Game 15 - HIP - Ensemble - Conductor - Instrumentalist
Academy of Ancient Music - 12
The English Concert - 2
John Eliot Gardiner - 8
Nikolaus Harnoncourt - 7
Jordi Savall - viol da gamba - 9
Fabio Biondi - violin - 4
...But just this: I've heard Furtwängler's Beethoven being called sloppy, hysterical, unbalanced (also unparalleled, deeply spiritual and profound), but... boring??...
I'll have to agree with member haziz in this one. Furtwängler's Beethoven tends to sound boring to me as well. My problem with him is about his choices of tempi (often too slow for the composer IMHO) and his (in my view) excessive use of rubato in the music of a composer who lived before Chopin and Liszt became adults. To me, he is much better (legendary, actually) when conducting Wagner or some composers heavily influenced by him (particularly Bruckner).
I think that Toscanini's Beethoven has fire, passion and rhythmic drive, and he has always been a reference to me in terms of how to play this composer's music. To my ears, the problem with his recordings tends to be sound quality, and not conducting.
