Each conductor was asked to name his or her top three symphonies in any order before the magazine processed that into a top 20.
If the conductors answered honestly, the Eroica is highly regarded, though maybe not #1 for everyone.
I would put my two Bruckner symphonies (7 and in the top 10, take away one Mahler and the Berlioz - just because something is scored for 20 horns and two tubas doesn't make it worthy. I think they just wanted something French on the list to balance out all the Germans and Austrians.

I dislike "greatest" lists and ranking things, especially in the arts.
I hear you and I agree with you. Nonetheless, Eroica and Ludwig Van have a special place where symphony is concerned.
'Ne cherchez plus mon coeur, les bêtes l'ont mangé.'
Baudelaire

I dislike "greatest" lists and ranking things, especially in the arts. But it gives people something to talk about.
I hope something by Bruckner made the top 20. Maybe I'll bother to look sometime. Either his 7th or 8th symphony should have made the top 10 in my opinion.

I had the great pleasure of hearing it live for my first time this summer. Tanglewood Music Fellows were the performers, including the conductor. Students, but exceptionally talented, many destined for world-class careers.

I've often said something similar about Verdi, as I'd rather listen to Verdi's string quartet than to
La Traviata
any day.

Nice, but if Mahler (and Tchaikovsky!) made it to the symphonies Top, so much more should Bruckner.
Is this bothering you?

Where is Bruckner?!
In my perfect world, off somewhere writing more short pieces for chamber ensemble instead of symphonies:

Where is Bruckner?!
Admittedly, a top 10 is not enough for symphonies. Happy we!
Is this bothering you?

Nielsen's 4th?
I love that.
You're my wife now.

Mahler's 3rd? Nice music movement by movement, but I feel not as convincing as a collective whole. Mahler's Symphonies 4-6 are the zenith of his symphonic output, in my opinion.
Having three Mahler symphonies out of ten on the list is a little excessive to begin with. One of his works (in my opinion the 5th or 6th) should be in the top 10, but you aren't going to convince me that three of the ten greatest symphonies ever written were Mahler's, particularly not the 3d.

Mahler's 3rd? Nice music movement by movement, but I feel not as convincing as a collective whole. Mahler's Symphonies 4-6 are the zenith of his symphonic output, in my opinion.

As long as fud-slush is still a fan, that's all that matters!
You're my wife now.

At the risk of sounding like a philistine, where's Dvorak's 9th?!
Good point. Fairly recently, somebody asked me to guess the most played works by American orchestras today. I guessed either Beethoven 5 or 7 (don't remember which) and the New World Symphony. I was wright about the Beethoven - 7 was right on top, followed by 5 - but not even close on Dvorak. Maybe people are burning out on him?

At the risk of sounding like a philistine, where's Dvorak's 9th?!
You're my wife now.

It is the very piece that made symphony what it is and also put it on the same level of sublimity and sophisticatedness as opera. I am not surprised.
'Ne cherchez plus mon coeur, les bêtes l'ont mangé.'
Baudelaire

Hipsters. Too cool to vote Beethoven 9 into the top spot.
At least there's no Shostakovich.

I think I'd like Mahler 2 more than I do (which is a lot) if there wasn't so much effing 'joining god in the heavens' to it.
There's very little mention of God in the lyrics, surprisingly given the subject matter. I think there's only one explicit mention in the entirety of the last movement; a few more in the one preceding it.
warriorspirit
: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.

Ah, women are much the better species in all regardsexcept composing, painting, conducting, playing the piano, playing the violin, jazz piano
Not to mention mathematics, the physical sciences, and engineering.
Hey, how about that! So it's OK to say things like this on the Classical Music board now and not be called a sexist piece of beep by the P. C. Police? Times have changed.
All I ever spoke of was composing, not playing an instrument, engineering, and the rest, for which I got eviscerated. I guess I didn't say it charmingly enough.

I'm surprised however by the number of recordings with too-slow a last movement. The classic Kleiber recording suffers from it & I just can't get into it unless it sizzles along speedilysurprisingly, Karajan's 63 recording does this very well, as does Harnoncourt's.
Kleiber has an even better recording than the famous one: a live one from Bayreuth from 1982:
https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Symphonie-No-Ludwig-Van/dp/B000E9X6JE/
It is, by a good distance, the most fiery, passionate, rhythmically precise reading of that work I've heard of. Not as refined as his famous one, probably because of the orchestras, but it's the recording that finally made me love (rather than just appreciate) that symphony. I don't recall the tempo of the last movement, but I don't recall that performance being too slow anywhere.
warriorspirit
: if the penis is used as a pencil holder we'll incur a cost.

He seems like nothing more than an aged lefty student union rep to me.
I agree, and almost as bad, his favorite poet is Ben Okri. It's just that all the other available options are so much worse.
He's a useless 'leader' too, with as much chance of winning a General Election as Clinton, Merkel & May have of going transgender
Maybe, but on the other hand, he IS the leader of mainstream party, which is better than the left has managed recently in any other major country outside of Latin America (unless I'm forgetting somebody). After the Tories have had some time to prove they still don't know how to fix the economy and maybe also mismanage Brexit, who knows what might be possible?

Thanks for that.
Really, you'd be a Corbyn supporter? What's to support!? He seems like nothing more than an aged lefty student union rep to me. He's a useless 'leader' too, with as much chance of winning a General Election as Clinton, Merkel & May have of going transgender

Clinton, and May insofar as the UK matters, both mean a continuation of the dysfunctional neoliberal status quo where the rich have all the money and therefore the world's producers can't sell their products because the consumers are too poor (as you can perhaps guess, if I were British, I'd be a Corbyn supporter); Clinton also wants to escalate America's existing wars, and proxy wars with Russia, and start some new ones if possible; and she'll almost certainly pass the TPP, assuming Obama doesn't manage to pass it while he's still in office; Merkel makes Clinton and May look sane in economic terms as she continues to drain the Eurozone's blood to feed Germany, plus the brilliant idea of importing almost a million young men from some of the most strongly patriarchal societies in the world into a sexually liberal, moderately feminist democracy.

Maybe, but it's a better thought than Trump & Corbyn.
What's your main beef with that trio? Just curious& what do you think of Thatcher?

Ha, yes, but maybe not world leadersthe triumvirate of Clinton, May & Merkel could be a force for good in the world
Triple vomit. But there have been a considerable number of great female world leaders - your own Bess 1.0, Cate the Great, Maria Theresa (best Habsburg ever) & of course Elizabeth Warren would be the best president since FDR if only she could be bothered to try for the job.