Georg Solti

Hungarian classical conductor

• Born: October 12, 1912
• Birthplace: Budapest, Hungary
• Died: September 5, 1997
• Place of death: Antibes, France

During a career that spanned more than six decades, Solti became one of the most famous conductors in international music circles, with a wide operatic and orchestral repertory, heightened by a serious approach to music-making that brought him great respect and admiration.

The Life

Georg Solti (johrj SHOHL-tee), born György Stern, was the second child of Mórícz Stern and Teréz Rosenbaum. His father, a poor businessman, worked unsuccessfully as a flour merchant, insurance salesman, and real estate broker. When World War I broke out in 1914, the family relocated temporarily to Veszprém, returning to Budapest in 1918 when Solti was six. At this time, his mother, who was musical, noticed that her son had talent and engaged a piano teacher for him. His father changed his children’s last name to Solti (the name of a small Hungarian town) during the upsurge in Hungarian nationalism that followed World War I.

At age ten, Solti was admitted to the Ernö Fodor School of Music in Budapest, where he studied piano and theory with Miklós Laurisin. Two years later he entered the city’s prestigious Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he remained for six years, studying with Arnold Székely, Zoltán Kodály, Leó Weiner, Ernö Dohnányi, and, briefly, Béla Bartók. Solti later wrote that he considered his years at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music to be the most significant part of his formal musical education. He received a diploma in piano in 1930 and a diploma in composition a year later.

Solti’s decision to pursue a career as a conductor came at the age of fourteen, when he heard Erich Kleiber conduct Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 (1808). Upon graduation from the academy, he was engaged as a coach at the Budapest Opera House, which enabled him to develop significant knowledge of the operatic repertoire. As a Jew, Solti knew that he would not be allowed to conduct at the Budapest Opera. In October, 1932, he obtained a position as assistant to Josef Krips, who was music director of the opera house in Karlsruhe, Germany. However, Solti came back to Budapest after a few months to escape the anti-Semitism he encountered in Germany. During the summer of 1936, he attended the Salzburg Festival in Austria and returned the following year to work under the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.

Solti’s training was as a pianist and a vocal coach, and he assisted Toscanini at the Salzburg Festivals of 1936 and 1937. Though anti-Semitism restricted his early career in his native Hungary, he did make his conducting debut there in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (1786; The Marriage of Figaro), but it was not until after World War II that he could resume his operatic career with a performance in Munich of Beethoven’s Fidelio (1805), which carried a message of hope to a newly liberated Europe.

While living in Zurich during the war, Solti had met Hedwig (Hedi) Oechsli; they married on October 29, 1946. The couple separated during Solti’s third season at Covent Garden and eventually divorced in 1966. On November 11, 1967, he married Anne Valerie Pitts, a London journalist; they had two daughters.

Solti died of a heart attack while vacationing with his wife in Antibes, France. He is buried in Farkasreti Cemetery in Budapest, next to Bartók. At the time of his death, Solti was preparing for a London Proms concert performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem (1874).

The Music

In 1936 and 1937, Solti assisted world-famous conductor Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, but he did not get his first conducting job until 1938, when he led a performance of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Budapest State Opera. Unfortunately, his debut was overshadowed by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Austria; Solti fled to Switzerland, where he remained during World War II.

War Years. While in Switzerland, Solti turned his attention to the piano, winning first prize at the Concours International piano competition in Geneva in 1942. After the war, the American forces occupying Germany began a search for musicians who could rekindle the country’s musical life but who were free of Nazi associations. Solti was offered the post of music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in 1946, and he served in that capacity until 1952. He also appeared at the Salzburg Festival, and he conducted in cities as diverse as Paris, Berlin, Rome, Vienna, Florence, and Buenos Aires.

Covent Garden. With his reputation on the rise and his operatic repertory increasing, Solti next accepted a position as music director of the Frankfurt City Opera; he stayed a decade. Then, from 1961 to 1971, he worked as music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in England. His association with England and the English became a close one: He raised the visibility of both Covent Garden and British opera singers, and he made a point of programming works by native composers such as Benjamin Britten. He also conducted the British premiere of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg’s opera Moses und Aron (1957), a production that won international acclaim. For his contribution to musical life in England, Solti was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1972. From 1979 to 1984, he served as principal conductor and artistic director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and later became its conductor emeritus. In 1992 he was made music director laureate at Covent Garden.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The pinnacle of Solti’s career was probably his association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He began his post with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1969, and, though he resigned formally in 1991, he held the title of music director laureate until his death. Solti brought the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to international prominence, increasing its repertory and its reputation. By the mid-1970’s, it had become one of the top five orchestras in North America.

Salzburg Easter Festival. In 1992 Solti began an appointment as artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival, and the next year he recorded the festival’s production of Richard Strauss’s opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (1918); the recording won a Grammy Award in 1993.

In June, 1994, Solti embarked upon the Solti Orchestral Project at Carnegie Hall, a two-week workshop during which eighty instrumentalists, ranging in age from eighteen to thirty, worked with principal players from five U.S. orchestras. The purpose of the project, which was conceived by Solti and by Carnegie Hall executive director Judith Arron, was to give younger players an opportunity to perform with, and learn from, experienced orchestral musicians.

The Ring Cycle. One of Solti’s biggest career undertakings was the recording of Richard Wagner’s monumental cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, which includes Das Rheingold (1869), Die Walküre (1870), Siegfried (1871), and Götterdämmerung (1874), which lasted from 1958 to 1965. At the time it was released, the project was considered unsurpassed in scope, cost, and artistic and technical challenge.

Musical Legacy

During the late 1950’s and 1960’s, Solti dominated the international operatic scene as a conductor, and his decade of tenure at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 1961 came when he had reached the heights of an already long and varied career. When he declared his intention of making Britain’s national opera house “quite simply, the best” in the world, some people thought him boastful or unrealistically ambitious, but by the end of his time there, many argued that he had succeeded in his aim, or at least made it the equal of other great houses.

Solti’s conducting style was clear and direct, and many music specialists agree that Solti was at his best with German, Austrian, and Hungarian music from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, a repertory that included the works of composers Franz Joseph Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, and Strauss. In addition, Solti was renowned for his willingness to program works that fell outside of the traditional orchestral and operatic repertory. An energetic and forceful conductor, he specialized primarily in the German classical and romantic repertory, although he conducted notable performances of works by numerous twentieth century composers, including Samuel Barber, Alban Berg, Benjamin Britten, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, David Del Tredici, Hans Werner Henze, George Rochberg, Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

Solti left a substantial recorded legacy, with more than 250 recordings for the London Decca label (including forty-five complete operas) and thirty-two Grammy Awards (one of them a Lifetime Achievement Award). Among other numerous honors and awards, he received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Principal Recordings

albums:Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2, Little Russian, 1956; Richard Strauss: Arabella, 1957; Wagner: Das Rheingold, 1958; Verdi: Aida, 1962; Wagner: Siegfried, 1962; Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3, 1964; Wagner: Götterdämmerung, 1964; Wagner: Die Walküre, 1965; Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier, 1968; Elgar: Symphony No. 1 in A-flat Major, Op. 55, 1972; Elgar: Symphony No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 63, 1975; Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle, 1979; Tippett: Symphony No. 4, 1979; Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony, 1986; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, 1987; Bach: Mass in B Minor, 1990; Mahler: Symphony No. 5, 1991; Michael Tippett: Byzantium, 1991; Verdi: Otello, 1991; Haydn: The Creation, 1992; Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten, 1992; Mephisto Magic: Solti, 1994; Mozart: Don Giovanni, 1997.

writings of interest:Solti on Solti: A Memoir, 1997.

Bibliography

Culshaw, John. Ring Resounding. New York: Viking, 1967. This resource details Solti’s recording of Wagner’s monumental cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, often considered a milestone in the history of the recording industry. Culshaw was the producer of the recordings.

Furlong, William B. Season with Solti: A Year in the Life of the Chicago Symphony. New York: Macmillan, 1974. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was Solti’s longest association as a conductor, and the book offers insights into and a frank portrayal of a master musician.

Robinson, Paul. Solti. Toronto: Lester and Orpen, 1979. An early biography of Solti, this focuses on his musical activities and includes a discography through February, 1979.

Solti, Georg. Solti on Solti: A Memoir. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. Solti’s own story, published after his death, discusses his early musical studies in Budapest; his exile in Zurich during World War II; his work as music director of the Bavarian State Opera in postwar Munich and similar posts in Frankfurt and London’s Covent Garden; his direction of the Chicago Symphony (1969-1991); and his freelance conducting of the world’s greatest orchestras.