The greatest unsung conductor?

[Alan Howe]

Please forgive this slight deviation from the strict remit of the forum: who, for you, is the most unsung great conductor? (i.e. not necessarily of unsung music.)
My nomination: Carlos Païta.
Evidence: Dvorak 7 on Lodia.

[mbhaub]

Good topic -- and really hard to answer, because I'm not sure what unsung means here. But just on the evidence of recordings, and one memorable live performance, I have to give the nod to Anton Nanut. He made quite a few early cds, but has since vanished from the scene.

After Nanut, I must mention a conductor I worked with: Irwin Hoffman. He was Reiner's assistant in Chicago, then took the reins for a year. Brilliant as you would expect for someone who had Reiner's approval. Had an ear that was scary in it's accuracy. Knew how to pace music and build overwhelming climaxes. Regretably, he also picked up Reiner's nasty personality. Sarcastic, almost cruel at times. Very difficult to like personally. And I suppose that 's why he never made it to the top. No orchestra was willing to put up with that frightening personality regardless of the quality of the music making. Last I heard he was running an orchestra in Costa Rica. I still have a wealth of tapes from the years he was in Flagstaff, and there were some superb performances.

[chill319]

Vaclav Neumann. Unless Celibidache qualifies as unsung.

[Alan Howe]

Celibidache is now pretty 'sung', I would have thought.

What about Wyn Morris?

[Alan Howe]

Back to Carlos Païta, my nomination: his Dvorak 7 is an incendiary performance: pretty flexible in terms of tempo, but put entirely at the service of the music. It sounds old-fashioned (there's none of the modern obsession with metronomic rhythms), but his ability to capture the ebb and flow of the music is extraordinary.

[Kriton]

Vaclav Neumann. Unless Celibidache qualifies as unsung.

Celibidache is now pretty 'sung', I would have thought.

Not only that, Neumann is rather sung as well, in my opinion. If you mean Václav, and not Horst or Peter.

In any case, if one's allowed to nominate Neumann, then I go for István Kertész, basing my nomination on his complete cycles of symphonies of Brahms, Dvorák, and Schubert (he was one of the first conductors to tackle the complete Dvorák and Schubert). The sound he was able to get out of the VP and the LSO is simply amazing, and his interpretations to me show a man with great understanding of all aspects of the music he conducts. I'd like to illustrate this with a quote found on wikipedia - so I can't vouch for whether it's 100% true. Point is, as with most quotes, it could have been said:

Barry Tuckwell, the principal hornist of the LSO  spoke of the élan and enthusiasm Kertész could coax out of the orchestra, many of whom Tuckwell regarded as "old codgers not bloody likely to dance to any youngster's tune."

His legacy of recordings really becomes a source of astonishment, when you think he was little over 40 when he died. I was, thus, very happy to see BBC/Medici Arts issue some of his live recordings with the LSO.

His complete Brahms is very good, although I find his live recordings better. His complete Dvorák is another matter entirely: I place it (with distance!) above the cycles of Kubelik, Pesek, and Rowicki. His Schubert cycle is simply the best as well (next to the completely different historically more "correct" recordings, of course). He apparently had a good go at Mozart operas and Hungarian repertoire (Liszt, Kodály, Bartók) as well, but since I'm a fan of neither, I can't really be judge there. So, there you have my nomination. I'd like to think that, hadn't he died so young, he'd become one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century with the general public.



A note about the spell check - I find it more and more amusing, but you'd have to keep your guard all the time when spell checking, otherwise:
István Kertész > Estevan Kettle
hornist > horniest
wikipedia > wiped
Kubelik > Kubrick (well, at least they're both artists)
Pesek > Pesky (this does kind of sum up his recordings)

[Alan Howe]

Kertesz was and is not unsung. He simply died young...

[Kriton]

Please forgive this slight deviation from the strict remit of the

...topic...

[Delicious Manager]

I have a couple of contenders:

1) the great Czech conductor Václav Talich. Although known to connoisseurs, his name is not a familiar one, Despite the fact that he died in 1961, he left a reasonable number of recordings, all of those I have heard being staggeringly fine.
2) the Russian conductor Nikolai Anosov. Anosov was the father of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (not wanting to ride on the back of his father's reputation on the rostrum, Rozhestvensky used his mother's maiden name professionally) and one of the finest conductors of the 1940s, 50s and early 60s (he died in 1962). Although there are a few commercial recordings (including the first recording of Prokofiev's 7th Symphony, Dvořák's New World Symphony and some recordings with David Oistrakh), most of his legacy lies in radio recordings, many of which probably lie undiscovered, awaiting another 'Russian Revelation'.

[Alan Howe]

Talich was a very famous conductor - in his day!

Now Anosov - that's more like it!

[Delicious Manager]

Another conductor who does not get his just recognition is Johannes Wildner. Seemingly confined to producing recordings for budget labels with unsung orchestras (should we start a thread on this subject?), I have stumbled across some of his recordings, which are quite wonderful. His recordings of Schubert's Unfinished and Great C major symphonies (I am loathe to use numbers as there no seem to be two numbering systems, so the Unfinished is now sometimes referred [correctly] as 'No 8' and the C major as 'No 8') and incidental music the Rosamunde is a joy of spontaneous, unfussy, unmannered conducting which seeks only to serve the music. These recordings pop-up on various store and other obscure labels. His recordings of the 1873 and 1877 versions of Bruckner's much-revised 3rd Symphony are also very fine.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Not entirely 'unsung' (whatever that might mean in the context of a conductor!) Only this month he has been appointed guest conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra. In addition to some Naxos recordings there are fine performances of Joseph Marx and Erich Zeisl on CPO.

Now Zeisl is surely a composer who is unsung!

Peter

[chill319]

Wynn Morris's Eroica is one of the best recorded realizations of this towering masterpiece. From the description, Carlos Païta's Dvorak 7 sounds like a must hear. Glad to hear V Neumann is sung. Hope his Bruckner and Mahler become even more sung.

Apologies in advance for topic creep, but I have twice caught radio broadcasts of Beethoven symphonies midstream and wondered who was leading such an insightful and electric performance. Both times the answer was Andreas Delfs. Just saying. And never heard him live.

[Kriton]

Glad to hear V Neumann is sung. Hope his Bruckner and Mahler become even more sung.

I think he is sung - perhaps a huge mistake on my behalf, because I have his Mahler cycle on Supraphon. Don't know his Bruckner! Is it that good?

[Alan Howe]

Good topic -- and really hard to answer, because I'm not sure what unsung means here. But just on the evidence of recordings, and one memorable live performance, I have to give the nod to Anton Nanut. He made quite a few early cds, but has since vanished from the scene.

I agree about Nanut - born, interestingly in the same year (1932) as Païta. I found today that I had a cheapo CD of Beethoven 7 & 8 with Nanut conducting the Ljubljana Radio Symphony Orchestra (Nanut is Slovenian). It is a superb CD, with performances of wonderful drive: for me a lost - but now found - gem! Thanks for making me look out the CD!