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Lists edited by Brian, except the guitarists list, edited by George. The artists must be from the recording era to be eligible.

Greatest Conductors
1. Herbert Von Karajan
2. Leonard Bernstein
3. Wilhelm Furtwangler
4. Carlos Kleiber
5. Claudio Abbado
6. Arturo Toscanini
7. George Szell
8. Otto Klemperer
9. John Eliot Gardiner
10. Colin Davis
11. Simon Rattle
12. Bernard Haitink
13. Karl Bohm
14. Nikolaus Harnoncourt
15. Leopold Stokowski
16. Adrian Boult
17. Pierre Boulez
18. George Solti
19. Bruno Walter
20. Rafael Kubelik
21. Fritz Reiner
22. Carlos Maria Giulini
23. Eugene Ormandy
24. John Barbirolli
25. James Levine
26. Lorin Maazel
27. Neville Marriner
28. Michael Tilson Thomas
29. Ferenc Fricsay
30. Yevgeny Mravinsky

Greatest Classical Bassoonists
1. Klaus Thunemann
2. Milan Turković
3. Julie Price
4. Judith LeClair
5. Gustavo Núñez
6. Albrecht Holder
7. William Waterhouse
8. Archie Camden
9. Bernard Garfield
10. Martin Gatt

Greatest Classical Cellists
1. Pablo Casals
2. Mstislav Rostropovich
3. Yo-Yo Ma
4. Jacqueline du Pré
5. Mischa Maisky
6. Paul Tortelier
7. Gregor Piatigorsky
8. Emanuel Feuermann
9. Steven Isserlis
10. Pierre Fournier
11. Julian Lloyd Webber
12. János Starker
13. Truls Mørk
14. Heinrich Schiff
15. Lynn Harrell
16. Natalia Gutman
17. Gautier Capuçon
18. Beatrice Harrison
19. Alisa Weilerstein
20. Anner Bylsma

Greatest Classical Clarinetists
1. Sabine Meyer
2. Martin Fröst
3. Richard Stoltzman
4. Karl Leister
5. Stanley Drucker
6. Sharon Kam
7. Harold Wright
8. Robert Marcellus
9. Charles Neidich
10. Gervase de Peyer

Greatest Classical Flutists
1. James Galway
2. Jean-Pierre Rampal
3. Georges Barrère
4. Emmanuel Pahud
5. Jeanne Baxtresser
6. Marcel Moyse
7. Jasmine Choi
8. Julius Baker
9. Paula Robison
10. Michel Debost

Greatest Classical French Horn Players
1. Dennis Brain
2. Barry Tuckwell
3. Hermann Baumann
4. Dale Clevenger
5. Philip Farkas
6. Radek Baborák
7. Sarah Willis
8. Stefan Dohr
9. Marie-Luise Neunecker
10. Radovan Vlatković

GREATEST CLASSICAL GUITARISTS
1. Andres Segovia
2. Agustin Barrios
3. Julian Bream
4. Ida Presti & Alexandre Lagoya
5. Celedonio Romero
6. Miguel Llobet
7. John Williams
8. Narciso Yepes
9. Abel Carlevaro
10. Christopher Parkening
11. Manuel Barrueco
12. David Russell
13. Pepe Romero
14. Angel Romero
15. Kazuhito Yamashita
16. Goran Sollscher
17. Alirio Diaz
18. Roland Dyens
19. Jose Rey de la Torre
20. Julio Sagreras
21. Paul Galbraith
22. Eliot Fisk
23. David Starobin
24. Sharon Isbin
25. Jorge Morel
+ Regino Sainz de la Maza, Leo Brouwer, Ben Verdery, Jason Vieaux, Oscar Ghighlia, Hubert Kappel, Alvaro Pierri, Tilman Hoppstock, Scott Tennant, Ricardo Cobo, Eduardo Fernandez, Jorge Caballero, Vicente Gomez, Norbert Kraft, Sergio and Eduardo Abreu, Pavel Steidl, Remi Boucher, John Holmquist, Gerald Garcia, Denis Azabagic, Li Jie, Ana Vidovic, Liona Boyd, Vladimir Mikulka, William Kanengiser, Andrew York, Maria Luisa Anido, Louise Walker

Greatest Classical Harpists
1. Marcel Grandjany
2. Carlos Salzedo
3. Nicanor Zabaleta
4. Judy Loman
5. Henriette Renie
6. Lily Laskine
7. Isabelle Moretti
8. Susann McDonald
9. Xavier de Maistre
10. Catrin Finch

Greatest Classical Oboists
1. Heinz Holliger
2. Albrecht Mayer
3. Marcel Tabuteau
4. François Leleux
5. Alex Klein
6. Paul McCandless
7. Elaine Douvas
8. Katherine Needleman
9. Leon Goossens
10. Eugene Izotov

Greatest Classical Organists
1. Marie-Claire Alain
2. Christopher Herrick
3. Peter Hurford
4. Ton Koopman
5. Simon Preston
6. Maurice Duruflé
7. Kevin Bowyer
8. Louis Vierne
9. Wolfgang Rübsam
10. Michael Murray

Greatest Classical Pianists
1. Vladimir Horowitz
2. Arthur Rubinstein
3. Sergei Rachmaninoff
4. Sviatoslav Richter
5. Glenn Gould
6. Martha Argerich
7. Alfred Cortot
8. Dinu Lipatti
9. Emil Gilels
10. Claudio Arrau
11. Arthur Schnabel
12. Murray Perahia
13. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
14. Wilhelm Kempff
15. Alfred Brendel
16. Maurizio Pollini
17. Radu Lupu
18. Daniel Barenboim
19. Vladimir Ashkenazy
20. Krystian Zimerman
21. Josef Hofmann
22. Lang Lang
23. Evgeny Kissin
24. Grigory Sokolov
25. Andras Schiff
26. Mitsuko Uchida
27. Leif Ove Andsnes
28. Myra Hess
29. Edwin Fischer
30. Yuja Wang
31. Alicia de Larrocha
32. Van Cliburn
33. Georges Cziffra
34. Stephen Hough
35. Walter Gieseking
36. Marc-André Hamelin
37. Clara Haskil
38. Ignaz Friedman
39. Maria João Pires
40. Wilhelm Backhaus

Greatest Classical Trumpeters
1. Maurice André
2. Wynton Marsalis
3. Sergei Nakariakov
4. Håkan Hardenberger
5. Timofei Dokschitzer
6. Alison Balsom
7. Adolph Herseth
8. Philip Smith
9. Rafael Méndez
10. Tine Thing Helseth

Greatest Classical Violinists
1. Jascha Heifetz
2. Yehudi Menuhin
3. Itzhak Perlman
4. Isaac Stern
5. David Oistrakh
6. Fritz Kreisler
7. Nathan Milstein
8. Pablo de Sarasate
9. Eugene Ysaÿe
10. Joseph Szigeti
11. Leonid Kogan
12. Henryk Szeryng
13. Joseph Joachim
14. Arthur Grumiaux
15. Maxim Vengerov
16. Hilary Hahn
17. Zino Francescatti
18. Anne-Sophie Mutter
19. George Enescu
20. Gidon Kremer
21. Joshua Bell
22. Pinchas Zukerman
23. Kyung-Wha Chung
24. Mischa Elman
25. Ginette Neveu
26. Janine Jansen
27. Ivry Gitlis
28. Leonidas Kavakos
29. Nicola Benedetti
30. Michael Rabin

Greatest Classical Violists
1. William Primrose
2. Lionel Tertis
3. Yuri Bashmet
4. Tabea Zimmermann
5. Nobuko Imai
6. Kim Kashkashian
7. Lawrence Power
8. Paul Hindemith
9. Paul Neubauer
10. Rebecca Clarke

Greatest Opera Singers
1. Luciano Pavarotti
2. Maria Callas
3. Enrico Caruso
4. Plácido Domingo
5. Joan Sutherland
6. Cecilia Bartoli
7. Jussi Björling
8. Leontyne Price
9. Renée Fleming
10. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
11. Renata Tebaldi
12. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
13. Montserrat Caballé
14. José Carreras
15. Kirsten Flagstad
16. Jessye Norman
17. Bryn Terfel
18. Beniamino Gigli
19. Fritz Wunderlich
20. Birgit Nilsson
21. Anna Netrebko
22. Tito Gobbi
23. Angela Gheorghiu
24. Kiri Te Kanawa
25. Feodor Chaliapin
26. Victoria de los Ángeles
27. Christa Ludwig
28. Jonas Kaufmann
29. Dmitri Hvorostovsky
30. Nicolai Gedda
31. Marilyn Horne
32. Franco Corelli
33. Mirella Freni
34. Sherrill Milnes
35. Beverly Sills
36. Janet Baker
37. Hans Hotter
38. Juan Diego Flórez
39. Lauritz Melchior
40. Nicolai Ghiaurov

I added a list of cellists in the first post.

Should it be mentioned somewhere that only the recording era artists are eligible for these lists?

That's a good idea, so I added that. I also added top 10 lists for bassoonists, clarinetists, flutists, French horn players, harpists, oboists, organists, trumpeters, and violists.

I'd put Marc-André Hamelin just above Uchida on the pianist list. He's considered the greatest technician of this generation, has had a successful career as a composer, and has been a championed lesser known pieces and composers.

Wonder if the vocalists list is doable/appropriate for this section?

Great list! I’d definitely put Marc-André Hamelin above Uchida, his technique and dedication to rare works are impressive. As for vocalists, it could work, but maybe deserves its own list since it's a bit different from the instruments.

I think that Tim meant to create a new list for vocalists, not to add vocalists to a list of instrumentalists. Maybe that is doable. In classical music, the vocal music consists of opera, choral music, and lieder. I'd have to give some thought into how to approach doing a list/lists given the different kinds of vocal music.

I'll take a look at the pianists.

I decided to just make a list of opera singers, because they're the most widely recognized of classical music singers, so researching it was manageable. That list is now in the first post of the thread, and has 40 entries. Though all are opera singers, some also sing/sang lieder or pop crossover music.

I will admit that I am not too well-versed in either opera singing or classical music in general but seems like a nice list.

Wynton Marsalis is the second-greatest classical trumpeter ever?

Marsalis is more of a jazz artist than a classical one, but he has made acclaimed classical recordings too. There are just 2 trumpeters in the Gramophone Hall of Fame, and he's one of them. Part of it is that trumpet has a fairly small role in classical music, so #2 on that list isn't as much of a distinction as #2 on many other lists would be. That was a tough list for me though. I feel like #3-8 are all close to equal. So that's another thing that led me to Marsalis at #2: there wasn't a clear alternative choice.

The question about Hamelin got me looking at the whole pianists list and doing some more research, and I ended up revising the whole list. The old list is still in the first post, with the new one below, but I'll probably replace the old one in a couple of days. The order is considerably different, but I only replaced 3 of the names. I don't agree with Hamelin being ahead of Uchiba, as I find more sources that rank Uchiba among the greatest pianists than Hamelin, but I did add him to the list, along with Yuja Wang and Stephen Hough. Those 3 replaced Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Vladimir Sofronitsky, and Solomon Cutner. Here's the revision:

1. Vladimir Horowitz
2. Arthur Rubinstein
3. Sergei Rachmaninoff
4. Sviatoslav Richter
5. Glenn Gould
6. Martha Argerich
7. Alfred Cortot
8. Dinu Lipatti
9. Emil Gilels
10. Claudio Arrau
11. Arthur Schnabel
12. Murray Perahia
13. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
14. Wilhelm Kempff
15. Alfred Brendel
16. Maurizio Pollini
17. Radu Lupu
18. Daniel Barenboim
19. Vladimir Ashkenazy
20. Krystian Zimerman
21. Josef Hofmann
22. Lang Lang
23. Evgeny Kissin
24. Grigory Sokolov
25. Andras Schiff
26. Mitsuko Uchida
27. Leif Ove Andsnes
28. Myra Hess
29. Edwin Fischer
30. Yuja Wang
31. Alicia de Larrocha
32. Van Cliburn
33. Georges Cziffra
34. Stephen Hough
35. Walter Gieseking
36. Marc-André Hamelin
37. Clara Haskil
38. Ignaz Friedman
39. Maria João Pires
40. Wilhelm Backhaus

Brian wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 6:38 pm I decided to just make a list of opera singers, because they're the most widely recognized of classical music singers, so researching it was manageable. That list is now in the first post of the thread, and has 40 entries. Though all are opera singers, some also sing/sang lieder or pop crossover music.

No mention for Elena Obraztsova?

Maybe off topic but after looking at this list I'm now curious if they've allowed Anna Netrebko back on the scene. I could be wrong, but I feel like they canceled her for not having an opinion on the Russian invasion.

Tim wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 8:31 pm

Brian wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2024 6:38 pm I decided to just make a list of opera singers, because they're the most widely recognized of classical music singers, so researching it was manageable. That list is now in the first post of the thread, and has 40 entries. Though all are opera singers, some also sing/sang lieder or pop crossover music.

No mention for Elena Obraztsova?

In the various sources that I checked, Elena didn't have very much of a presence. Of those that didn't make the list, the four that probably came the closest are Peter Pears, Jon Vickers, Kathleen Ferrier, and René Pape.