim:
"The 70-year-old conductor-pianist certainly remains the most exciting and authoritative musical superstar in a congested firmament. His name has become a byword for musical brilliance and danger." (Fiona Maddox).
Can this be the same man who has always left me underwhelmed?

[John F]

Barenboim is the conductor of today who approaches the power Karajan was able to acquire and use. Astonishing when you think how late and modestly he began his conducting career. He's never had Karajan's glamour, of course. Another important difference is that Karajan was apolitical, in public anyway, while Barenboim has a number of causes that he pursues beyond his musical activities. Founding and leading the East-West Divan Orchestra, for example, and conducting Wagner's music in Israel, have greater social and political than artistic significance. However I may feel about some of Barenboim's performances, then, I see him as a conductor one could identify with, if one believes that an artist shouldn't just practice his art but also be actively involved in the world and use his celebrity and influence constructively to try to make it better. Of what other celebrated conductors can this be said?

[lennygoran]

PS, I do eat the same thing every day, there is no variety in what I eat, it's only food after all...

This is even worse than the short shrift you give to TV in the other thread! Regards, Len [fleeing]

[Istvan]

What John says about Barenboim as a man is absolutely true but can he be considered a serious contender for the title of the world's greatest living conductor, as the "Guardian" journalist's remarks imply?

[John F]

What John says about Barenboim as a man is absolutely true but can he be considered a serious contender for the title of the world's greatest living conductor, as the "Guardian" journalist's remarks imply?

Of course that's not our topic in this thread. Indeed, I'd say that any talk about THE world's greatest living conductor isn't really serious. There has never been just one on whom everybody could agree, though at one time Toscanini came close to that.

[Lance]

This is a really tough question to answer. I tend to generally go with conductors from the mid-1940s through 1970 or so ... because I believe many have brought those orchestras to the supreme grandness they enjoy, not always from a "sound" point of view, but for the sheer musicianship proffered. I think of Reiner and what he got out of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for example. I've never found another Chicago conductor bring to life the music the way Reiner did. And for me, Koussevitzky had a very special way with the symphonic music of Sibelius ... the classic 1951 recording made of the Sibelius Second Symphony for instance. Thomas Beecham, Furtwängler, Toscanini, Mitropoulos, Szell, Martinon, Bruno Walter (simply outstanding Mozart and Brahms!), Stokowski, Munch, Kubelik, Monteux (in nearly everything), Fricsay, Fritz Lehmann, Markevitch, Steinberg, Rodzinski, Boult, Rosbaud, Barbirolli, Fritz Busch, Weingartner, Talich, van Beinum, Mravinsky, Mengelberg, Bernstein ... OMG, the list could go on and on from those great conductors who brought life to the best part of their repertoire, or rather where they really 'shined' for me. I have never been a total fan of von Karajan, but when he is good, he's very good. Claudio Abbado is high on my list as is James Levine. But it would appear, for me, that many (not all!) of the conductors of today simply don't rise to the occasion of performances/recordings I have spent my life listening to and enjoying, and learning from extensively. Many of these orchestras, American or otherwise back in the day, had at their disposal some of the greatest musicians of all time, especially at their first desks. In conclusion, each of these conductors truly excelled in most of the repertoire they performed ... and nobody does EVERYTHING that good!

It was wonderful for me to respond to this just to mention all the names of great conductors who have given me something very special!

[John F]

Would you actually identify with any of the conductors you named, and what would that mean to you? I really hope that you wouldn't identify with Fritz Reiner, for example.

[Lance]

Identify with Reiner only with the music he made. He was, otherwise, one cold ... turkey!

Would you actually identify with any of the conductors you named, and what would that mean to you? I really hope that you wouldn't identify with Fritz Reiner, for example.

[Istvan]

Another I should have included on my list is Sir John Barbirolli. The warmth of his sound and the passion of his music making is reflected in what seems to have been a very warm-hearted and kind personality, without the slightest pretentiousness; he also had a great sense of humour. On the other hand, he suffered all his adult life from bouts of deep depression, something one would not want to share.
I have the impression that he was rather taken for granted in his lifetime - certainly he never was accorded the sort of gush (see earlier post above) which too often passes for musical criticism in the press nowadays.

[John F]

Barbirolli's time as music director of the New York Philharmonic was quite unexpected, as he had no international reputation back then, and the reviews of Virgil Thomson give the impression that the orchestra's playing had declined after Toscanini's departure. That should have surprised nobody, of course, if it was true. What I didn't know, but learned recently from a Barbirolli biography, is that the notoriously hard-boiled players really liked him, and said so. They urged the orchestra's manager to extend his contract, which was done, and so did Fritz Kreisler, with whom Barbirolli recorded the Beethoven and Brahms concertos (in London, not New York). If their good will was reflected in the quality of their playing, maybe Thomson didn't do them justice.

[Chalkperson]

Identify with Reiner only with the music he made. He was, otherwise, one cold ... turkey!

Would you actually identify with any of the conductors you named, and what would that mean to you? I really hope that you wouldn't identify with Fritz Reiner, for example.

I know you have difficulty giving an answer that only contains a single name, but from your list, which Conductor do you think most identifies with a well known and much loved piano tuning record collector of high esteem...

[John F]

I haven't a clue. That's why I asked.

I know you have difficulty giving an answer that only contains a single name

You know wrong. I answered this particular question with a single name, instantly and with no difficulty at all. Others here have difficulty answering the question at all - instead they answer other questions that haven't been asked.

[Chalkperson]

I haven't a clue. That's why I asked.

I know you have difficulty giving an answer that only contains a single name

You know wrong. I answered this particular question with a single name, instantly and with no difficulty at all. Others here have difficulty answering the question at all - instead they answer other questions that haven't been asked.

The question was meant for Lance, not you. He is a piano tuning record collector, hence the question...

[John F]

Sorry - since your message came right after one of mine and you asked about Lance in the third person, it looked like you were asking me.

[Seán]

Identify with Reiner only with the music he made. He was, otherwise, one cold ... turkey!

Would you actually identify with any of the conductors you named, and what would that mean to you? I really hope that you wouldn't identify with Fritz Reiner, for example.

I know you have difficulty giving an answer that only contains a single name, but from your list, which Conductor do you think most identifies with a well known and much loved piano tuning record collector of high esteem...

Claudio Abbado? No? Well Rafael Kubelik then.

[barney]

Wow. A hard one.

I'd like to identify with Szell because I admire his wonderfully precise recordings (not merely precise), but that's not like me at all.

Bernstein's brilliance? Agreed, but again utterly unlike me.

Karajan? I loathe what he turned into, but one cannot fail to admire so much of what he did, especially in the earlier years.

In the end, I'm going to go with my father - I do have half his genes, after all.

[Lance]

In the end, an in the Classical period, I would be quite happy with Furtwángler, whom I know you don't admire much. There ... that's ONE name. Better!

Identify with Reiner only with the music he made. He was, otherwise, one cold ... turkey!

Would you actually identify with any of the conductors you named, and what would that mean to you? I really hope that you wouldn't identify with Fritz Reiner, for example.

I know you have difficulty giving an answer that only contains a single name, but from your list, which Conductor do you think most identifies with a well known and much loved piano tuning record collector of high esteem...

Claudio Abbado? No? Well Rafael Kubelik then.

[Istvan]

Others here have difficulty answering the question at all - instead they answer other questions that haven't been asked.

Variety is the spice of good conversation! It is in any case a difficult question as one generally doesn't seek to identify with people like oneself since one sees in them one's own faults - magnified. (As Sviatoslav Richter once said, "I don't like myself.") Answers suggest that the question should have been, "Which conductor would you like to be/have been?"

[John F]

That's pretty much the same question, isn't it? Being some other person means the whole package - not just how one conducts well but the whole personality, successes, failures, and so on - and that's what identification also involves. Anyone who identifies with Fritz Reiner, or would like to have been him, is no friend of mine, as he himself would say.

[Chalkperson]

That's pretty much the same question, isn't it? Being some other person means the whole package - not just how one conducts well but the whole personality, successes, failures, and so on - and that's what identification also involves. Anyone who identifies with Fritz Reiner, or would like to have been him, is no friend of mine, as he himself would say.

Personally, I find Karajan loathsome in the extreme, repulsive even. I think I might prefer Reiner if I had to choose...

[John F]

Personally, I find Karajan loathsome in the extreme, repulsive even.

That's from the outside, of course. But what if you were Karajan? You'd be sitting pretty in every sense of that expression.

I think I might prefer Reiner if I had to choose...

I'm speechless.

[Chalkperson]

Personally, I find Karajan loathsome in the extreme, repulsive even.

That's from the outside, of course. But what if you were Karajan? You'd be sitting pretty in every sense of that expression.

I think I might prefer Reiner if I had to choose...

I'm speechless.

Why? His records are much better...every one a winner...he certainly was not vein, he looked like an ugly Count Dracula, but with no presence, but he did not think of himself as some God, did he...

Oh! He was a tyrant, poor little orchestra, but was the music not great?

OK, I'm being unfair...but the music was great, wasn't it?

If you have Carlos as your number one, what's wrong with the Dick Cheney of Conducting as your number two?

Seriously, think about it...

Or do you really want me to just pick Mravinsky instead...

[John F]

I think I might prefer Reiner if I had to choose...

I'm speechless.[/quote]
Why? His records are much better...every one a winner...he certainly was not vein, he looked like an ugly Count Dracula, but with no presence, but he did not think of himself as some God, did he...

Oh! He was a tyrant, poor little orchestra, but was the music not great?

OK, I'm being unfair...but the music was great, wasn't it?

If you have Carlos as your number one, what's wrong with the Dick Cheney of Conducting as your number two?

Seriously, think about it...

Or do you really want me to just pick Mravinsky instead... [/quote]
You think about it. You're not being unfair, you're being irrelevant to the topic which you yourself started. Like some others here, you're picking conductors whose recordings you like, not those whom you'd identify with or like to be. I don't "have Carlos as [my] number one" and explained why: "Who would want to be Carlos Kleiber, that deeply unhappy man?" I wonder if you've actually read this thread.

[Chalkperson]

I wonder if you actually read what I wrote, you certainly did not think about it...

I was referring to myself having Carlos as number one, and I explained my reasons in a number of posts. I never listed any of Reiner's recordings either, I merely said every one he made was pretty exceptional, and my point was that if I was to pick a second conductor then of all the (so called) tyrant's I would pick Reiner, this is despite Mravinsky being my favourite Conductor alongside Kleiber, I don't relate to Aristocrats so I can't pick him simply for that reason.

I know nothing of Reiner's personal life, but what I read of his methods in Conducting then I certainly can relate to them, I did many similar things in order to keep my studio running for 25 years, sometimes it's how you have to be, his motto may have been that fear was a great motivator, I would say that they absolutely need to fear you, but you must also be fair. I think Reiner may have felt that way too.

Of course I read the Thread, I started it because you made the statement of wanting to be like Karajan of all people. I was making the point that if someone here seriously wanted to be Karajan, an incredibly vain and egomaniacal person with a desire to be treated like an Emperor, then what's wrong with relating to be someone like Reiner, having had 25 years experience with Rock Stars (think soloists or Diva's) and having film shoots with 50 people or more under my control and being responsible for staying on schedule and on budget then I can relate to Reiner, and if you want to keep them on their toes then you need to be tough. If you want them to excel and produce the right results a hard look in your eye can work wonders at times. Have you ever tried to get people to work at their very finest every day of every week, without them slipping into autopilot mode, it's really difficult.

Kleiber worked rarely, Reiner ran the CSO, my choices are the two extremes, I'd pick Sinopoli too, but he put just a little too much of himself into the music, Reiner and Kleiber never did that, and unlike Kleiber, Fritz Reiner had a huge repertoire, I did people and still life, the whole spectrum of photography, that's actually very rare, remaining on top for 40 years takes some doing, but I often had to whip the Galley Slaves in order to get them to produce only the very finest work every single day.

I simply cannot accept mediocrity, or mistakes in people's work, it has my name on it, not theirs.

Karajan's financial success, or his control of Vienna and Berlin means nothing to me, Conductor for life, give me a break, you have to always prove yourself worthy. Stunts like that throttled the Classical Music business, it's not something to be praised for. But, this is only my opinion, you certainly do not share it, maybe most here will disagree too, but I have always been contrary to the norm.

I would consider Reiner very much like my other employer, and another really hard taskmaster, Steve Jobs. He's also someone I can relate to, I'd certainly be interested in being him, you would probably want to be Michael Dell...