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♫ MY FAVORITE MUSICAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME (A TO Z) WRITE-OFF ♫Jun 05 '05 (Updated Jan 03 '06) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Here's a list of my all-time favorite musical performers. It's an eclectic list, featuring a majority of classical music performers but many other kinds of music as well.
This posting is intended as a contribution to JAQUARDOG'S 1ST EVER WRITE-OFF. Although my first love in music (by a wide margin) is classical music (all periods, from pre-renaissance to modern), my tastes are somewhat eclectic, though far from universal. I enjoy rock music (mostly that from the fifties and the seventies), jazz, flamenco, American folk music, and indigenous folk music from many countries. My familiarity with popular music more recent than about 1980 is very poor. I dislike rap, heavy metal, and country (other than bluegrass, which I adore). Correct spellings NOT guaranteed! I've probably omitted some favorites that have slipped my mind. ******************************************************************** My Favorite Musical Performers (A-Z) A: Alina (cello; my daughter; o.k., there's some bias operating here, but she's darn good) Ernest Ansermet (conductor) Claudio Annau (pianist) Vladamir Ashkenazy (conductor) B: The Beatles (everything beginning with and after Rubber Soul) Carlo Bergonzi (tenor) Leonard Bernstein (conductor, especially for highly dynamic orchestra works) E. Power Biggs (organist) Theodore Bikel (Russian gypsy songs, etc.) Jussi Bjoerling (tenor) (near top of list) Karl Böhm (conductor) Borodin Quartet (for Russian quartet repertoire) Adrian Boult (conductor, esp. for English orchestral works) Oscar Brand (Bawdy Sea Chanties, etc.) Julian Bream (classical guitar) Arthur Brown (The Crazy World of . . .) Dave Brubeck (Jazz) C: Mountserrat Caballé (soprano, esp. Spanish and Italian vocal music and opera) [Marie Callas – not a chance! Sorry, Stephen.] Pablo Casals (cello) Fernando Corena (bass) Ileana Cotrubas (soprano) Country Joe and the Fish (Rock) Cream (Rock) Régine Crespin (soprano) Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young) (Rock) D: Colin Davis (conductor, English & German repertoire) Alfred Deller (counter-tenor) Mario Del Monaco (tenor; Italian opera repertoire) Victoria de los Angeles (soprano; near top of list) The Del Vikings (fifties rock) Manitas de Plata (flamenco) Guiseppe Di Steffano (tenor) Placido Domingo (tenor, Italian repertoire) Fats Domino (fifties rock) The Doors (sixties rock) Antal Dorati (conductor) D'Oyly Carte Opera Company (Gilbert & Sullivan operettas) Richard Dyer-Bennett (counter-tenor; bawdy songs) Bobby Dylan (sixties folk-rock) E: Philippe Entremont (piano) The Everly Brothers (fifties rock-country) F: Mimi and Richard Farina (sixties folk-rock) Fine Arts Quartet (classical quartet repertoire) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (possibly the greatest baritone ever) Ella Fitzgerald (jazz vocalist) Kirsten Flagstad (soprano, esp. for Wagner) G: Nicolai Gedda (tenor, German and Italian repertoire) Benny Goodman (orchestra, sextet, etc.) Noah Greenberg (high authenticity renaissance repertoire) Arlo Guthrie (sixties folk-rock; Alice's Restaurant) Woody Guthrie (father of Arlo; forties folk music) H: Ernst Haefliger (tenor, mostly German repertoire) Howard Hanson (esp. American repertoire and Bloch) Jascha Heifetz (one of two or three greatest violinists) Billie Holliday (jazz vocalist) Buddy Holly (with and without the Crickets) Marilyn Horne (mezzo-soprano) I: Eugene Istomin (piano; a stretch, but I didn't want to leave "I" blank) J: Antonio Janigro (cello) Gundula Janowitz (soprano, German repertoire) Jefferson Airplane (Starship) Spike Jones (musical humor) Janis Joplin (rock vocalist) Scott Joplin (ragtime) Julliard String Quartet (classical quartet repertoire, esp. modern) K: Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano) Herbert von Karajan (conductor) Wilhelm Kempff (piano) Kiril Kondrashin (Russian orchestral repertoire) Helmut Krebs (tenor, choral music) Rafael Kubelik (conductor) L: Tom Lehrer (humorous songs) Erich Leinsdorf (conductor) Lotte Lenya (German cabaret and theater songs) Richard Lewis (tenor, Renaissance vocal repertoire) Little Richard (fifties rock) George London (bass-baritone) M: Loren Maazel (conductor) Edith Mathis (soprano, mainly choral music) Melanie (rock vocalist) Yehudi Menuhin (violin) Robert Merrill (baritone) Glenn Miller (swing) Sherrill Milnes (baritone) Dimitri Mitropolis (conductor, pianist) Anna Moffo (soprano) The Mothers of Invention (see Zappa) (sixties rock) Charles Munch (conductor) N: New Lost City Ramblers (bluegrass) Birgit Nilsson (soprano, esp. Wagner) Nirvana (eighties/nineties rock) Gulomar Novaes (piano, esp. for Chopin) O: Russell Oberlin (counter-tenor) David Oistrakh (one of two or three greatest violinists ever) Eugene Ormandy (conductor, all-time favorite, esp. for lyrical orchestral pieces) P: Luciano Pavorotti (tenor, esp. Italian opera repertoire) Peter Pears (thin-voiced English-style tenor, esp. for Britten) Itzhak Perlman (violin) Edith Piaf (cabaret singer) Gregor Piatigorsky (cello, one of two or three greatest ever) Pierre Pierlot (oboe) Elvis Presley (the early stuff, before he became the first Elvis impersonator) Georges Prêtre (conductor, esp. French orchestral music) Hermann Prey (baritone) Leontyne Price (soprano) William Primrose (viola; poss. best ever) Felix Prohaska (conductor, esp. baroque repertoire) Q: I'm drawing a blank! R: Jean-Pierre Rampal (my all-time favorite flutist) Ruggiero Ricci (violon, esp. for Sarasate and Paganini) Svlatoslav Richter (pianist) The Rolling Stones (Rock; some only) Hilde Rössl-Majdan (contralto) Matislav Rostropovich (cellist) Artur Rubinstein (piano, esp. Chopin, Brahms, Schumann) S: Sabicas (flamenco) Hermann Scherchen (conductor) Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano – wow!) Pete Seeger (folk) Andres Segovia (incomparable classical guitarist) Ravi Shankar (Ragas) John Shirley-Quirk (baritone) Cesare Siepi (bass-baritone) [Beverly Sills – uh-uh] Sly and the Family Stone (sixties rock) Solisti di Zagreb (woodwind chamber repertoire) Georg Solti (conductor) Maria Stader (soprano) Steppenwolf (seventies rock) Isaac Stern (violinist) Teresa Stich-Randall (soprano, esp. baroque choral repertoire) Leopold Stokowski (Fantasia anyone?) Joan Sutherland (esp. bel canto opera repertoire) George Szell (conductor) T: Robert Tear (tenor, esp. English and baroque repertoires) Renata Tebaldi (soprano, my favorite for Italian opera repertoire) Three Dog Night (seventies rock) Arturo Toscanini (not much of his work made it to recording era) Giorgio Tozzi (bass) Traffic (seventies rock) U: Gerard Unger (tenor) V: Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano, greatest Russian one ever; married Rostropovich) Frederica Von Stade (soprano, esp. Mozart and Hadyn) W: Eberhard Wächter (baritone) Bruno Walter (conductor) Leonard Warren (baritone) The Who (sixties rock) X: Nothing to offer! Y: Narciso Yepes (classical guitar) Z: Frank Zappa (most) Zimbler Sinfonietta (esp. Boyce symphonies)  |
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