Herbert von Karajan
John Eliot Gardiner
I probably have more recordings by these two conductors than anyone else... and have never been disappointed. Karajan's Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Schopfung, his Beethoven cycle, his Strauss tone poems, and even his efforts to approach Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern with as much polish and passion as one approaches Beethoven are enough to make him a towering conductor for me.
Gardiner gets credit as one of the leading conductors working in a HIP manner. His Monteverdi L'Orfeo, the recently completed cycle of Bach's complete cantatas as well as the St. Matthew and St. John Passion, the Christmas Oratorio, the Mass in B-minor, and the Magnificat, his Schumann, Beethoven, and Brahms cycles, and any number of other recordings make him an unavoidable master.
After these?
Georg Solti- (Der Ring des Nibelungens, Elektra, Salome, Schubert's 9th, Beethoven's 9th, Mahler's 8th, Verdi Requiem, Die Frau ohne Schatten, etc...)
John Barbirolli- (Mahler's 5th, 6th and 9th, Kindertotenlieder, Ruckertlieder, his recordings of Elgar, Delius, Vaughan Williams, and Sibelius)
Karl Böhm- (Mozart's symphonies, Beethoven's 6th, Berg's Lulu, Strauss Operas: Daphne, Arabella, Brahms Symphonies, The Marriage of Figaro, Brahm's Symphonies, etc...)
Wilhelm Furtwängler- (Beethoven's 9th, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Schubert's 8th, Don Giovanni, Tristan und Isolde, etc...)
Leonard Bernstein- (Gerschwin, Schuman, Ives, Copland and other American composers... not forgetting Bernstein himself, Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovitch, Berlioz, Offenbach, etc...)
Otto Klemperer- (The Magic Flute, Das Lied von der Erde, Brahms Symphonies, Brahms German Requiem, Bach Mass in B-minor, Wagner Orchestral highlights, St. Matthew Passion, Bruckner... especially no. 4, etc...)
Eugen Jochum- (Bruckner cycle, Bruckner choral works, Brahms piano concertos with Gilels, Brahms symphonies, etc...)
Carlos Kleiber- (Beethoven 5 and 7, Brahms 4th, Schubert's 3 and 8, Verdi Otello and La Traviata, Der Freischütz, Tristan und Isolde, Der Rosenkavalier, etc...)
William Christie- (Les Indes Galantes, Vespro Della Beata Vergine, 1610, Couperin - Leçons de Ténèbres, Lully: Petits Motets, Charpentier: Te Deum, Rameau - Les Grands Motets, Zoroastre, Schütz: Kleine geistliche Konzerte, Handel- Serse, Mozart The Magic Flute, Purcell-Divine Hymns... one of the greatest living conductors and a master of the Baroque... especially the French)
René Jacobs- The Magic Flute, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Idomeneo, La clemenza di Tito, Die Schopfung, Handel- Rinaldo and Saul, Monteverdi - Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi, Bejun Mehta ~ Ombra cara (Arias of George Frideric Handel), Gluck Orfeo et Euridice, Bach Motets, etc... another master of HIP... who has brough new life to Mozart's operas)
Pierre Boulez- (Szymanowski, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bela Bartok, not to forget Boulez himself.)
Harry Christophers- Handel- Messiah, Isreal in Egypt, Delirio Amoroso, Haydn's Die Schopfung, The Eton Choir Book, The Flowering of Genius, Ceremony and Devotion: Music for the Tudors, Victoria, Britten, Barber, Purcell: The Faerie Queene, etc... Christopher's is another among the greatest living conductors... and his group, The Sixteen are masters of choral music... especially of English polyphony.)
Marc Minkowski- (Handel's Water Music, Haydn's London Symphonies, Rameau - Une symphonie imaginaire, Offenbach's Orphee Aux Enfers, Handel's Dixit Dominus, Mozart 40 & 41, Handel's Giulio Cesare, Ariodante, Hercules, Rameau - Dardanus, etc... Minkowski is for me an up-and-coming master... an HIP composer whose work centers upon the Baroque re-imagined with a rock-n-roll sensibility.)