The composer and conductor at the court of Louis XIV was arrogant, impulsive and lacked self-control. Once, in a rage, he yanked the violin out of a musician's hand and smashed it. During another fateful performance, he rammed the conductor's rod — used in those days rather than a baton — right into his own foot. The wound infected, wouldn't heal, and led to his premature death in 1687.

An awful conductor: He forgot entire passages, used vague and embarrassing gestures and antagonized many an orchestra. Musicians dreaded him, but he went on conducting even after the onset of deafness. At the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, the composer only symbolically waved the baton — even after the last note. His assistant had to turn Beethoven around to see the audience applauding.

The first conductor to enjoy cult status marshaled musicians with wild gestures, hissing and stamping of feet. No detail escaped his ear or wasn't worth going over until perfect. His authority was unquestioned. Paradoxically though, as reported the later conductor Felix Weingartner, "The players had no feeling of being led. Each expressed himself freely, yet all working in a perfect ensemble."

The first noted conductor not to have been a composer himself, von Bülow turned the Berlin Philharmonic into a world-class orchestra — employing, among other things, sarcasm. Memorable observations include, "You are not a Knight of the Swan, but of the Swine" or "Your tone sounds like roast beef gravy flowing down the sewer" and the most famous bon mot: "A tenor isn't a man, but an illness."

"I can only conduct when I feel the music in my heart," said the much-loved maestro who would transport that feeling through the tiniest of motions — and his eyes. "He only needed to stand at the rostrum, and the music already sounded better than with others," said the conductor Fritz Busch. Added Pyotr Tchaikovsky, "He doesn't seem to conduct but to exert some mysterious spell."

His compositions were largely ignored during his lifetime, but as director of the Vienna Court Opera, Mahler was an autocrat, switching two-thirds of the orchestra members within months and attending to every detail in the productions, even the costumes. His ethos: Each performance had to be better than the previous one, and "Tradition is just an excuse for laziness."

As conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Toscanini was celebrated as the very embodiment of classical music in the US. An early opponent of fascism and Hitler's most prominent opponent in the cultural sector, he was himself a pure tyrant in his treatment of musicians. His much-feared temper tantrums included screaming "like bulls trapped in a slaughterhouse," in the words of one observer.

Notoriously and purposely vague in his indications of rhythm and meter, this conductor empowered his musicians as equal partners — with astonishing results; his recordings are legendary today. Manipulated and instrumentalized by the Nazi regime, Furtwängler ennobled it by being the only great conductor not to emigrate. In his own words, he stayed on "in the service of German music."

A Nazi party member in younger years, Karajan went on after war's end to dominate the Salzburg Festival and the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics to the effect of being called "Europe's Music Director." Karajan often conducted with closed eyes and a remote air. When he told the Berlin Philharmonic, "You are my extended arm," the musicians seated at their note stands felt ennobled, not degraded.

America's first home-grown conductor of international renown was Karajan's opposite: "Lenny" treated his musicians in a spirit of camaraderie, spurring them on with gestures and expressions that told a thousand stories. No one onstage or off who saw Bernstein in action ever forgot it. Conducting was like a drug to him, and after many a performance, he'd spend all night partying with his musicians.

In over four decades as music and artistic director of New York's Metropolitan Opera, Levine led more than 2,500 performances of 85 different operas, making the Met one of the world's top houses. There was a dark side: "Jimmy" is said to have sexually abused young musicians over a period of decades. He denied the allegations, but the Met abrogated all agreements with the conductor in March 2018.

The Canadian conductor and Levine's successor at the Met has a male companion and is the first openly gay major conductor. Casual, amiable and approachable, he seems the very antithesis of the remote, authoritarian brand of maestro. His leadership style promises a fresh approach and a new course for the scandalized opera house.

In his 16 years leading the Berlin Philharmonic, the British baton-wielder has opened up the institution in many ways, including access to its performances through digital media. This conductor cultivates a tone of respect with his charges. They haven't always reciprocated however: In his early years in Berlin, Rattle was harshly criticized in the ranks for breaking with orchestra traditions.

There have long been female conductors, but only recently have some emerged as stars. This Mexican maestra is a fresh presence on the scene: strong, sensitive, charismatic, unpretentious, nuanced — and utterly in control. Apart from burgeoning musicality, her authority rests on her ability to communicate — while conducting and when explaining music on social media.