Happy Birthday: Andre Cluytens

Growing up this was one of my favourite recordings of Beethoven's 9th.  Andre Cluytens was a highly prolific conductor with a varied repertoire which ranged from Beethoven through French, Russian and German operas to the works of French composers such as Ravel and Rousseau.

His large recorded reprotoire is testament to his talent and worked with the like of performers such as Boris Christoff, Victoria de los Angeles, Nicolai Gedda to name but a few and was only the third non-German conductor to work at Bayreuth.  Go here for more information and here for a complete discography.