UPDATE, 24 October 2024 – some additions.
For reasons unknown, several people have recently asked me about favorite conductors/recordings/performers/miscellany. As an individual approaching official “senior” age and nearly half a century of serious listening, record collecting, and now occasional music-making, I am taking the liberty of naming several favorites in each category, in reverse alphabetical order.
COMPOSERS:
Iannis Xenakis • Richard Wagner • Giacinto Scelsi • Gustav Mahler • György Ligeti • Carlo Gesualdo • Morton Feldman • Johannes Brahms • Johann Sebastian Bach
Guilty pleasures: Ottorino Respighi • Fritz Kreisler
DEAD CONDUCTORS:
Klaus Tennstedt • Eugene Ormandy • Wyn Morris • Willem Mengelberg • Carlos Kleiber • Bernard Haitink • Wilhelm Furtwängler • Fritz Busch • Pierre Boulez
LIVING CONDUCTORS:
Sybille Werner • Osmo Vänskä • Leonard Slatkin • Alexander Sladkovsky • José Serebrier • Susanna Mälkki • Barbara Hannigan
DEAD INSTRUMENTALISTS:
Harry Sparnaay • Michael Rabin • William Primrose • Fritz Kreisler • Josef Hofmann • Bronisław Huberman • Glenn Gould • Emanuel Feuermann • Jacqueline du Pré • György Cziffra
LIVING INSTRUMENTALISTS:
Wynton Marsalis • Igor Levit • JACK Quartet • Steven Isserlis • Marc-André Hamelin • Elmira Darvarova* • Miranda Cuckson* • Claire Chase • Pierre-Laurent Aimard
DEAD SINGERS:
Tatiana Troyanos • Georges Thill • Oda Slobodskaya • Elisabeth Söderström • Birgit Nilsson • John McCormack • Lauritz Melchior • Alexander Kipnis • Kirsten Flagstad • Jussi Björling • Cathy Berberian
LIVING SINGERS:
Anne Sophie von Otter • Nathalie Stutzmann • Ian Partridge • Barbara Hannigan • Gerald Finley • Piotr Bezcała
THE DOZEN RECORDINGS THAT ARE CONTINUALLY AT THE TOP OF MY PORTABLE AND HOME AUDIO PLAYERS:
Xenakis: Jonchaies, Shaar, Lichens, Antikhthon – Tamayo, Luxembourg Philharmonic (Timpani)
Wagner: Götterdämmerung – Dalayman, Cleveman, Elder, Hallé Orchestra (Halle CD)
Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps – Boulez, The Cleveland Orchestra (DG CD)
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben – Mengelberg, Philharmonic-Symphony (my own dub from Victor Z prssings)
Mahler: Symphony No. 2 – Tennstedt, LPO (LPO Live CD)
Ligeti “Clear and Cloudy” – various artists (DG)
Gabrieli – National Brass Ensemble (Oberlin Music SACD)
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 – Furtwängler, Berlin Philharmonic (Berliner Philharmonikar SACD set)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 – Furtwängler, Berlin Philharmonic (Tahra CD)
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 & 13 – Gould (CBS Masterworks HD download)
Bach/Malloch: The Art of Fugueing – Foss, Sheffield Ensemble (Townhall CD)
Bach: Toccatas BWV910-916 – Rannou (alpha CD)
Bach: Goldberg Variations – Frisch (alpha CD)
* Full disclosure: some of their recordings are on my record label.