bro he was a wonderful conductor! listen! he just looks boredbut he was an excellent conductor

ABSOLUTELY

When Allied Forces found Strauss after WW2, they showed him much respect and almost reverence, to which their superiors weren't too pleased, (Strauss was thought to be German sympathizer). Your comment is completely true.

​@@metalheadjock3513not German, nazi sympathiser

I understand his daughter-in-law was Jewish so he "played ball" with the Reich. After the war he moved to Switzerland, I would say he was beyond "over it" and it looks so in this video---probably filmed for propaganda purposes.

But Mahler was known to be histrionic on the podium....

That can only have been a good thing.

+Steven Moore Still, necessarily. You're right about Fritz Reiner, and also Toscanini had a similar (true) story. But, in both cases, the orchestras had been severely worked with by a conductor BEFORE each of them got on stage, waving a stick around. It's not without high value, of course, but even in the case of both those famous conductors, the majority of the work had already been done.

Have you watched Toscanini conduct the NBC Orchestra and the young Robert Shaw's University Singers in a very old and grainy black and white early television broadcast of Beethoven's Ninth? The maestro had the orchestra in his right hand and the chorus in his left. Left index finger in the air to signal "get ready" to the chorus, dynamic changes given independently, "dragging" Robert Shaw out from under the risers for his own bow. What you say of many conductors may be true, but we "non cogniscenti" love the great ones.

What you say is what a lot of conductors think nowadays and that's why they all sound similar and boring. In former times there were at lot of conductors who really conducted and they were able to change the orchestra play within the performance. Furtwängler always said not to overestimate rehearsels and in fact in his performances 50% was just decided out of the moment within the performance.

That's true. Just listen different Performances of the same Piece he did. You will see that every Performance is different.

"99% of the conductor's work is done before the actual performance" that is 100% untrue. conductors like Toscanini and Carlos Kleiber (who conduct from memory always)do not always do what was done in the rehearsal. Rehearsal and the actual performance have different energies, a rehearsal doesn't have an audience, the level or nerves is very low. The actual performance has hundreds of people watching, from amateur musicians to music critics. Sometimes the conductor will have different ideas during the performance that were never rehearsed. The importance of a conductor is something many people partially understand. As an aspiring conductor i love to think that the rehearsal is a way of teaching the orchestra how to follow you, just to bring them into your own sound world and how you show it. Watch "Carlos Kleiber conducting Beethoven's 7th symphony, the 4th movement." Then watch other conductors and tell me if you get the same understanding of the same music, not the interpretation but his gestures according to what the music is doing and must do.

true, so many people judging the book by the cover.

Contrabassi! corte note! Always late!

To quote Stravinsky: "I watched him at rehearsals [of Josephslegende] and I admired the way he conducted. His manner with the orchestra was not admirable, however, and the musicians heartily detested him; but every corrective remark he made was exact: his ears and his musicianship were impregnable."

@@WetaMantis Nope, that was Toscanini.

Indeed!

a good point. Strauss was born 24 years later than Tchaikovsky so you'd hope he was more advanced than his predecessor . In general we celebrate artists who push things forward as opposed to create replicas. Tchaikovsky is great on his own terms of course.

Are we not done deifying historical figures? Because he was a talented composer no one might suggest that he had flaws? what's with this all or nothing attitude?

I mean it's pretty obviosu he didn't take it all that seriously, can't be one of the greatest if there's no passion behind it. most infamous maybe.

I mean if that little depresses you , your life mustn't be that bad .

@@bardo316 very interesting. That's certainly the most obvious antecedent!

Well said IM. He was not bored but rather he was restrained and reserved?

Similarities end there. JW a great/genius craftsman. Strauss obviously much more than that.

You think camera's existed in the mid-1800's?

@@FreakieFan i don't think. I know they existed in mid-1800's.

And far beyond that stupid showmen

And Bernstein never got as old.

I have a cd, Strauss conducts the "Alpensinfonie" and it is divine.

Actually that was Nazi Germany,not Austria.

He was 80 at the time of this recording.

sledgehog1 No, it was Strauss conducting his own music!

There were no cameras in Wagner's time.

and you are a first rate idiot!!!!!

He protected his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren who were Jewish. And he had a real feeling that he could help protect German culture. He stayed and he worked. He hated the Nazis. He outlived Goebbels and Hitler and passed away in 1949 at the age of 85.

@@brucekuehn4031 so very true. All too easy to adopt an armchair criticism standpoint when it comes to this area.

what idiotic nonsens..!!!!....just from looking to the orchestra, you can tell, that these guys are all nazis???? there where a lot of jewish by that time in the orchestra playing...one of them was my grandfather!!!