Thread: favorite composers of famous conductors...

Do you know any? Do you know the composers that celebrated conductors have held as their favorites?

A couple I can think of are:

(1) Mravinsky, who was a master conductor of Tchaikovsky's orchestral works.
(2) and Bohm, a master of conducting Wagner and other German greats.

Bernstein - Mahler
Walter - Mahler
Mackerras - Janacek
Karajan - Strauss

Bernstein- Mahler
Boulez- Webern
Gardiner- Bach
Vanska- Sibelius
Furtwangler- Beethoven

Those are the ones I immediately think of, except for Furtwangler and Beethoven, both of whom I rarely ever think of.

Colin Davis - Berlioz

I'm not sure about favourites, but here are some examples of famous conductors trying to promote particular composers which were (or still are) rarely performed:

Yevgeny Svetlanov - Myaskovsky (he had to put much effort in recording complete cycle of his 27 symphonies so I guess it was not by accident)

Simon Rattle - Szymanowski (he promotes his music with devotion, his recordings are among best ones of all time)

Mstislav Rostropovich - Shostakovich. Would we even hear this name if Rostropovich wouldn't do so much to make it famous?

Richard Wagner - Richard Wagner.

and another one:

Boulez - Verdi

Originally Posted by Aramis

Boulez - Verdi

Heresy!

Mendelssohn as a conductor held a torch for JS Bach even though Bach's choral works were singularly out of fashion at the time. It was largely through his advocation that Bach was 'rehabilitated' later in the
19th century.

The aforementioned Bruno Walter is a very good case in point as he actually worked under Mahler and then went on to make numerous recordings during a period when Mahler's works were largely out of favour.

Cool.

Might be interested in this thread, where I cite a couple of extreme examples of this:

Conductor-Composer Fanaticism

Gunter Wand and Georg Tintner clearly show they were consummate Brucknerians in their heart...

Originally Posted by tgtr0660

Gunter Wand and Georg Tintner clearly show they were consummate Brucknerians in their heart...

Oh! That reminds me.

Celibidache- Bruckner

Henry Purcell and John Blow my top 2 favorite of all time.

Solti was one of the greatest Wagnerians,although not every one admires his recordings and live performances of this composer. He was also one of the greatest in Bartok.
Sir Reginald Goodall was also considered to be the greatest Wagner conductor of our time,but I thought his recordings are crippled by impossibly slow tempos and woeful lack of momentum. I far prefer Solti.
Toscanini was famous for Verdi,and he knew the composer personally.
Mravinsky was also one of the great advocates of Shostakovich, and also a close friend of the composer who premiered several of the symphonies.
Kubelik was of course one of the greatest advocates of Dvorak,Smetana, and Janacek.
Charles Much is considered one of the foremost interpreters of French composers such as Berlioz,Debussy and Ravel,ditto such conductors as Piuerre Monteux and Ernest Ansermet(actually Swiss French) ,both also for Stravinsky.
Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Adrian Boult were both passionate advocates of Elgar,and knew him well. Sir Thomas Beecham was also famous for his performances of Delius,whom he also knew well.
Sir Colin Davis is famous for his advocacy of Berlioz,as well as for the late Sir Michael Tippett.
Eugen Jochum was also one of the foremost Bruckner conductors, and left two cycles of the nine symphonies, the first on DG divided between the BPO and Bavarian RSO, and the second on EMI with the Staatskapelle,Dresden.

It's interesting, that Solti wrote in his memoirs that he admired Sir Reginald Goodall as a person with a great understanging of music, but had some questions about his conducting...

Solti was also a good Straussian conductor. I like not only his Salome and Electra, but also his Zarathustra Karajan was more elegiac (I have heard only his 1973 recoridng) but Solti's expressionstic way also works well. I don't like his Alpensinphonie though.

Beecham's musical god, for all the work he did for Delius and Sibelius, was Mozart.

The more I listen to Jochum's Bruckner, the more I think he was the conductor that Robert Simpson had in mind when he kept writing (in The Essence of Bruckner) things like 'conductors who fail to grasp this will spped up here' or similar remarks...
cheers,
G