Long out of print, Deryck Cooke’s invaluable ‘Introduction to Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen’ reappears on CD, with its original LP couplings of Siegfried Idyll and Kinderkatechismus. Almost as soon as it reached completion with the release of Die Walküre in 1966, the Decca Ring cycle conducted by Sir Georg Solti was recognised as the […]
From Adam to Zandonai, from 1954 to 1996, 20 CDs made up of no less than 28 Decca opera recordings, most of them recorded as highlights albums, many long unavailable, newly remastered and all featuring the greatest singers of their age. In bygone years, before 24/7 streaming, recorded music was less readily available than it […]
Minton · Solti · Mahler – the complete record of a supreme artistic partnership. For a memoir published in 2017, Yvonne Minton wrote that ‘Mahler’s music could have been written with Sir Georg and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in mind.’ She was too modest to speak of her own contribution, in which a superbly schooled […]
For years, admitted Sir Georg Solti to High Fidelity magazine in January 1967, ‘Mahler bored me. He came to me or I came to him, eight or nine years ago. Up till then his symphonies were all pieces and bits. Now I see their form, I love them. It is not enough to like music. […]
After the Fourth in 1961, the First in 1964 and the Second in 1966, the Ninth was the fourth of Mahler’s symphonies to be recorded for Decca by Sir Georg Solti. Symphonies 1, 2 and plus No. 3 from 1968, were all made with the London Symphony Orchestra but the cycle quickly expanded its horizons […]
The Lyric Opera of Chicago was founded as recently as 1954 but within two years it had secured the services of many operatic stars of the day who were doubtless reassured of the quality and warmth of reception at the company by the trailblazing US debut of Maria Callas as Norma in its first season. […]
Both Strauss’s ‘Elektra’ and Stravinsky’s ‘Oedipus Rex’ trace their lineages back to Sophocles, the Greek dramatist who lived in the fourth century BC. Both are stories of the avenging of a royal father’s murder, either by surviving family members (‘Elektra’) or by Fate or the gods themselves (‘Oedipus Rex’). Even from an early age, Georg […]
‘From Melba to Sutherland: Australian Singers on Record’ is the first-ever comprehensive survey of the recordings of Australia’s greatest singers – in a unique, new, 4CD set from Decca, complete with biographies of each of the 80 artists, rare photographs, all contained within a 68-page booklet. Why has there been such an extraordinary procession of […]
Georg Solti studied piano with Bartók and although they never developed a close personal relationship, Solti was always in awe of the composer’s dedication and intensity. Bartók’s music featured regularly in Solti’s concert programs and he recorded the ‘Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta’ and the ‘Dance Suite’ for Decca. This 1952 recording of the ‘Dance Suite’ with […]
Georg Solti’s first recordings were as a pianist – those with the great German violinist, Georg Kulenkampff, here collected in their entirety. The two artists recorded Brahms’s G major sonata in February 1947 and Beethoven’s ’Kreutzer’ Sonata in June 1947. They completed the Brahms sonatas in July 1948. Sadly, this would be their only collaboration. Kulenkampff died […]
Georg Solti recorded the Beethoven Fourth three times – twice with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1974, 1987) and in 1950 with the London Philharmonic. The LPO recording was among Solti’s earliest Decca recording sessions and was issued, first on 78rpm and immediately after on LP using Decca’s then revolutionary FFRR technology. Fêted by the Victor […]
As part of the Eloquence series of early Solti recordings, this 2CD set features the conductor in music by Haydn and Mozart, recorded between 1949 and 1958. The 1949 recording of Haydn’s ‘Drum Roll’ Symphony and the 1958 recording of Mozart’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ (recorded in spatial early stereo) make their first international appearances on Decca […]
