Menu
Home Explore People Places Arts History Plants & Animals Science Life & Culture Technology
On this page

Sir Georg Solti KBE was a renowned Hungarian-British conductor noted for his leadership of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1991. Born in Budapest, he studied with Béla Bartók and others before fleeing Hungary during rising anti-Jewish laws. Solti served as musical director at the Bavarian State Opera and Oper Frankfurt before his influential decade at Covent Garden. Celebrated for making over 250 recordings, his acclaimed complete recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen remains iconic. Solti won 31 Grammy Awards, making him the most-awarded artist until surpassed in 2023. His legacy endures through his artistic excellence and contributions to classical music.

Related Image Collections Add Image
Profiles
2 Images
We don't have any YouTube videos related to Georg Solti yet.
We don't have any PDF documents related to Georg Solti yet.
We don't have any Books related to Georg Solti yet.

Life and career

Early years

Solti was born György Stern on Maros utca, in the Hegyvidék district of the Buda side of Budapest.3 He was the younger of the two children of Teréz (née Rosenbaum) and Móricz "Mor" Stern, both of whom were Jewish.4 In the aftermath of the First World War it became the accepted practice in Hungary for citizens with Germanic surnames to adopt Hungarian ones. The territorial revisionist regime of Admiral Horthy enacted a series of Hungarianisation laws, including a requirement that state employees with foreign-sounding names must change them.5 Mor Stern, a self-employed merchant, felt no need to change his surname, but thought it prudent to change that of his children.6 He renamed them after Solt, a small town in central Hungary.7 His son's given name, György, was acceptably Hungarian and was not changed.8

Solti described his father as "a kind, sweet man who trusted everyone. He shouldn't have, but he did. Jews in Hungary were tremendously patriotic. In 1914, when war broke out, my father invested most of his money in a war loan to help the country. By the time the bonds matured, they were worthless."9 Mor Stern was a religious man, but his son was less so. Late in life, Solti recalled, "I often upset him because I never stayed in the synagogue for longer than 10 minutes."10 Teréz Stern was from a musical family, and encouraged her daughter Lilly, by eight years the elder of the children, to sing, and György to accompany her on the piano. Solti remembered, "I made so many mistakes, but it was invaluable experience for an opera conductor. I learnt to swim with her."11 He was not a diligent student of the piano: "My mother kept telling me to practise, but what 10-year-old wants to play the piano when he could be out playing football?"12

Solti enrolled at the Ernő Fodor School of Music in Budapest at the age of 10, transferring to the more prestigious Franz Liszt Academy two years later.13 When he was 12, he heard a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony conducted by Erich Kleiber, which gave him the ambition to become a conductor.14 His parents could not afford to pay for years of musical education, and his rich uncles did not consider music a suitable profession; from the age of 13, Solti paid for his education by giving piano lessons.15

The faculty of the Franz Liszt Academy included some of the most eminent Hungarian musicians, including Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner, Ernő Dohnányi, and Zoltán Kodály. Solti studied under the first three, for piano, chamber music, and composition, respectively. Some sources state that he also studied with Kodály,1617 but in his memoirs, Solti recalled that Kodály, whom he would have preferred, turned him down, leaving him to study composition first with Albert Siklós and then with Dohnányi.18 Not all the academy's tutors were equally distinguished; Solti remembered with little pleasure the conducting classes run by Ernő Unger, "who instructed his pupils to use rigid little wrist motions. I attended the class for only two years, but I needed five years of practical conducting experience before I managed to unlearn what he had taught me".19

Pianist and conductor

After graduating from the academy in 1930, Solti was appointed to the staff of the Hungarian State Opera.20 He found that working as a répétiteur, coaching singers in their roles and playing at rehearsals, was a more fruitful preparation than Unger's classes for his intended career as a conductor.21 In 1932, he went to Karlsruhe in Germany as assistant to Josef Krips, but within a year, Krips, anticipating the imminent rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, insisted that Solti should go home to Budapest, where at that time Jews were not in danger.22 Other Jewish and anti-Nazi musicians also left Germany for Budapest. Among other musical exiles with whom Solti worked there were Otto Klemperer, Fritz Busch, and Kleiber.23 Before Austria fell under Nazi control, Solti was assistant to Arturo Toscanini at the 1937 Salzburg Festival:

Toscanini was the first great musical impression in my life. Before I heard him live in 1936, I had never heard a great opera conductor, not in Budapest, and it was like a lightning flash. I heard his Falstaff in 1936 and the impact was unbelievable. It was the first time I heard an ensemble singing absolutely precisely. It was fantastic. Then I never expected to meet Toscanini. It was a chance in a million. I had a letter of recommendation from the director of the Budapest Opera to the president of the Salzburg Festival. He received me and said: "Do you know Magic Flute, because we have an influenza epidemic and two of our repetiteurs are ill? Could you play this afternoon for the stage rehearsals?"24

After further work as a répétiteur at the opera in Budapest, and with his standing enhanced by his association with Toscanini, Solti was given his first chance to conduct, on 11 March 1938.25 The opera was Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. During that evening, news came of the German invasion of Austria.26 Many Hungarians feared that Hitler would next invade Hungary; he did not do so, but Horthy, to strengthen his partnership with the Nazis, instituted anti-semitic laws, mirroring the Nuremberg Laws, restricting Hungary's Jews from engaging in professions.27 Solti's family urged him to move away.28 He went first to London, where he made his Covent Garden debut, conducting the London Philharmonic for a Russian ballet season.29 The reviewer in The Times was not impressed with Solti's efforts, finding them "too violent, for he lashed at the orchestra and flogged the music so that he endangered the delicate, evocative atmosphere."30 At about this time Solti dropped the name "György" in favour of "Georg".31

After his appearances in London, Solti went to Switzerland to seek out Toscanini, who was conducting in Lucerne. Solti hoped that Toscanini would help find him a post in the U.S. He was unable to do so, but Solti found work and security in Switzerland as vocal coach to tenor Max Hirzel, who was learning the role of Tristan in Wagner's opera.32 Throughout the Second World War, Solti remained in Switzerland.33 He did not see his father again; Mor Stern died of diabetes in a Budapest hospital in 1943.34 Solti was reunited with his mother and sister after the war.35 In Switzerland, he could not obtain a work permit as a conductor, but earned his living as a piano teacher.36 After he won the 1942 Geneva International Piano Competition, he was permitted to give piano recitals, but was still not allowed to conduct.37 During his exile, he met Hedwig (Hedi) Oeschli, daughter of a lecturer at Zürich University; they married in 1946.38 In his memoirs, he wrote of her, "She was very elegant and sophisticated. ... Hedi gave me a little grace and taught me good manners – although she never completely succeeded in this. She also helped me enormously in my career".39

Munich and Frankfurt

With the end of the war, Solti's luck changed dramatically. He was appointed musical director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1946.40 In normal circumstances, this prestigious post would have been an unthinkable appointment for a young and inexperienced conductor,41 but the leading German conductors such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Clemens Krauss, and Herbert von Karajan were prohibited from conducting pending the conclusion of denazification proceedings against them.42 Under Solti's direction, the company rebuilt its repertoire and began to recover its prewar eminence.43 He benefited from the encouragement of the elderly Richard Strauss, in whose presence he conducted Der Rosenkavalier.44 Strauss was reluctant to discuss his own music with Solti, but gave him advice about conducting.45

In addition to the Munich appointment, Solti gained a recording contract in 1946. He signed for Decca Records, not as a conductor, but as a piano accompanist.46 He made his first recording in 1947, playing Brahms's First Violin Sonata with violinist Georg Kulenkampff.47 He was insistent that he wanted to conduct, and Decca gave him his first recording sessions as a conductor later in the same year, with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra in Beethoven's Egmont overture.48 Twenty years later, Solti said, "I'm sure it's a terrible record, because the orchestra was not very good at that time and I was so excited. It is horrible, surely horrible – but by now it has vanished."49 He had to wait two years for his next recording as a conductor, in London, Haydn's Drum Roll symphony, in sessions produced by John Culshaw, with whose career Solti's became closely linked over the next two decades.50 Reviewing the record, The Gramophone said, "The performance of the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Georg Solti (a fine conductor who is new to me) is remarkable for rhythmic playing, richness of tone, and clarity of execution."51 The Record Guide compared it favourably with EMI's rival recording by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic.52

In 1951, Solti conducted at the Salzburg Festival for the first time, partly through the influence of Furtwängler, who was impressed by him.53 The work was Mozart's Idomeneo, which had not been given there before.54 In Munich, Solti achieved critical and popular success, but for political reasons, his position at the State Opera was never secure. The view persisted that a German conductor should be in charge; pressure mounted, and after five years, Solti accepted an offer to move to Frankfurt in 1952 as musical director of the Oper Frankfurt.5556 The city's opera house had been destroyed in the war, and Solti undertook to build a new company and repertoire for its recently completed replacement. He also conducted the symphony concerts given by the opera orchestra.57 Frankfurt's was a less prestigious house than Munich's and he initially regarded the move as a demotion,58 but he found the post fulfilling and remained at Frankfurt from 1952 to 1961, presenting 33 operas, 19 of which he had not conducted before.59 Frankfurt, unlike Munich, could not attract many of the leading German singers. Solti recruited many rising young American singers such as Claire Watson and Sylvia Stahlman,60 to the extent that the house acquired the nickname "Amerikanische Oper am Main".61 In 1953, the West German government offered Solti German citizenship, which, being effectively stateless as a Hungarian exile, he gratefully accepted. He believed he could never return to Hungary, by then under communist rule.62 He remained a German citizen for two decades.63

During his Frankfurt years, Solti made appearances with other opera companies and orchestras. He conducted in the Americas for the first time in 1952, giving concerts in Buenos Aires.64 In the same year, he made his debut at the Edinburgh Festival as a guest conductor with the visiting Hamburg State Opera.65 The following year, he was a guest at the San Francisco Opera with Elektra, Die Walküre, and Tristan und Isolde.66 In 1954, he conducted Don Giovanni at the Glyndebourne Festival. The reviewer in The Times said that no fault could be found in Solti's "vivacious and sensitive" conducting.67 In the same year Solti made his first appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at the Ravinia Festival.68 In 1960, he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, conducting Tannhäuser, and he continued to appear there until 1964.69

In the recording studios, Solti's career took off after 1956, when John Culshaw was put in charge of Decca's classical recording programme. Culshaw believed Solti to be "the great Wagner conductor of our time",70 and was determined to record the four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen with Solti and the finest Wagner singers available.71 The cast Culshaw assembled for the cycle included Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson and Wolfgang Windgassen.72 Apart from Arabella in 1957, in which he substituted when Karl Böhm withdrew, Solti had made no complete recording of an opera until the sessions for Das Rheingold, the first of the Ring tetralogy, in September and October 1958.73 In their respective memoirs, Culshaw and Solti told how Walter Legge of Decca's rival EMI predicted that Das Rheingold would be a commercial disaster ("'Very nice,' he said, 'Very interesting. But of course you won't sell any.'")7475 The success of the recording took the record industry by surprise. It featured for weeks in the Billboard charts, the sole classical album alongside best sellers by Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, and brought Solti's name to international prominence.76 He appeared with leading orchestras in New York City, Vienna, and Los Angeles, and at Covent Garden, he conducted Der Rosenkavalier and Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream.77

Covent Garden

In 1960, Solti signed a three-year contract to be music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1962.78 Even before he took the post, the philharmonic's autocratic president, Dorothy Chandler, breached his contract by appointing a deputy music director without Solti's approval. Although he admired the chosen deputy, Zubin Mehta, Solti felt he could not have his authority undermined from the outset, and he withdrew from his appointment.79 He accepted an offer to become musical director of Covent Garden Opera Company, London. When first sounded out about the post, he had declined it. After 14 years of experience at Munich and Frankfurt, he was uncertain that he wanted a third successive operatic post.80 Moreover, founded only 15 years earlier, the Covent Garden company was not yet the equal of the best opera houses in Europe.81 Bruno Walter convinced Solti that it was his duty to take on Covent Garden.82

Biographer Montague Haltrecht suggests that Solti seized the breach of his Los Angeles contract as a convenient pretext to abandon the philharmonic in favour of Covent Garden.83 In his memoirs, though, Solti wrote that he wanted the Los Angeles position very much indeed.84 He originally considered holding both posts in tandem, but later acknowledged that he had had a lucky escape, as he could have done justice to neither post had he attempted to hold both simultaneously.85

Solti took up the musical directorship of Covent Garden in August 1961.86 The press gave him a cautious welcome, but some concern arose that under him a drift away from the company's original policy of opera in English might occur. Solti, however, was an advocate of opera in the vernacular,8788 and he promoted the development of British and Commonwealth singers in the company, frequently casting them in his recordings and important productions in preference to overseas artists.89 He demonstrated his belief in vernacular opera with a triple bill in English of Ravel's L'heure espagnole, Schoenberg's Erwartung, and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.90 As the decade went on, however, more and more productions had to be sung in the original language to accommodate international stars.91

Like his predecessor Rafael Kubelík, and his successor Colin Davis, Solti found his early days as musical director marred by vituperative hostility from a small clique in the Covent Garden audience.92 Rotten vegetables were thrown at him,93 and his car was vandalised outside the theatre, with the words "Solti must go!" scratched on its paintwork.94 Some press reviews were strongly critical; Solti was so wounded by a review in The Times of his conducting of The Marriage of Figaro that he almost left Covent Garden in despair.9596 The chief executive of the Opera House, Sir David Webster, persuaded him to stay with the company, and matters improved, helped by changes on which Solti insisted.97 The chorus and orchestra were strengthened,98 and in the interests of musical and dramatic excellence, Solti secured the introduction of the stagione system of scheduling performances, rather than the traditional repertory system.99 By 1967, The Times commented that "Patrons of Covent Garden today automatically expect any new production, and indeed any revival, to be as strongly cast as anything at the Met in New York, and as carefully presented as anything in Milan or Vienna".100

The company's repertory in the 1960s combined the standard operatic works with less familiar pieces. Among the most celebrated productions during Solti's time in charge was Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron in the 1965–66 and 1966–67 seasons.101 In 1970, Solti led the company to Germany, where they gave Don Carlos, Falstaff, and Victory, a new work by Richard Rodney Bennett. The public in Munich and Berlin were, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "beside themselves with enthusiasm".102

Solti's bald head and demanding rehearsal style earned him the nickname "The Screaming Skull".103 A music historian called him "the bustling, bruising Georg Solti – a man whose entire physical and mental attitude embodied the words 'I'm in charge'."104 Singers such as Peter Glossop described him as a bully,105 and after working with Solti, Jon Vickers refused to do so again.106107 Nevertheless, under Solti, the company was recognised as having achieved parity with the greatest opera houses in the world.108 Queen Elizabeth II conferred the title "the Royal Opera" on the company in 1968.109 By this point, Solti was, in the words of his biographer Paul Robinson, "after Karajan, the most celebrated conductor at work".110 By the end of his decade as music director at Covent Garden Solti had conducted the company in 33 operas by 13 composers.111

In 1964, Solti separated from his wife. He moved into the Savoy Hotel, where not long afterwards he met Valerie Pitts, a British television presenter, sent to interview him.112 She, too, was married, but after pursuing her for three years, Solti persuaded her to divorce her husband. Solti and Valerie Pitts married on 11 November 1967.113 They had two daughters.114

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

In 1967, Solti was invited to become music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was the second time he had been offered the post. The first had been in 1963 after the death of the orchestra's conductor, Fritz Reiner, who made its reputation in the previous decade.115 Solti told the representatives of the orchestra that his commitments at Covent Garden made it impossible to give Chicago the eight months a year they sought.116 He suggested giving them three and a half months a year and inviting Carlo Maria Giulini to take charge for a similar length of time. The orchestra declined to proceed on these lines.117

When Solti accepted the orchestra's second invitation, they agreed that Giulini should be appointed to share the conducting.118 Both conductors signed three-year contracts with the orchestra, effective from 1969.119

One of the members of the Chicago Symphony described it to Solti as "the best provincial orchestra in the world."120 Many players remained from its celebrated decade under Reiner, but morale was low, and the orchestra was $5M in debt.121 Solti concluded that raising the orchestra's international profile was essential. He ensured that it was engaged for many of his Decca sessions, and Giulini and he led it in a European tour in 1971, playing in 10 countries. This was the first time in its 80-year history that the orchestra had played outside of North America.122 The orchestra received plaudits from European critics,123124 and was welcomed home at the end of the tour with a ticker-tape parade.125

The orchestra's principal flute player, Donald Peck, commented that the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra is difficult to explain: "Some conductors get along with some orchestras and not others. We had a good match with Solti and he with us."126 Peck's colleague, violinist Victor Aitay, said, "Usually conductors are relaxed at rehearsals and tense at the concerts. Solti is the reverse. He is very tense at rehearsals, which makes us concentrate, but relaxed during the performance, which is a great asset to the orchestra."127 Peck recalled Solti's constant efforts to improve his own technique and interpretations, at one point experimentally dispensing with a baton, drawing a "darker and deeper, much more relaxed" tone from the players.128

As well as raising the orchestra's profile and helping it return to prosperity, Solti considerably expanded its repertoire. Under him, the Chicago Symphony gave its first cycles of the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler. He introduced new works commissioned for the orchestra, such as Lutosławski's Third Symphony, and Tippett's Fourth Symphony, which was dedicated to Solti.129 Another new work was Tippett's Byzantium, an orchestral song-cycle, premiered by Solti and the orchestra with soprano Faye Robinson. Solti frequently programmed works by American composers, including Charles Ives and Elliott Carter.130

Solti's recordings with the Chicago Symphony included the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler.131 Most of his operatic recordings were with other orchestras, but his recordings of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer (1976), Beethoven's Fidelio (1979), Schoenberg's Moses und Aron (1984) and his second recordings of Die Meistersinger (1995) and Verdi's Otello (1991) were made with the Chicago players.132

After relinquishing the position of music director in 1991, Solti continued to conduct the orchestra, and was given the title of music director laureate. He conducted 999 concerts with the orchestra. His 1,000th concert was scheduled for October 1997, around the time of his 85th birthday, but Solti died that September.133

Later years

In addition to his tenure in Chicago, Solti was music director of the Orchestre de Paris from 1972 to 1975.134 From 1979 until 1983, he was also principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.135 He continued to expand his repertoire. With the London Philharmonic, he performed many of Elgar's major works in concert and on record.136 Before performing Elgar's two symphonies, Solti studied the composer's own recordings made more than 40 years earlier, and was influenced by their brisk tempi and impetuous manner.137 Edward Greenfield, music critic for The Guardian, wrote that Solti "conveys the authentic frisson of the great Elgarian moment more vividly than ever before on record."138 Late in his career he became enthusiastic about the music of Shostakovich, whom he admitted he failed to appreciate fully during the composer's lifetime.139 He made commercial recordings of seven of Shostakovich's fifteen symphonies.140

In 1983, Solti conducted for the only time at the Bayreuth Festival. By this stage in his career, he no longer liked abstract productions of Wagner, or modernistic reinterpretations, such as Patrice Chéreau's 1976 Bayreuth Centenary Ring, which he found grew boring on repetition.141 Together with the director Sir Peter Hall and designer William Dudley, he presented a Ring cycle that aimed to represent Wagner's intentions. The production was not well received by German critics, who expected radical reinterpretation of the operas.142 Solti's conducting was praised, but illnesses and last-minute replacements of leading performers affected the standard of singing.143 He was invited to return to Bayreuth for the following season, but was unwell and withdrew on medical advice before the 1984 festival began.144

In 1991, Solti collaborated with actor and composer Dudley Moore to create an eight-part television series, Orchestra!, which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra.145 In 1994, he directed the "Solti Orchestral Project" at Carnegie Hall, a training workshop for young American musicians.146 The following year, to mark the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, he formed the World Orchestra for Peace, which consisted of 81 musicians from 40 nations.147 The orchestra has continued to perform after his death, under the conductorship of Valery Gergiev.148

Solti regularly returned to Covent Garden as a guest conductor in the years after he relinquished the musical directorship, greeted with "an increasingly boisterous hero's welcome" (Grove).149 From 1972 to 1997, he conducted 10 operas, some of them in several seasons. Five were operas he had not conducted at the Royal Opera House before: Bizet's Carmen, Wagner's Parsifal, Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, and a celebrated production of La traviata (1994), which propelled Angela Gheorghiu to stardom.150151 On 14 July 1997 he conducted the last operatic music to be heard in the old house before it closed for more than two years for rebuilding.152 The previous day he had conducted what proved to be his last symphony concert. The work was Mahler's Fifth Symphony; the orchestra was the Zurich Tonhalle, with whom he had made his first orchestral recording 50 years earlier.153

Solti died suddenly, in his sleep, on 5 September 1997 while on holiday in Antibes in the south of France.154 He was 84. After a state ceremony in Budapest, his ashes were interred beside the remains of Bartók in Farkasréti Cemetery.155

Recordings

Main article: Georg Solti discography

Solti recorded throughout his career for the Decca Record Company. He made more than 250 recordings, including 45 complete opera sets.156 During the 1950s and 1960s, Decca had an alliance with RCA Victor, and some of Solti's recordings were first issued on the RCA label.157

Solti was one of the first conductors who came to international fame as a recording artist before being widely known in the concert hall or opera house. Gordon Parry, the Decca engineer who worked with Solti and Culshaw on the Ring recordings, observed, "Many people have said 'Oh well, of course John Culshaw made Solti.' This is not true. He gave him the opportunity to show what he could do."158

Solti's first recordings were as a piano accompanist, playing at sessions in Zurich for violinist Georg Kulenkampff in 1947.159 Decca's senior producer, Victor Olof did not much admire Solti as a conductor160 (nor did Walter Legge, Olof's opposite number at EMI's Columbia Records),161 but Olof's younger colleague and successor, Culshaw, held Solti in high regard. As Culshaw, and later James Walker, produced his recordings, Solti's career as a recording artist flourished from the mid-1950s.162 Among the orchestras with whom Solti recorded were the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Philharmonic, London Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras.163 Soloists in his operatic recordings included Birgit Nilsson, Joan Sutherland, Régine Crespin, Plácido Domingo, Gottlob Frick, Carlo Bergonzi, Kiri Te Kanawa, Ben Heppner and José van Dam.164 In concerto recordings, Solti conducted for, among others, András Schiff, Julius Katchen, Clifford Curzon, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Kyung-wha Chung.165

Solti's most celebrated recording was Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen made in Vienna, produced by Culshaw, between 1958 and 1965. It has twice been voted the greatest recording ever made, the first poll being among readers of Gramophone magazine in 1999,166 and the second of professional music critics in 2011, for the BBC's Music Magazine.167 This recording is heard in the film Apocalypse Now during the helicopter attack scene.168

Honours and memorials

Honours awarded to Solti included the British CBE (honorary), 1968,169 and an honorary knighthood (KBE), 1971,170 which became a substantive knighthood when he took British citizenship in 1972, after which he was known as Sir Georg Solti.171 He was also awarded honorary citizenship from the coastal town of Castiglione della Pescaia, in Tuscany, a holiday destination particularly frequented by celebrities where he owned a holiday house and used to spend the summer holidays with his wife and daughters.172 In Castiglione, the Georg Solti Accademia and the main piazza within the town's historic hamlet are named after Solti.173 Furthermore, Solti received a number of honours from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and the US.174 He received honorary fellowships or degrees from the Royal College of Music and DePaul, Furman, Harvard, Leeds, London, Oxford, Surrey and Yale universities.175

In celebration of his 75th birthday in 1987, a bronze bust of Solti by Dame Elisabeth Frink was dedicated in Lincoln Park, Chicago, outside the Lincoln Park Conservatory.176 It was first displayed temporarily at the Royal Opera House in London.177 The sculpture was moved to Grant Park in 2006 in a new Solti Garden, near Orchestra Hall in Symphony Center.178 In 1997, to commemorate the 85th anniversary of his birth, the City of Chicago renamed the block of East Adams Street adjacent to Symphony Center as "Sir Georg Solti Place" in his memory.179

Record industry awards to Solti included the Grand Prix Mondial du Disque (14 times) and 31 Grammy Awards (besides a special Trustees' Grammy Award, shared with John Culshaw, for the recording of the Ring (1967) and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1996)).180 He held the record for most Grammy wins of all time, until Beyoncé tied and later beat the record in 2023.181 In September 2007, as a tribute on the 10th anniversary of his death, Decca published a recording of his final concert.182

After Solti's death, his widow and daughters set up the Solti Foundation to assist young musicians.183 Solti's memoirs, written with the assistance of Harvey Sachs, were published the month after his death.184 Solti's life was also documented in a 1997 film by Peter Maniura, Sir Georg Solti: The Making of a Maestro.185

In 2012, a series of events under the banner of "Solti @ 100" was announced, to mark the centenary of Solti's birth. Among the events were concerts in New York City and Chicago, and commemorative exhibitions in London, Chicago, Vienna, and New York City.186 In the same year, Solti was voted into the inaugural Gramophone "Hall of Fame".187

The Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition, which occurs every two years in Frankfurt, is named in his honour.188

Notes

Sources

  • Culshaw, John (1967). Ring Resounding. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-11800-9.
  • Culshaw, John (1982). Putting the Record Straight. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-11802-5.
  • Glossop, Peter (2004). Yorkshire Baritone. Oxford: Guidon. ISBN 0-9543617-3-3.
  • Goodman, Lord; Lord Harewood (1969). A Report on Opera and Ballet in the United Kingdom, 1966–69. London: Arts Council of Great Britain. OCLC 81272.
  • Haltrecht, Montague (1975). The Quiet Showman – Sir David Webster and the Royal Opera House. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-211163-2.
  • Lebrecht, Norman (2000). Covent Garden: The Untold Story: Dispatches from the English Culture War, 1945–2000. London: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-85143-1.
  • Levy, Richard S., ed. (2005). Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Volume 1. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-439-3.
  • Morrison, Richard (2004). Orchestra – The LSO. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-21584-X.
  • Osborne, Richard (1998). Herbert von Karajan. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 1-85619-763-8.
  • Peck, Donald (2007). The Right Place, the Right Time: Tales of Chicago Symphony Days. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-11688-0.
  • Robinson, Paul (1979). Solti. London: Macdonald and Jane's. ISBN 0-354-04288-2.
  • Sackville-West, Edward; Desmond Shawe-Taylor (1955). The Record Guide. London: Collins. OCLC 474839729.
  • Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth (1982). On and Off the Record: A Memoir of Walter Legge. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-11928-X.
  • Solti, Georg; Harvey Sachs (1997). Solti on Solti. London: Chatto and Windus. ISBN 0-7011-6630-4.

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Georg Solti. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Georg Solti.

References

  1. Olausson, Lena; Sangster, Catherine (2006). Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation. Oxford University Press. p. 362. ISBN 0-19-280710-2. 0-19-280710-2 ↩

  2. Goodwin, Noël (8 September 1997). "Obituary: Sir Georg Solti". The Independent. Retrieved 1 September 2019. /wiki/No%C3%ABl_Goodwin ↩

  3. Pappenheim, Mark. "Classical: An honourable homecoming – at last", The Independent, 3 April 1998, accessed 20 March 2016 https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/classical-an-honourable-homecoming-at-last-1154127.html ↩

  4. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  5. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  6. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  7. The family had no connection with Solt, and Stern appears to have selected it at random.[4] ↩

  8. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  9. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  10. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  11. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  12. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  13. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  14. Greenfield, Edward. "Sir Georg Solti", Gramophone, October 1982, p. 22 /wiki/Edward_Greenfield ↩

  15. Fox, Sue. "Georg Solti – A Childhood", The Times, 1 July 1995 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9247FFBB6DBA0F&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  16. Jacobs, Arthur and José A. Bowen. "Solti, Sir Georg", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) /wiki/Arthur_Jacobs ↩

  17. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  18. Solti, pp. 17 and 22 ↩

  19. Solti. p. 20 ↩

  20. This appointment came under the scope of another of Horthy's laws, requiring that state employees must be able to prove that their families had lived in Hungary for at least 50 years. Mor Stern went to the records office in his native village of Balatonfőkajár and found documents showing that his family had lived there for more than 250 years.[11] /wiki/Balatonf%C5%91kaj%C3%A1r ↩

  21. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  22. Solti, p. 31 ↩

  23. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  24. Canning, Hugh. "The electric conductor – Sir Georg Solti", The Sunday Times, 9 December 1990 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LSTB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F92979FFAB2939D&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  25. Solti wrote that, as far as he knew, he was the first unconverted Jew to conduct at the State Opera.[14] ↩

  26. "Sir Georg Solti – Obituary", The Times, 8 September 1997 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F924C9A27B2EE4D&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  27. Levy, p. 323 ↩

  28. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  29. "Opera and Ballet", The Times, 2 July 1938, p. 10 ↩

  30. "Covent Garden Ballet – Carnaval", The Times, 15 July 1938, p. 14 ↩

  31. Solti, p. 5 ↩

  32. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  33. Canning, Hugh. "The electric conductor – Sir Georg Solti", The Sunday Times, 9 December 1990 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LSTB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F92979FFAB2939D&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  34. Solti, p. 54 ↩

  35. Solti, p. 55 ↩

  36. Solti, p. 59 ↩

  37. Solti, p. 56 ↩

  38. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  39. "Salzburg & Swiss exile" Archived 8 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Georg Solti, accessed 23 February 2012 http://www.georgsolti.com/ ↩

  40. Robinson, p. 13 ↩

  41. Solti's predecessors included prominent conductors such as Hans von Bülow, Hermann Levi, Richard Strauss, Bruno Walter, Hans Knappertsbusch, and Clemens Krauss. /wiki/Hans_von_B%C3%BClow ↩

  42. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  43. Jacobs, Arthur and José A. Bowen. "Solti, Sir Georg", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) /wiki/Arthur_Jacobs ↩

  44. Jacobs, Arthur and José A. Bowen. "Solti, Sir Georg", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) /wiki/Arthur_Jacobs ↩

  45. Solti, pp. 78–79 ↩

  46. Culshaw (1967), p 30 ↩

  47. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  48. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  49. Culshaw (1967), p. 31 ↩

  50. Culshaw (1967), p. 32 ↩

  51. "Haydn Symphony No. 103 in E flat", The Gramophone, July 1950, p. 16 http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July%201950/16 ↩

  52. Sackville-West, p. 355 ↩

  53. Solti, pp. 85–86 ↩

  54. Solti, pp. 85–86 ↩

  55. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  56. Solti's successor at Munich was the German Rudolf Kempe. /wiki/Rudolf_Kempe ↩

  57. Solti, p. 94 ↩

  58. Solti, p. 94 ↩

  59. Solti, p. 127 ↩

  60. Solti, pp. 100 (Watson) and 101 (Stahlman) ↩

  61. "The American Opera on the Main", a play on the title of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein – the German Opera on the Rhine – at Düsseldorf.[37] /wiki/Main_(river) ↩

  62. Solti, p. 96 ↩

  63. Solti, p. 105 ↩

  64. Solti, p. 92–93 ↩

  65. Robinson, p. 16 ↩

  66. Solti, p. 102 ↩

  67. "Glyndebourne Opera – 'Don Giovanni'", The Times, 8 July 1954, p. 5 ↩

  68. "Career highlights" Archived 8 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Georg Solti, accessed 23 February 2012 http://www.georgsolti.com/ ↩

  69. Search: "Solti", Metropolitan Opera Archives, accessed 10 June 2012 http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm ↩

  70. Culshaw (1967), p. 52 ↩

  71. Culshaw (1967), pp. 52–53 ↩

  72. Culshaw (1967), pp. 273–274 ↩

  73. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  74. Culshaw (1967), p. 91 ↩

  75. Solti and Culshaw recalled Legge's words slightly differently, though the import was the same; Solti remembered Legge's words as, "A beautiful work, but you won't sell fifty copies."[50] ↩

  76. Culshaw (1967), p. 124 ↩

  77. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  78. Solti, pp. 124–125 ↩

  79. Solti, pp. 124–125 ↩

  80. Haltrecht, p. 257 ↩

  81. Haltrecht, p. 237 ↩

  82. Haltrecht, p. 259 ↩

  83. Haltrecht, p. 258 ↩

  84. Solti, pp. 124–125 ↩

  85. Solti, pp. 124–125 ↩

  86. Haltrecht, p. 264 ↩

  87. "What Sort of Opera for Covent Garden?", The Times, 9 December 1960, p. 18 ↩

  88. At Munich and Frankfurt, the usual practice had been to give non-German operas in German translation.[59] ↩

  89. Haltrecht, p. 295 ↩

  90. "Solti's Success with Opera in English", The Times, 18 June 1962, p. 5 ↩

  91. "Sir David Webster's 21 Years at Covent Garden", The Times, 12 April 1965, p. 14 ↩

  92. Haltrecht, pp. 207 (Kubelik) and 271 (Solti); and Canning, Hugh. "Forget the booing, remember the triumph", The Guardian, 19 July 1986, p. 11 (Davis) ↩

  93. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  94. Haltrecht, p. 271 ↩

  95. Canning, Hugh. "The electric conductor – Sir Georg Solti", The Sunday Times, 9 December 1990 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LSTB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F92979FFAB2939D&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  96. The anonymous Times reviewer had complained of Solti's "supercharged, chromium-plated account of the score ... many details were simply glossed over ... heartless and featureless."[65] The Observer, however, had praised the conductor's "intelligence and sensitivity".[66] and The Guardian spoke of "tremendous verve plus real security in the ensemble on stage".[67] ↩

  97. Haltrecht, p. 279 ↩

  98. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  99. Under the old repertory system, a company would have a certain number of operas in its repertoire, and they would be played throughout the season in a succession of one- or two-night performances, with little or no rehearsal each time. Under the stagione system, works would be revived in blocks of perhaps 10 or more performances, fully rehearsed for each revival.[69] ↩

  100. "Twenty marvellous years at Covent Garden", The Times, 13 January 1967, p. 14 ↩

  101. Goodman, pp. 57–59 ↩

  102. Quoted in Lebrecht, p. 281 ↩

  103. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  104. Morrison, p. 217 ↩

  105. Glossop, p. 147 ↩

  106. Haltrecht, pp. 289–290 ↩

  107. Solti later expressed doubt about this view of his tenure at Covent Garden. He maintained that if he had been an autocrat, he was a benign one, and stories that he terrified singers were exaggerated: "There were not many scandals in my Covent Garden career; a few, but not serious – not à la Toscanini or à la Karajan. I didn't have those, not really."[76] ↩

  108. "Twenty marvellous years at Covent Garden", The Times, 13 January 1967, p. 14 ↩

  109. "The Royal Opera", The Times, 24 October 1968, p. 3 ↩

  110. Robinson, p. 44 ↩

  111. The operas new to the company's repertoire were: La damnation de Faust, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Iphigénie en Tauride, Orfeo ed Euridice, Gianni Schicchi, L'heure espagnole, Erwartung, Moses and Aaron, Arabella, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Eugene Onegin, Falstaff and La forza del destino. The other operas Solti conducted before stepping down in 1972 were: Fidelio, Billy Budd, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, The Magic Flute, The Tales of Hoffmann, Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Salome, Don Carlos, Otello, Rigoletto, Der fliegende Holländer, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger.[79] /wiki/La_damnation_de_Faust ↩

  112. Robinson, p. 38 ↩

  113. Solti, p. 137 ↩

  114. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  115. Patmore, David. "Sir Georg Solti and the Record Industry", ARSC Journal 41.2 (Fall 2010), pp. 200–232 (subscription required) https://www.proquest.com/docview/850692175 ↩

  116. Greenfield, Edward. "The great provincials", The Guardian, 4 October 1971, p. 8 ↩

  117. Greenfield, Edward. "The great provincials", The Guardian, 4 October 1971, p. 8 ↩

  118. The management of the orchestra had privately hoped for a triumvirate of famous conductors, with Karajan as chief and Solti and Giulini as guests, but Karajan declined.[84] Karajan's biographer Richard Osborne comments that the outcome was probably fortunate for the Chicago Symphony, as it gained "a music director who in the fullness of time would devote a large part of his life to the orchestra."[84] ↩

  119. "Bulletin Board". Music Educators Journal. 55 (8): 111–115. 1969. doi:10.2307/3392541. JSTOR 3392541. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

  120. Greenfield, Edward. "The great provincials", The Guardian, 4 October 1971, p. 8 ↩

  121. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  122. Greenfield, Edward. "The great provincials", The Guardian, 4 October 1971, p. 8 ↩

  123. "Symphony returns", Chicago Daily Defender, 6 October 1971, p. 20 https://archive.today/20130131142706/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagodefender/access/884351992.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Oct+6,+1971&author=&pub=Chicago+Daily+Defender+(Daily+Edition)+(1960-1973)&edition=&startpage=20&desc=Symphony+returns+prepares+for+71-72+season ↩

  124. After the orchestra played at the Edinburgh Festival, critic William Mann wrote, "I am tempted to describe it as the United States' most completely accomplished orchestra. It has the fine attack of the New York Phil under Bernstein, the radiance of the Boston under Leinsdorf, the classic elegance of the Cleveland under Szell, and to these qualities it adds, under Solti, a warm, human musical expressiveness that one associates with European rather than modern American orchestras."[87] After one of the London concerts, Alan Blyth wrote, "nobody could doubt that this is about the most formidably equipped orchestra in the world at present".[88] /wiki/Edinburgh_Festival ↩

  125. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  126. Peck, p. 7 ↩

  127. "Into the Fray", Time, 11 April 1969 (subscription required) https://web.archive.org/web/20070930072236/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,900761-1,00.html ↩

  128. Peck, p. 8 ↩

  129. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  130. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  131. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  132. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  133. Tommasini, Anthony. "Living an Adventure to the End", The New York Times, 21 September 1997 https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/21/arts/classical-music-living-an-adventure-to-the-end.html?scp=8&sq=&pagewanted=all ↩

  134. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  135. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  136. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  137. Greenfield, Edward. "Echoing Elgar", The Guardian, 11 July 1972, p. 10 ↩

  138. Greenfield, Edward. "Echoing Elgar", The Guardian, 11 July 1972, p. 10 ↩

  139. Solti, p. 228 ↩

  140. His commercial recordings of Shostakovich symphonies were Nos. 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 15.[28] ↩

  141. Greenfield, Edward. "Sir Georg Solti", Gramophone, August 1981, p. 25 http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/August%201981/25/743687/ ↩

  142. Heyworth, Peter. "Why The Ring went wrong", The Observer, 7 August 1983 ↩

  143. Levin, Bernard. "A sand-blast and polish by a master", The Times, 17 August 1983, p. 8 /wiki/Bernard_Levin ↩

  144. Hewson, David. "Solti quits 'Ring' production", The Times, 26 May 1984, p. 5 ↩

  145. Jenkins, Garry. "Orchestrating a return to musical roots – Dudley Moore and Sir Georg Solti", The Sunday Times, 13 May 1990 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LSTB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0F9297F2EDEC3FFB&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  146. Holland, Bernard. "Georg Solti, Teacher, Leads Carnegie's Orchestral Workshop", The New York Times, 15 June 1994; and Oestreich, James R. "Master and Pupils Mesh As Solti Project Concludes", The New York Times, 24 June 1994 https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E03EFDE163DF936A25755C0A962958260 ↩

  147. History, World Orchestra for Peace, accessed 28 February 2012 http://www.worldorchestraforpeace.com/content/WOFP_biog.pdf ↩

  148. "Valery Gergiev", World Orchestra for Peace, accessed 8 March 2012 http://www.worldorchestraforpeace.com/orchestra/valery-gergiev/default.aspx ↩

  149. Jacobs, Arthur and José A. Bowen. "Solti, Sir Georg", Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) /wiki/Arthur_Jacobs ↩

  150. "Performance search results – Solti" Archived 9 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Royal Opera House Collections Online, accessed 3 March 2012 http://www.rohcollections.org.uk/SearchResults.aspx?person=Solti&searchtype=performance&page=0 ↩

  151. Kettle, Martin. "Quickfire revival sees hit-and-miss Gheorghui reprise star role", The Guardian, 10 July 2010 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:GRDC&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=130E0321A78DEE48&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  152. Solti conducted the finale of Falstaff, with the singers led by Bryn Terfel, in a joint opera and ballet farewell. His successors, Sir Colin Davis and Bernard Haitink also conducted at this gala.[105] /wiki/Bryn_Terfel ↩

  153. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  154. Fay, Stephen. "Solti dies in sleep at 84", The Independent on Sunday, 7 September 1997 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:TND1&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=13204891A1E2D5D0&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggdocs&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  155. Pappenheim, Mark. "Classical: An honourable homecoming – at last", The Independent, 3 April 1998 http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:TND1&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=13204E2F259A28E0&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA ↩

  156. "Solti, Georg" Archived 3 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Decca Classics, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.deccaclassics.com/artist/biography?ART_ID=SOLGE ↩

  157. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  158. Patmore, David. "Sir Georg Solti and the Record Industry", ARSC Journal 41.2 (Fall 2010), pp. 200–232 (subscription required) https://www.proquest.com/docview/850692175 ↩

  159. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  160. Culshaw (1982) p. 88 ↩

  161. Schwarzkopf, p. 79 ↩

  162. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  163. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  164. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  165. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  166. "Gramophone Classics", Gramophone, December 1999, p. 40 http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/December%201999/40/806832/ ↩

  167. "Anniversary of Sir Georg Solti's birth to be celebrated", Royal Opera House, accessed 15 March 2012 http://www.roh.org.uk/news/anniversary-of-sir-georg-soltis-birth-to-be-celebrated ↩

  168. ""Nautilus Issue 30: Transplanting the Musical Heart of Apocalypse Now"". Archived from the original on 28 April 2021. Retrieved 9 April 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210428183214/https://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/how-i-tried-to-transplant-the-musical-heart-of-apocalypse-now ↩

  169. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  170. Birthday Honours", The Times, 12 June 1971, p. 10 ↩

  171. Follows, Stephen. "Solti, Sir Georg (1912–1997)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68813 ↩

  172. "La morte di Solti Roccamare, un registro per le firme di cordoglio - Il Tirreno". Archivio - Il Tirreno (in Italian). Archived from the original on 28 October 2021. Retrieved 14 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20211028005607/https://ricerca.gelocal.it/iltirreno/archivio/iltirreno/1997/09/08/LG102.html ↩

  173. "Vacanze a casa Solti - la Repubblica.it". Archivio - la Repubblica.it (in Italian). Retrieved 14 December 2020. https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2013/07/10/vacanze-casa-solti.html ↩

  174. The international honours included the Médaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris, 1985; Loyola-Mellon Humanities Award, 1987; Medal of Merit, City of Chicago, 1987; Order of the Flag (Hungary), 1987; Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society, 1989; Frankfurt Music Prize, 1992; Léonie Sonning Music Prize, 1992; Kennedy Center Award, 1993; Hans Richter Medal, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, 1993; Von Bülow Medal, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, 1993; Commander, Order of Leopold (Belgium), 1993; Middle Cross, Order of Merit with Star (Hungary), 1993; Grosses Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband (Germany), 1993; Ordem Militar de Sant'Iago da Espada (Portugal), 1994; Commandeur, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), 1995; and Knight Grand Cross, Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, 1996.[8][117] /wiki/Royal_Philharmonic_Society ↩

  175. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  176. Eckert, Thor Jr. "Milestone for Maestro Solti – Chicago style", The Christian Science Monitor, 15 October 1987, accessed 21 March 2012 http://www.csmonitor.com/1987/1015/lms15.html ↩

  177. "Grant Park: Sir Georg Solti Bust" Archived 29 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Chicago Park District, accessed 21 March 2012 http://www.cpdit01.com/resources/planning-and-development.fountains-monuments-and-sculptures/Grant%20Park/Sir%20Georg%20Solti%20Bust.pdf ↩

  178. "Sir George {{sic}} Solti Bust (in Grant Park)" Archived 20 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Explore Chicago, accessed 28 February 2012 http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/attractions/park_district/sir_george_solti_bust.html ↩

  179. "Solti To Be Honored With Own Street Sign", Chicago Tribune, 22 October 1997 https://www.chicagotribune.com/1997/10/22/solti-to-be-honored-with-own-street-sign/ ↩

  180. "Solti, Sir Georg", Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 22 February 2012 (subscription required) http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U182009 ↩

  181. "Solti, Georg" Archived 3 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Decca Classics, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.deccaclassics.com/artist/biography?ART_ID=SOLGE ↩

  182. Stuart, Philip. Decca Classical, 1929–2009, AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, accessed 22 February 2012 http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/discography/decca.html ↩

  183. "The Foundation" Archived 28 October 2021 at the Wayback Machine, The Solti Foundation, accessed 28 February 2012 http://www.soltifoundation.com/thefoundation.php ↩

  184. Solti and Sachs, passim ↩

  185. Maniura, Peter (1997). Sir Georg Solti: The Making of a Maestro. Chatsworth, CA: R M Associates. OCLC 48093380. /wiki/OCLC_(identifier) ↩

  186. "Anniversary of Sir Georg Solti's birth to be celebrated", Royal Opera House, accessed 15 March 2012 http://www.roh.org.uk/news/anniversary-of-sir-georg-soltis-birth-to-be-celebrated ↩

  187. "Sir Georg Solti" Gramophone, accessed 10 April 2012 ↩

  188. Franks, Rebecca. "Winners of International Conductors' Competition Sir Georg Solti announced", BBC Music Magazine, 25 September 2012 http://www.classical-music.com/news/winners-international-conductors-competition-sir-georg-solti-announced ↩