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The death of great conducting? Posted by Des Hutchinson on June 27, 2026, 2:54 am I often hear music lovers of the older generation bemoan the death of great conducting as a kind of self-evident truth, referring to Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Reiner et al as representing a golden era that will never be repeated. Those of the younger generation however, including my pianist daughter, appear to have no such regrets, and while not ignoring great performances of the past, simply place them in their historical context as the styles and conventions of the day. So, is there really any truth to this belief, or are its adherents just showing their age?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by LEE DENHAM on June 27, 2026, 1:02 pm, in reply to "The death of great conducting?" This is a very interesting question, Des, one that I’m sure will prompt many answers. Having done many surveys that compares the results of conductors from before the Second World War all the way up to the present day which, allied to some reasonable score-reading abilities, means I do have an opinion on this, I do prefer to defer to those with greater experience of the subject being discussed. In the 2014 BBC documentary on Herbert von Karajan, this very question was put to Andrea Blau, the long-serving principal flautist of the Berlin Philharmonic. He answered that “working with the conductors of today is more pleasant, more collegial – but when compared to those from the past, they rarely take you to the tops of the highest mountains….” Previous Message I often hear music lovers of the older generation bemoan the death of great conducting as a kind of self-evident truth, referring to Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Reiner et al as representing a golden era that will never be repeated. Those of the younger generation however, including my pianist daughter, appear to have no such regrets, and while not ignoring great performances of the past, simply place them in their historical context as the styles and conventions of the day. So, is there really any truth to this belief, or are its adherents just showing their age?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Des Hutchinson on June 27, 2026, 9:44 pm, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" Lee, I intentionally didn't mention HvK in my named list because I'm also aware that many of the 'believers' consider he marked the beginning of the decline in great conducting. Andreas Blau was only born in 1949 and therefore wouldn't have played under any of those of that, say, pre-1960 era. Previous Message This is a very interesting question, Des, one that I’m sure will prompt many answers. Having done many surveys that compares the results of conductors from before the Second World War all the way up to the present day which, allied to some reasonable score-reading abilities, means I do have an opinion on this, I do prefer to defer to those with greater experience of the subject being discussed. In the 2014 BBC documentary on Herbert von Karajan, this very question was put to Andrea Blau, the long-serving principal flautist of the Berlin Philharmonic. He answered that “working with the conductors of today is more pleasant, more collegial – but when compared to those from the past, they rarely take you to the tops of the highest mountains….” Previous Message I often hear music lovers of the older generation bemoan the death of great conducting as a kind of self-evident truth, referring to Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Reiner et al as representing a golden era that will never be repeated. Those of the younger generation however, including my pianist daughter, appear to have no such regrets, and while not ignoring great performances of the past, simply place them in their historical context as the styles and conventions of the day. So, is there really any truth to this belief, or are its adherents just showing their age?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Des Hutchinson on June 27, 2026, 11:00 pm, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" ... which is not to say that Andreas Blau never played under any conductor who was active during that era, but I think you know what I mean. Previous Message Lee, I intentionally didn't mention HvK in my named list because I'm also aware that many of the 'believers' consider he marked the beginning of the decline in great conducting. Andreas Blau was only born in 1949 and therefore wouldn't have played under any of those of that, say, pre-1960 era. Previous Message This is a very interesting question, Des, one that I’m sure will prompt many answers. Having done many surveys that compares the results of conductors from before the Second World War all the way up to the present day which, allied to some reasonable score-reading abilities, means I do have an opinion on this, I do prefer to defer to those with greater experience of the subject being discussed. In the 2014 BBC documentary on Herbert von Karajan, this very question was put to Andrea Blau, the long-serving principal flautist of the Berlin Philharmonic. He answered that “working with the conductors of today is more pleasant, more collegial – but when compared to those from the past, they rarely take you to the tops of the highest mountains….” Previous Message I often hear music lovers of the older generation bemoan the death of great conducting as a kind of self-evident truth, referring to Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Reiner et al as representing a golden era that will never be repeated. Those of the younger generation however, including my pianist daughter, appear to have no such regrets, and while not ignoring great performances of the past, simply place them in their historical context as the styles and conventions of the day. So, is there really any truth to this belief, or are its adherents just showing their age?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by LEE DENHAM on June 28, 2026, 8:43 am, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" So I think your original post is therefore referring to conductors prior to the 'jet-set' conductor era, when conductors lived in the cities of their orchestras. Those were different times and certainly the standards of orchestral playing was nowhere near as high as it is today. That said, I still think Andreas Blau's views are relevant insofar that he was commenting on the standard of present day conductors when compared to those from the past, which since 1969 when he was first appointed at the BPO, would have contained virtually every single conductor of note active from that time onwards. As for the 'believers', there can be very few left who would have seen those figures from the 'golden era' live, so I hold their views with a degree of scepticism, although would concede there seemed to be many more fine conductors active in the past than now. Certainly it would have been extraordinary for one conductor to hold simultaneously the posts of principal conductor of both the Chicago and Concertgebouw Orchestras in bygone years... Previous Message Lee, I intentionally didn't mention HvK in my named list because I'm also aware that many of the 'believers' consider he marked the beginning of the decline in great conducting. Andreas Blau was only born in 1949 and therefore wouldn't have played under any of those of that, say, pre-1960 era. Previous Message This is a very interesting question, Des, one that I’m sure will prompt many answers. Having done many surveys that compares the results of conductors from before the Second World War all the way up to the present day which, allied to some reasonable score-reading abilities, means I do have an opinion on this, I do prefer to defer to those with greater experience of the subject being discussed. In the 2014 BBC documentary on Herbert von Karajan, this very question was put to Andrea Blau, the long-serving principal flautist of the Berlin Philharmonic. He answered that “working with the conductors of today is more pleasant, more collegial – but when compared to those from the past, they rarely take you to the tops of the highest mountains….” Previous Message I often hear music lovers of the older generation bemoan the death of great conducting as a kind of self-evident truth, referring to Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Reiner et al as representing a golden era that will never be repeated. Those of the younger generation however, including my pianist daughter, appear to have no such regrets, and while not ignoring great performances of the past, simply place them in their historical context as the styles and conventions of the day. So, is there really any truth to this belief, or are its adherents just showing their age?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Nils-Göran Olve on June 29, 2026, 7:31 am, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" I agree. There are now many more high-quality orchestras and conductors, performing a broader repertoire in a more "collegial" way. My father was a violinist in the Stockholm Philharmonic for 50 years starting in 1925. I listened to his memories, when I started going to concerts there were still visits from a few like Klemperer, and I've collected recordings and know musicians who are active now. Objectively, we never had it as good; subjectively something may be lost. It's a matter of individual values how we feel about it. Through recordings we can now live in both "eras" which was not possible until recently. Two factors not mentioned yet are media and markets. From around 1930 radio and records made it possible to hear how music was played elsewhere, and spread the fame of a selected few artists. Travelling made guest conducting more common. But most conductors we think of as "great" had worked locally until their fifties before being recognized as such, and their records reflect a lifetime of individual activity. They were not only authoritarian but respected for their indivudal insights. They had been influenced by a handful of older musicians they had met, but not by recordings, musicologists or other orchestras than those in the music centres where they had worked. As an antidote to the excellent performances we now hear live or recorded, their recordings provide us with alternative views. For the older among us, we may to some extent be conditioned to prefer their untroubled personalized interpretations, particularly when they reflect local now lost traditions. For younger listeners, they can sound "wrong" but sometimes inspire. I find the same with instrumentalists and singer: until the 1950s they had a sometimes ignorant conviction which is uniquely their own (influenced by their teachers and idols) that theirs is the right way to do music, rather than the well-informed, studied approach expected from modern musicians. This is often linked to how orchestras and singers sounded different in, say, France, Italy, or Russia, from the more widespread German models.

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Robert on June 29, 2026, 12:09 pm, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" Picking up on Nils-Göran's point. There is something very obvious here. The so-called great conductors are, for the most part, the ones who just happened to be there when recording became a reality. As far more people in the twentieth century got to hear orchestral repertoire through recordings than live performance, it only stands to reason that the recordings they first got to hear (those of the 'great' generation) were the ones they considered authoritative and the ones they liked best. It became second nature for listeners to believe that this is how Beethoven or Brahms, or Wagner must sound. When younger conductors recorded different interpretations they were logically mostly judged as inferior especially so as the 'maestros' of the past were often seen as infallible messengers from the Gods whose acolytes never questioned whether or not their interpretations were valid or even correct based on composers' scores. I am aware that the issue of 'correct' interpretation of a score is a very nebulous notion but there are many well-documented instances in the past of conductors butchering scores or making wholesale changes to suit themselves, something I am glad to say is seen as reprehensible today. In an interview I read with extraordinary musician and lifelong record collector Krystian Zimerman he made the point that most music critics and listeners, unlike musicians, learn a piece from recordings not from scores and when he reads their reviews he can tell which recordings they have been listening to. We would do well to remember that recordings are not the same as scores and composers write scores. We should always bear in mind that it is very difficult, especially for those without a solid musical education, to feel or believe that any interpretation of a piece of music that differs widely from the version they first fell in love with can be equally or even more valid than the version they esteem the most. Whether that is a good or a bad thing, or whether we should try to be more objective in our listening is a can of worms I will leave unopened on the shelf. listening Previous Message I agree. There are now many more high-quality orchestras and conductors, performing a broader repertoire in a more "collegial" way. My father was a violinist in the Stockholm Philharmonic for 50 years starting in 1925. I listened to his memories, when I started going to concerts there were still visits from a few like Klemperer, and I've collected recordings and know musicians who are active now. Objectively, we never had it as good; subjectively something may be lost. It's a matter of individual values how we feel about it. Through recordings we can now live in both "eras" which was not possible until recently. Two factors not mentioned yet are media and markets. From around 1930 radio and records made it possible to hear how music was played elsewhere, and spread the fame of a selected few artists. Travelling made guest conducting more common. But most conductors we think of as "great" had worked locally until their fifties before being recognized as such, and their records reflect a lifetime of individual activity. They were not only authoritarian but respected for their indivudal insights. They had been influenced by a handful of older musicians they had met, but not by recordings, musicologists or other orchestras than those in the music centres where they had worked. As an antidote to the excellent performances we now hear live or recorded, their recordings provide us with alternative views. For the older among us, we may to some extent be conditioned to prefer their untroubled personalized interpretations, particularly when they reflect local now lost traditions. For younger listeners, they can sound "wrong" but sometimes inspire. I find the same with instrumentalists and singer: until the 1950s they had a sometimes ignorant conviction which is uniquely their own (influenced by their teachers and idols) that theirs is the right way to do music, rather than the well-informed, studied approach expected from modern musicians. This is often linked to how orchestras and singers sounded different in, say, France, Italy, or Russia, from the more widespread German models.

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Rob McKenzie on June 28, 2026, 1:01 pm, in reply to "The death of great conducting?" In 'Music on Record'(1960) Peter Gammond and Burnett James suggested that some collectors preferred conductor X's interpretation of Beethoven's fifth symphony, because they had him on 78s and got used to hearing it played that way. Could it be that those of us who grew up in the LP era are afflicted with the same bias towards the past? I'm not so sure. In addition to the obvious stars listed by Des H, there was an amazing array of 'other' conductors who often gave marvelous performances. Think Jochum, Boehm, Barbirolli, Boult, Szell, Mravinsky, Ansermet, Munch, Markevich, Mitropolous, Giulini, Wand, Skrowaczewski, Ancerl, Kletzki, Cluytens, Kondrashin and more. I would be delighted to have any of these back today. In terms of sheer numbers, I don't see the same proliferation of distinguished conductors today. Maybe I'm wrong. But of one thing I'm convinced: even if I had been born in the 1990s, I would never have preferred the 'historically informed' approach to music from Beethoven onwards.

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Robert on June 28, 2026, 7:51 pm, in reply to "The death of great conducting?" In his original post Des Hutchinson made reference to his daughter's opinion and it is revealing that in all the 'great conductors' named so far in this thread not one has been a woman. Great conducting and great conductors of both genders are thriving, thankfully never more so. What is dying, sadly not yet dead, is the conviction and reverence of the idea of great conducting as exclusively the preserve of men and what's more men who too often were allowed to indulge with impunity in working practices that ranged from the merely pathetically puerile and boorish to the criminal. Some listeners may have no qualms about all this as long as they can be taken "to the tops of the highest mountains….”. As a listener interested in music not mountaineering I am not one of them. The infuriating, despairing life story alone of Antonia Brico stands as brutally stark evidence to the fact that we will never know how many great conductors we were deprived of hearing in the past simply because they made the mistake of having been born a woman in a world that deemed that waving a baton was obviously something women could not do as well as men. Play an instrument or sing, yes of course, but wave a baton no no. As music lovers and more importantly as human beings, spouses and parents, I think we should all do our bit to put a nail in the coffin of the idea of great conducting as something that is exclusively the preserve of the past and a past inhabited exclusively by men. Previous Message I often hear music lovers of the older generation bemoan the death of great conducting as a kind of self-evident truth, referring to Furtwängler, Toscanini, Walter, Klemperer, Beecham, Reiner et al as representing a golden era that will never be repeated. Those of the younger generation however, including my pianist daughter, appear to have no such regrets, and while not ignoring great performances of the past, simply place them in their historical context as the styles and conventions of the day. So, is there really any truth to this belief, or are its adherents just showing their age?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Rob McKenzie on June 29, 2026, 1:01 am, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" Women were not entirely excluded from the podium in earlier times, although the way forward was not easy. A google search suggests that the BPO was conducted by Mary Wurm in 1887, by Ethel Smyth in 1928 (when she shared the podium with Bruno Walter) and by Antonia Brico who, in 1930, was the first woman to conduct a full-length programme with the orchestra. Conductors who were persons of colour had no easy ride in days gone by. While Dean Dixon, an African American conductor, first conducted the NYPSO in 1941, he was told that if he wanted a permanent appointment he should form an orchestra of African American musicians. He was better treated elsewhere in the world, where he served as chief conductor for several orchestras including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (1964-67) after the country's leading music critic had described him as one of the greatest conductors active at the time.

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Ignatius on June 29, 2026, 3:47 pm, in reply to "The death of great conducting?" Being on the right side of 40 (although only just), I grew up in the HIP era, and collected various recordings by Gardiner et al in my late teens and early 20’s. In the last 10 or so years I’ve been clearing them out in favour of older recordings (pre-1980). The older conductors had an intensity in their music-making coupled with full-bodied sounds from their orchestras that I just haven’t consistently found in more recent recordings, HIP or otherwise. All my favourite artists (conductors, instrumentalists) were active before 1980, some into the 90’s. My favourite singers were without exception all active in the same time-frame. (The dearth of good singing today is especially concerning). I’m sorry, but today’s music-making seems just a bit too nice, polite and safe to me. I want intensity from music, not just all the notes played at the right time. All this is very personal of course, as are all our individual responses to the question. But looking just at the roster of names we could conjure up in the last century compared to today, yes, you have to admit that we have less great conductors now. Where is today’s Furtwangler, Toscanini, Walter, Karajan? We simply don’t have them, for whatever reason. The real question is what is/are the reason/s?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Rob McKenzie on June 30, 2026, 12:05 am, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" Well said. To me, most of the orchestral performances we hear today - even the ones which are not "historically informed" - are too uniform, smooth and predictable. Give me a conductor who challenges us - even if, in the end, some of us think he is wrong. So far, no one here has posted as short-list of contemporary conductors whom they would rate as the equal of the old school maestros. Why is that?

Re: The death of great conducting? Posted by Nick Barnard on June 30, 2026, 8:50 am, in reply to "Re: The death of great conducting?" I have no doubt that there is the potential for conductors to be great. For me the issue is mainly one of time; Time for a conductor to develop technical skills, interpretative insights, relationships with orchestras, enough rehearsals to refine performances. We live in an age where gratification and impact need to be instant. Where major orchestras are willing to share Artistic Directors with more than one other orchestra from the other side of the world. Where audiences want maximum "bang" from the performers in front of them as soon as possible. I think that many orchestras would get "bored" these days too if they had the same person on the podium for days and weeks on end going over the same kind of pernickety detail. Orchestras are now so good that they can pull a perfectly decent performance out of the rehearsal hat with just about anyone in front of them. My guess is that some of the most rewarding concerts (and probably rehearsals for the players too!) are taking place around the world in nominally 2nd tier orchestras with lesser known conductors where modest finances mean that fees are relatively lower but possibly there is more time and willingness to explore even standard repertoire. What sums up for me where the world has gone wrong is how a still-young conductor such as Andris Nelsons can be principle conductor in Boston and Leipzig and already have complete cycles of Mahler, Bruckner, DSCH, Brahms, Beethoven etc etc and no-one from the record labels or orchestra managements seem to be questioning their artistic worth. There is simply not the TIME for Nelsons to have really developed a deep understanding of that amount of music with those orchestras. They must be skilled read-throughs of superficial interpretations. But the reality is that even for a conductor in demand as much Nelsons how many times will he have actually conducted some of these big works before immortalising the performance on disc. I suspect if you spoke to the older generation conductors (who in the main had much smaller active repertoire they conducted - that's another story) they would say they didn't really dig under the surface of a major work until they'd performed it at least 20 times or so.

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