Conductors

A conductor does more than just keep the beat and cue entrances. Given a composition, the conductor shapes the music according to a unique vision and lends an interpretation to the work. A large part of a conductor's work takes place during rehearsals and even prior to rehearsals, when the conductor researches the composition. Thus, when you attend a performance or listen to a recording, the conductor is a critical part of the music making, as are the composer, ensemble, and individual performers.

Just as I have done for composers and ensembles, I have done now for conductors. The following list ranks conductors based on number of recordings available at the website ArkivMusic.com. Curiously, the number of conductors meeting the criterion for inclusion in the list (having a number of recordings that is at least one tenth of the #1 conductor's total) was 102, which is almost exactly double the number of composers appearing on the composers list (50) and only slightly more than double the number of ensembles appearing on the ensembles list (46). Could this be because there have been about two generations of conductors since classical music recording became widespread?

Conductors' legacies, as measured by number of recordings appearing at ArkivMusic.com:

1. Karajan, Herbert von (924)
2. Marriner, Sir Neville (585)
3. Bernstein, Leonard (469)
4. Abbado, Claudio (408)
5. Solti, Sir Georg (373)
6. Ormandy, Eugene (372)
7. Davis, Sir Colin (358)
8. Mackerras, Sir Charles (335)
9. Levine, James (334)
10. Böhm, Karl (334)
11. Mehta, Zubin (323)
12. Järvi, Neeme (315)
13. Hickox, Richard (299)
14. Previn, André (272)
15. Muti, Riccardo (271)
16. Maazel, Lorin (266)
17. Giulini, Carlo Maria (260)
18. Bonynge, Richard (256)
19. Haitink, Bernard (255)
20. Ozawa, Seiji (248)
21. Gardiner, John Eliot (241)
22. Barenboim, Daniel (238)
23. Barbirolli, Sir John (235)
24. Masur, Kurt (227)
25. Rilling, Helmuth (215)
26. Furtwängler, Wilhelm (212)
27. Szell, George (209)
28. Rattle, Simon (202)
29. Dutoit, Charles (201)
30. Kubelik, Rafael (200)
31. Chailly, Riccardo (197)
32. Schwarz, Gerard (197)
33. Serafin, Tullio (196)
34. Doráti, Antal (193)
35. Stokowski, Leopold (192)
36. Harnoncourt, Nikolaus (189)
37. Boult, Sir Adrian (186)
38. Gavazzeni, Gianandrea (186)
39. Hogwood, Christopher (179)
40. Klemperer, Otto (178)
41. Slatkin, Leonard (177)
42. Beecham, Sir Thomas (176)
43. Sawallisch, Wolfgang (171)
    
44. Leinsdorf, Erich (169)
45. Boulez, Pierre (164)
46. Pretre, Georges (163)
    
47. Wordsworth, Barry (161)
48. Toscanini, Arturo (160)
    
49. Walter, Bruno (158)
50. Leppard, Raymond (156)
51. Reiner, Fritz (153)
52. Zinman, David (152)
53. Ashkenazy, Vladimir (151)
54. Handley, Vernon (149)
55. Sargent, Sir Malcolm (148)
    
56. Sinopoli, Giuseppe (144)
57. Wit, Antoni (142)
58. Thomas, Michael Tilson (141)
59. Norrington, Roger (133)
    
60. Fiedler, Arthur (130)
61. Munch, Charles (130)
    
62. Lopez-Cobos, Jesús (129)
63. Halász, Michael (129)
64. Wildner, Johannes (129)
65. Cleobury, Stephen (125)
66. Davis, Sir Andrew (123)
    
67. Kunzel, Erich (122)
68. Shaw, Robert (119)
    
69. Segerstam, Leif (117)
70. Rozhdestvensky, Gennadi (115)
    
71. Gergiev, Valery (114)
72. Molinari-Pradelli, Francesco (113)
    
73. Jansons, Mariss (111)
74. de Fabritiis, Oliviero (111)
75. Votto, Antonio (110)
    
76. Gunzenhauser, Stephen (109)
77. Pinnock, Trevor (109)
78. Kempe, Rudolf (109)
    
79. Jochum, Eugen (107)
80. Plasson, Michel (107)
81. Willcocks, Sir David (107)
    
82. Herreweghe, Philippe (106)
83. Knappertsbusch, Hans (106)
    
84. Christophers, Harry (104)
    
85. Litton, Andrew (103)
86. Gardelli, Lamberto (103)
87. Kondrashin, Kiril (103)
88. Nagano, Kent (103)
89. Svetlanov, Yevgeny (103)
    
90. Leaper, Adrian (100)
91. Tate, Jeffrey (100)
    
92. Kegel, Herbert (99)
93. Lenard, Ondrej (98)
94. Pritchard, John (97)
    
95. Vänskä, Osmo (96)
96. Cluytens, Andre (96)
97. Schippers, Thomas (96)
    
98. Blomstedt, Herbert (95)
99. Dohnányi, Christoph von (95)
100. Erede, Alberto (95)
101. Järvi, Paavo (94)
102. Pesek, Libor (93)

Geography (cont.)

Now that we've seen where the music came from, I thought I'd take a look at where the recordings came from. Using a system similar to that used for the posts Composers and Composers, Revisited, I arrived at the following list of ensembles, ranked by number of recordings at the website ArkivMusic.com. From this, London is officially the classical music recording capital of the world. Other major countries besides England that have produced classical music recordings include Germany, USA, Austria, and Italy.

Ensembles' legacies, as measured by number of recordings appearing at ArkivMusic.com:

1. London Symphony Orchestra (1,834)
2. Philharmonia Orchestra (incl. New Philharmonia Orchestra) (1,816)
3. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (1,378)
4. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (1,220)
5. London Philharmonic Orchestra (1,051)
6. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (923)
7. English Chamber Orchestra (806)
8. Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (670)
9. Milan Teatro alla Scala Orchestra (625)
10. New York Philharmonic (538)
11. Chicago Symphony Orchestra (500)
12. Philadelphia Orchestra (489)
13. Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (456)
14. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (447)
15. Milan Teatro alla Scala Chorus (443)
16. Vienna State Opera Chorus (414)
17. Boston Symphony Orchestra (399)
18. Royal Opera House Covent Garden Orchestra (388)
19. BBC Symphony Orchestra (365)
20. Dresden Staatskapelle (360)
21. Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (356)
22. Cleveland Orchestra (316)
23. Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (295)
24. Vienna Symphony Orchestra (286)
25. Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (266)
26. National Philharmonic Orchestra (256)
    
27. Bavarian Radio Chorus (252)
28. Capella Istropolitana (250)
29. Royal Scottish National Orchestra (239)
30. Berlin State Opera Orchestra (233)
    
31. Royal Opera House Covent Garden Chorus (231)
32. Vienna State Opera Orchestra (231)
33. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (213)
34. Rome Opera House Orchestra (209)
35. BBC Philharmonic Orchestra (206)
36. King's College Choir, Cambridge (202)
37. Cologne West German Radio Symphony Orchestra (200)
    
38. Bayreuth Festival Orchestra (193)
39. Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (192)
40. Suisse Romande Orchestra (191)
41. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (190)
42. London Symphony Chorus (187)
43. NBC Symphony Orchestra (187)
    
44. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (186)
45. Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra (186)
    
46. Florence Maggio Musicale Orchestra (184)

Edit: Due to oversights, I have added six ensembles to the list since the original post, and the list is now complete.

Geography

As a result of the list from the previous post, it seems safe to say that there are six major countries associated with the classical music tradition. These are Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Russia, and England. I will now list the top 5 composers for each country, and you can think about which list comes closest to your musical tastes (for me it's very close, but I'd have to go with Russia). One final note: I assigned composers to countries based on Merriam Webster dictionary entries. Sometimes, a composer is by consensus associated with one country even though he was born in another. An example is Handel, who was born in Germany but is considered an English composer.

Germany:

1. Bach
2. Beethoven
3. Brahms
4. Schumann
5. Mendelssohn

France:

1. Debussy
2. Ravel
3. Bizet
4. Saint-Saens
5. Gounod

Italy:

1. Verdi
2. Puccini
3. Vivaldi
4. Rossini
5. Donizetti

Austria:

1. Mozart
2. Schubert
3. Haydn
4. Mahler
5. Strauss II

Russia:

1. Tchaikovsky
2. Rachmaninov
3. Prokofiev
4. Shostakovich
5. Rimsky-Korsakov

England:

1. Handel
2. Elgar
3. Britten
4. Vaughan Williams
5. Purcell

Composers, Revisited

If you listen to a piece on Classical WETA and want to buy the recording, you can do so by clicking on the provided link on the playlist. The link takes you to the website ArkivMusic.com. Here you will find Naxos recordings as well as recordings from many other (both major and minor) classical music labels. The website contains an impressive number of recordings - close to 10 times what Naxos alone offers, including recordings by famous artists.

It occurred to me that ArkivMusic might serve as a better source of data for a list of composers ranked by number of recordings in a large classical music catalog (see Composers). It turns out my intuition was correct. The following list of rankings seems far more accurate as a measure of composers' legacies. Grieg and Strauss II, to give only two examples, are closer to where I believe they should be on the list.

As before, I chose to include a composer only if that composer's number of recordings was within one order of magnitude of the #1 composer's total. This time, that approach left exactly 50 composers. (Sorry Bruckner, but someone had to be #51.) So, without further ado...

Composers' legacies, as measured by number of recordings appearing at ArkivMusic.com:

1. Mozart 6,168
2. Bach 5,519
3. Beethoven 4,606
4. Brahms 3,184
5. Schubert 3,137
6. Verdi 3,054
7. Tchaikovsky 2,793
8. Handel 2,370
9. Schumann 2,170
10. Mendelssohn 2,116
11. Wagner 2,052
12. Debussy 1,975
13. Chopin 1,944
14. Puccini 1,923
15. Haydn 1,796
16. Liszt 1,750
17. Vivaldi 1,686
18. Dvorak 1,612
19. Ravel 1,587
20. Rossini 1,579
21. Rachmaninov 1,511
22. Strauss 1,506
23. Bizet 1,398
24. Saint-Saens 1,323
25. Donizetti 1,273
26. Prokofiev 1,199
27. Gounod 1,173
28. Shostakovich 1,140
29. Faure 1,131
30. Massenet 1,108
31. Grieg 1,025
32. Mahler 984
33. Elgar 917
34. Stravinsky 878
35. Strauss II 850
36. Berlioz 764
37. Bellini 742
38. Britten 740
39. Sibelius 740
40. Vaughan Williams 734
41. Rimsky-Korsakov 732
42. Franck 730
43. Mussorgsky 707
44. Gershwin 701
45. Bartok 693
46. Weber 675
47. Telemann 666
48. Purcell 666
49. Leoncavallo 629
50. Mascagni 627

Relief

Just as the sun is better appreciated when seen through clouds, experiencing joy is always better appreciated directly following a period of sadness.

There are moments in music when emotion shifts on a dime. A skilled composer can make such a moment quite dramatic. For an example, we may turn again to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, the transition from the third to the fourth movement.