Best Classical Music Conductor


Furtwangler? Toscanini? Karajan? Abbado? Bernstein? ...... Which one is your favorite? Why?
paolaadames9fed
An amateur named Glebert Kaplan did the second with LSO in the mid or late 80's. I do not own the recording, so I do not have the booklet that comes with it, to give you more info about the recording. But, I did listen a couple of times in the music school library at my alma matur. It is well recorded. But, performance-wise, it may not stand with Zander's, Rattle's, Solti's, Tennstedt's, Walter's, or Klemperer's. Nonetheless, good performance, though, especially considering that he is only an amateur Mahler enthusiast. I remember that Kaplan made some grandiose claim in effect that Mahler would conduct the second as he did (since he studied extensively the contemporaries of Mahler as well as Mahler himself to prepare for the second -- an eccentric claim considering Mahler's eccentricities in comparison with his contemporaries). Thereby, some controversies surrounding the claim.
Cogito is right; Kaplan made his fortune on Wall Street as a broker/investment adviser, I think, and so loved the Resurrection Symphony that he studied it intently and made that recording. I understand he was involved in the editing of the recording as well, doing some gain riding/mixing to bring out certain parts, etc. An interesting reading. Wouldn't call him a great conductor, though. Continuing the thread, I agree with many of the recommendations above; I'd like to add Sir Adrian Boult, at least on Vaughn Williams' music--I still view his cycles on EMI as benchmarks for that music.