Sir Georg Solti: Not Respected?

[Cellini]

I find it difficult to consider Haitink and Tennstedt in the same sentence as Solti.

I never played for Solti so I can't really say, but I know he played safe and never took musical risks, according to players I know who did work for him. I don't think he was liked or even respected by players. I never hear anyone say how wonderful he was, like they do with Guilini and other great past conductors, including Tennstedt. Haitink is still highly respected even at his venerable age. (At least Hai Tink he is ...)!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Reference has already been made to Solti's Siegfried Idyll, which appeared on Decca Legends along with the Schubert Great C Major Symphony. It's a beautiful performance. Despite recent claims to the contrary, it does seem that Solti was the conductor as the following quotation from Culshaw's "Ring Resounding" indicates:
The instrumental group was in a small enclosure in the centre of the hall, and the Walküre orchestral set-up had been pushed aside. We switched off all the main lights of the hall and brought down some standard lights from the apartment to add a warm glow to the scene and to illuminate the music-stands; and – very unusually for him – Solti was persuaded to conduct sitting down. We wanted to get the musicians completely relaxed, to get them to try and sound as their predecessors had sounded on that morning at Triebschen when the Idyll was first played for Cosima Wagner.

It was an evening of enchanted music. Nobody was watching the clock and the musicians blended to perfection: it was as if a spell had come over the Sofiensaal. We did not need to touch a control: it was pure music-making, pure joy – the sort of session that happens very rarely but more than compensates for whatever struggles one may have had in the past. We parted that night in the knowledge that a very beautiful Siegfried Idyll had been committed to tape.

[rauschwerk]

Yes, it's a lovely performance, spoilt only to my ears by the VPO oboe. Solti conducted the piece at around that time in London with members of the LSO, and perhaps its a shame that that one wasn't recorded instead. A reviewer of the original LP (c/w Bruckner 7) certainly thought so.

[umslopogaas]

For me, Solti was undoubtedly a great conductor and a revered guide through classical music for more than forty years. His 1965 LP of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra was the first proper, grown up music I ever bought. I've still got it. And it was his Das Rheingold recording, which I first heard while still at school, that awoke the possibilities of opera. Others have already praised his Bartok recordings, I can only agree. Also his late Haydn symphonies, which I have on CD and find excellent for playing in the car. And the magnificent Der Rosenkavalier, worth owning the LPs for the book (its too sumptuous to be called a booklet), let alone the music.

I think the key to problems with his reputation lies in the way doubts are expressed. Critics are "inclined" to be "sniffy" - yes, but they are rather unwilling to come out and say why. Solti was energetic, hard driven and aggressive in his performances, and I like it. I think critics find it superficial and unsympathetic. Also, he had a long and productive career with Decca and he got to record, among others, the Vienna Phil and the LSO. So, best recorded sound, best orchestras, aggressive style - you can sort of see how that would put some people off, but it would be difficult to come out and say so. But thank goodness for Decca and Solti, that's all I can say.

[Cellini]

I think the key to problems with his reputation lies in the way doubts are expressed. Critics are "inclined" to be "sniffy" - yes, but they are rather unwilling to come out and say why. Solti was energetic, hard driven and aggressive in his performances, and I like it. I think critics find it superficial and unsympathetic. Also, he had a long and productive career with Decca and he got to record, among others, the Vienna Phil and the LSO. So, best recorded sound, best orchestras, aggressive style - you can sort of see how that would put some people off, but it would be difficult to come out and say so. But thank goodness for Decca and Solti, that's all I can say.

I'm not quite sure how using the best recorded sound, and the best orchestras would put people off? If the recording is excellent as a recording and as playing, then perhaps people do not like the interpretation. That's all that's left! I would think that might be the reason people might not like Solti - and maybe the reason was his aggressiveness in interpretation that spolit his performances?

[umslopogaas]

Post 20 Cellini

Apologies, I didnt make myself clear. What I was trying to say was that because he used such top quality orchestras, and because Decca provided top quality sound, some critics may have felt that Solti didnt actually have to be very good, because the VPO or LSO and Decca between them were going to produce an excellent result whatever he did. Add to that his sometimes driving, hard-edged manner and there were some, I suspect, who thought him superficial and aggressive rather than having interpretative depth. I simply dont agree, but its a view that does sometimes seem to come across. Difficult for a critic to say such things openly, of course, hence the "sniffyness".

[Suffolkcoastal]

I've never had much problem with Solti's interpretations. Wonderful Alpensinfonie, one of the great if not greatest Ring Cycles, outstanding Bartok, he even made Mahler briefly bearable for me.

[Cellini]

Post 20 Cellini

Apologies, I didnt make myself clear. What I was trying to say was that because he used such top quality orchestras, and because Decca provided top quality sound, some critics may have felt that Solti didnt actually have to be very good, because the VPO or LSO and Decca between them were going to produce an excellent result whatever he did. Add to that his sometimes driving, hard-edged manner and there were some, I suspect, who thought him superficial and aggressive rather than having interpretative depth. I simply dont agree, but its a view that does sometimes seem to come across. Difficult for a critic to say such things openly, of course, hence the "sniffyness".

Thanks umslopogaas - I understand now.

[Roehre]

I've never had much problem with Solti's interpretations. Wonderful Alpensinfonie, one of the great if not greatest Ring Cycles, outstanding Bartok, he even made Mahler briefly bearable for me.

Weird, used to Kubelik and Haitink, Solti's Mahler nearly put me off that composer, the only conductor nearly doing so.

[Roehre]

....Add to that his sometimes driving, hard-edged manner and there were some, I suspect, who thought him superficial and aggressive rather than having interpretative depth. I simply dont agree, but its a view that does sometimes seem to come across. ...

Knowing his Wagner, I must agree he did wunderful things, but I'm afraid -having seen him rehearsing and conducting - I am in the "superficial and aggressive rather than having interpretative depth" camp (given e.g. his Mahler interpretation IMO).
He really was that unpleasant shouting skull, and that for me reflects in most of his recordings.

[StephenO]

Knowing his Wagner, I must agree he did wunderful things, but I'm afraid -having seen him rehearsing and conducting - I am in the "superficial and aggressive rather than having interpretative depth" camp (given e.g. his Mahler interpretation IMO).
He really was that unpleasant shouting skull, and that for me reflects in most of his recordings.

Shouting, screaming or otherwise, the Skull was nevertheless incapable of giving a boring performance. His Mahler recordings - particularly 2 and 8 - have the excitement, raw power and emotional range which many modern redordings, and live performances, lack. Aggressive, possibly, but never bland.

[Roehre]

Shouting, screaming or otherwise, the Skull was nevertheless incapable of giving a boring performance. His Mahler recordings - particularly 2 and 8 - have the excitement, raw power and emotional range which many modern redordings, and live performances, lack. Aggressive, possibly, but never bland.

Not being bland does not imply that a recording/performance is according to the score or its intensions.
An aggressive approach kills many subtilties and/or runs over music that is not meant to be agressive, as e.g. the "pastoral" passages in Mahler 2i or the beginning of Mahler8ii.

[Cellini]

Shouting, screaming or otherwise, the Skull was nevertheless incapable of giving a boring performance. His Mahler recordings - particularly 2 and 8 - have the excitement, raw power and emotional range which many modern redordings, and live performances, lack. Aggressive, possibly, but never bland.

I'm afraid I found his performances totally unmusical and rather crude. He may have been good at Bartok, the one composer I never heard him do. He was 'ungarian after all. (And I totally admire Bartok).

His Mahler would have been unmentionable ...

[StephenO]

Not being bland does not imply that a recording/performance is according to the score or its intensions.
An aggressive approach kills many subtilties and/or runs over music that is not meant to be agressive, as e.g. the "pastoral" passages in Mahler 2i or the beginning of Mahler8ii.

But Solti was capable of great subtlety. Just listen to the LSO woodwinds in the last movement of the Resurrection. IMO he was one of the few conductors who's managed to be totally convincing in the pastoral passages of Mahler 2 without losing the symphony's power, invoking a sense of both terror and peace that outdoes even Bernstein.

[BBMmk2]

Solti, hmmm, like HvK, was a great commercial success. It's a pity that critics seem to have this snobbery aboiut them when conductors acheive commercial success.