Or, after watching two nights of Noseda, who is the sweatiest conductor ? Sorry to hijack the thread on the first reply tonybob but I can't recall any mountainous conductors. Most of the elderly ones are getting decidedly portly ( Norrington, Colin Davis ) not helped by some sartorial choices. But not real porkers.

Oliver Sudden, anecdote recycler, writes:

Bruno Maderna was once, it appears, conducting a new piece when he noticed an alarming discrepancy between what the orchestra were playing and what he saw on the page. He stopped the orchestra to remonstrate here and there but as far as their parts were concerned everything was in order.

The composer then came up to the stage and pushed Maderna's gut off the score, revealing some lines of music which had hitherto been hidden.

 

Michail Jurowski is well on the way to becoming a serious contender.



And although son Vladimir has now developed a lean and hungry look, when he first appeared on the scene he was surprisingly lardy himself. All photographs of the 'puppy-fat' period have mysteriously disappeared from Mr Google's reach but I have blackmailable evidence in an old ROH programme.

...and here's another one...

Now here's a maestro I bet you weren't expecting. Obviously these are from before he moved away from the land of the two-hour set lunch.

Contender for fattest and sweatiest: James Levine. I was once at a recording session during which he continually mopped his brow with a large towel.