Sir Georg Solti

[Cockney Sparrow]

Especially the moment the trumpets come in!!

Absolutely. That recording is my test disc for any audio, not least because I know it so well having listened so many times. (For live performances Colin Davies could always be relied upon).

Its a strange thing, I'm very dedicated to vocal, choral, operatic music and they provide arresting, memorable and thrilling moments - but the most thrilling part of all in the 8th is when the vocal music has ceased, and the brass takes centre stage in the recorded sound in those final moments. Those last 10 minutes, from pianissimo to fortississimo(+++) I find quite extraordinary and an amazing experience in live performance.

[BBMmk2]

Absolutely. That recording is my test disc for any audio, not least because I know it so well having listened so many times. (For live performances Colin Davies could always be relied upon).

Its a strange thing, I'm very dedicated to vocal, choral, operatic music and they provide arresting, memorable and thrilling moments - but the most thrilling part of all in the 8th is when the vocal music has ceased, and the brass takes centre stage in the recorded sound in those final moments. Those last 10 minutes, from pianissimo to fortississimo(+++) I find quite extraordinary and an amazing experience in live performance.

Brass always best! :)

[richardfinegold]

I've always felt Solti has been given a bad press by the critics who envy his success. Ditto Karajan.

Very few of his recordings are particularly "hard driven", though there are moments when this is true; Elgar 2 and Elgar Violin Concerto spring to mind (as does his Alpine Symphony). But his Wagner is so beautifully paced and his Decca Verdi Requiem is positively relaxed compared with many others.

I felt he was often at his best with the Vienna Philharmonic, though the orchestra didn't like him to begin with. His time at the Royal Opera House was special too, and his Eugene Onegin is the one I prefer to all others, including Russian ones.

He was lucky enough to record for Decca, who could always be relied upon to bring out the best in performers, so perhaps that gave him a slight advantage in the recording studio. Sadly, I never heard him live.

I remember when the Rite of Spring with the CSO was released. There was some criticism that it was over aggressive, that not only was the Victim being sacrificed but that she was being piled on with multiple tubas, or some nonesense. I recently bought the big Decca box that features this recording and what a lot of hyperbole that was. There is excitement, quite visceral, but IMO nothing is out of place or distasteful.
Someone mentioned his Planets with The LPO. It's my favorite version, precisely because it avoids over italization of the big tunes, such as The trio in Jupiter

[richardfinegold]

Not for the first time, I wish I could relive my younger days, this time with respect to all the Solti concerts I attended. I had this tendency early to take for granted what he had to offer. I didn't realize that he and Karajan represented the end of an era, of the star Conductors trained around WW II who could be utterly individual and perfectionist simultaneously. With their passing we entered a different era in music making. My younger oafish self tended to be hyper critical; it wasn't until the very last few Concerts that I relaxed, enjoyed what was on offer, and just appreciated what a unique Musician he was.
It was sobering to realize that the Reiners, Solti, Bernsteins, Szells, Ormandy, Karajan, were leaving the scene and that while I respected the Barenboim, Abbado, Boulez and Giulini (to concentrate on the Conductors active here), for me and many others the Golden Era was over.
I got over it a few years ago when Haitink, whom I had previously tremendously undervalued, became very active here, and then Muti became the Principal. I fear for both of them as they age and have had their issues, and we see less of BH already.
To have a chance to relive those Solti times would be a treasure indeed

[pastoralguy]

[gradus]

The tyrant stories about Solti are a bit tedious - as though difficult people were/are only found amongst those who direct orchestras.
Like some others on here I was fortunate to see Solti throughout his UK career and whatever his orchestras may have thought of him he was in demand as a conductor and he never failed to deliver first rate performances. His recordings speak for themselves.

[Conchis]

I also regret that I never saw Solti live. He died the year before I moved to London and began my metropolitan concert-going.

There was a point where I thought he had a tendency to make everything 'sound like Bartok'. The recordings that made him a name are viscerally exciting but sometimes a bit overwhelming, too. I'd agree that his Elgar recordings showed him at his best - which is strange, as on paper it was not something that should have worked.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'd agree that his Elgar recordings showed him at his best - which is strange, as on paper it was not something that should have worked.

- the only time I heard him Live included another "you cannot be serious" programming that worked marvellously: Delius' Brigg Fair (more successful than the Beethoven 7th in part two: the LPO just couldn't keep up with him).

[visualnickmos]

The tyrant stories about Solti are a bit tedious - as though difficult people were/are only found amongst those who direct orchestras.
Like some others on here I was fortunate to see Solti throughout his UK career and whatever his orchestras may have thought of him he was in demand as a conductor and he never failed to deliver first rate performances. His recordings speak for themselves.

[Bryn]

The tyrant stories about Solti are a bit tedious ...

Hmmm, yes, it must have taken a real tyrant to found the World Orchestra for Peace.

[Petrushka]

Solti's name first came to my attention in 1970 when I heard Gotterdammerung on R3 live from Covent Garden. I then got to know his Ring recording and once I started serious concert-going in London I attended as many Solti concerts as I could. As Richard Tarleton says above, both Solti and Haitink formed the bedrock of my concerts in the 1970s and 80s along with Abbado.

My very first Solti concert was on Feb 19 1978 when Solti conducted the LPO in Mozart Symphony No 38 and the orchestral music from Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet - a pity he never recorded the latter. There were many memorable concerts with Solti conducting the Chicago SO, LPO and LSO in London at that time and I took full advantage.

[Daniel]

Having previously not been able to engage with them at all, it was hearing the Solti recording last year that greatly opened up the Elgar symphonies for me. There is something about his direct approach, to my ears treating it as music rather than reverentially as 'Elgar', that worked for me. And it actually opened up other recordings too. Sometimes a bit of intellectual distance in Romantic music can show it at its best I think, Boulez for instance does this with Mahler to powerful effect at times.

Solti generally strikes me as someone who brings out detail brilliantly, without hampering the overall shape. I am working my way through his Ring cycle at the moment, and all the the little moments live, as well as the big ones. His Four Last Songs with Kiri was pretty good too as I recall. He seems to be able to create great deal energy and intensity without a lot of fuss.

I saw him a few times live in the eighties, but to be honest, am keener on him now than I was back then.

[P. G. Tipps]

I think the rather silly word 'tyrant' when describing a conductor should almost always be replaced with 'a pursuer of excellence'.

Solti is one of the few conductors who managed to excel in Bruckner 6. As a non-musician, I've never quite understood why this particular work should cause many otherwise accomplished maestros problems, but it clearly does.

Wand and Karajan, for all their undoubted Brucknerian credentials, never really got the hang of this symphony in comparison with the much-despised Solti, imho.

[BBMmk2]

I think the rather silly word 'tyrant' when describing a conductor should almost always be replaced with 'a pursuer of excellence'.

Solti is one of the few conductors who managed to excel in Bruckner 6. As a non-musician, I've never quite understood why this particular work should cause many otherwise accomplished maestros problems, but it clearly does.

Wand and Karajan, for all their undoubted Brucknerian credentials, never really got the hang of this symphony in comparison with the much-despised Solti, imho.

"Tyrant" is what the word was used by the musicians themselves, in this case.

[Richard Tarleton]

"Tyrant" is what the word was used by the musicians themselves, in this case.

Surely BBM the conducting scene for much of the 20th century was littered with "tyrants", the age of more consensual conductors lay (mostly) in the future. And look what the same orchestras did to more consensual conductors then - the LSO to the younger Colin Davis, for example. I'm sure the term was also used by orchestral players who didn't cut it, and were left in no doubt they didn't by said tyrants? If Solti was a tyrant, what was Karajan? Solti was positively consensual by comparison. Reiner, Szell....even there, Arnold Steinhardt in his autobiog of the Guarneri Quartet writes fondly about Szell, when he was leader of the Cleveland.....