The Solti Centenary

Solti always used a sledgehammer to crack a nut. OK in Wagner, but annoying in everything else.

I fully agree with 33lp, adding Solti's very dramatic and exciting recordings of Verdi's Operas (his Don Carlos and the Requiem are almost unbelievable) and Puccini's La Boheme (not a perfect recording, but interesting enough to keep you there).

Even some of his latest recordings, e.g. the "live" of Beethoven's Fifth and Shostakovich's 15th.

Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" has been a reference recording. So is his "Zauberflote". We should not forget his "Rosenkavalier", "Salome" and "Elektra" by R. Strauss too.

He was a great conductor, uneven, but when he was great, he could perform miracles.

Parla

For once we are in full agreement.

It was said of him that he knew how the music should go but didn't know why.

I had his Ring on LP, acquired over many birthdays and Christmases, but got fed up with it and it was only in later years I understood what he was all about: inexorably build up all the dull bits to a great climax of all the "bleeding chunks" so that Siegfrieds Funeral March, for example, is quite devastating, especially in Decca's sound.

No doubt we will now be told how wonderful his Beatentodeathoven, Bartoked, Elgrrrrarr and Verdi was/is, although both Un Ballo en Maschera and Don Carlo, both of which I had on LP,  are good examples of why he should have been kept away from Verdi, the former beaten into submission, the latter full of impestuous misjudgements that makes either of the two Santini versions sound like a model of carefully gauged subtlety, which, as it happens, they are.

An open necked shirt, a hairy chest and the great smell of Brut will only get you so far, even in Elgar.

Unfortunately, it was Solti who did not know what Elgar was all about and those that think he did are the ones to feel sorry for.

It is a fact that he turned to Elgar's own recording to get some ideas about the music and, as Barenboim does when he endeavours to ape his hero, Furtwangler, failed, producing a superficial copy does not great musicmaking make.

Having said that I reiterate that I do appreciate his Wagner but, then again, I am no Wagnerite and I accept that his technique worked in some Strauss, notably, Elektra.

Perhaps, he wasn't, strictly, a conductor of record achieving his most memorable performances on the wing, live, where the experience of the moment is all that matters.

I do not know but I do know that on disc there are alternatives with a degree more subtlety in performance than Solti could ever muster.

I speak from experience having heard him, once, in concert many years ago and possessing many of his recordings, all bought or acquired in my younger days and all of which I tired of.

A most interesting thread.  It has been said that when Solti played Mozart, Solti usually won!  I have to say I heard him live doing Beethoven 3 and Beethoven 9 with the LPO, in Nottingham and London respectively.  He brought incredible tension and atmosphere to his concerts and the LPO produced tremendous tone.  They are concerts, even after all these years, that still stick in my memory.  Love him or hate him, he made many magnificent recordings and was a dedicated musician.  His performances were never routine and he wasn't always as hard-driven as his detractors would have us believe.  I really hope that Decca commemorate this year in a special way.  Despite their faults, I would venture to suggest that Solti's performances bear repeated listening far more than a certain Austrian conductor still given prominence by "the yellow label"! (no prizes for guessing who I mean)