Music Weblog

Georg Solti [1912–1997] is another in a long line of Eastern European conductors who escaped the rise of anti-Semitism prior to WWII and made for himself a brilliant career in the West.  Solti was born in Hungary and studied the piano during his teen years before deciding that conducting offered a better path to professional musicianship.  He learned his craft by studying with such luminaries as Béla Bartók and Zoltan Kodály.  He debuted on the podium at the Budapest Opera at the age of 26 by conducting a performance of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.  Solti fled to Switzerland the following year [1939], where he remained throughout the war.  He was then invited to accept the post of music director for the Bavarian State Opera and spent most of the 1950s leading various opera companies throughout Europe.

In 1961, Solti began a ten-year post as music director of The Royal Opera in London after first accepting and then abruptly resigning a similar position for the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier the same year.  However, it was his next position—music director for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO)—that made him one of the most respected conductors during the latter half of the 20th century.  From 1969 through 1991, Solti led the CSO and appeared in more than 900 performances with that ensemble.  He encouraged the organization to take its first tour of Europe [1971] and was the driving force behind making the CSO one of the most recorded orchestras in the world, thanks to his close relationship with producers at Decca Records.  Solti has won more Grammy Awards (31) than any other person—including a Lifetime Achievement Award—and his remarkable discography includes the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler.  His recording for Decca of the Verdi opera Otello features Luciano Pavarotti, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Leo Nucci in the roles of Otello, Desdemona, and Iago respectively, and it is widely considered to be the finest version of this work produced in the past 30 years.

Solti became a naturalized British subject in 1972 and was given an honorary knighthood (KBE), which entitled him to be henceforth known as Sir Georg Solti.  Despite his official departure from the CSO in 1991, the orchestra’s management named him Music Director Laureate and welcomed him back regularly for various programs.  Solti died suddenly of a heart attack less than six weeks before his 85th birthday, which was to have been marked by his one-thousandth performance with the Chicago Symphony.

Georg Solti collaborates with actor Dudley Moore on the 1991 TV mini-series “Orchestra”:

Leopold Stokowski [1882–1977] was a British-born descendent of Polish aristocracy on his father’s side, and fairly pedestrian Irish roots on his mother’s side.  He became one of the youngest students ever at London’s Royal College of Music when he enrolled there at the age of 13.  His education included considerable studies in organ performance, and his post-graduate career began as an organist in a number of posts at various churches in the Greater London area.  In 1903, he graduated from Queen’s College (Oxford) with a bachelor’s degree in music.

Two years later, Stokowski journeyed to New York City to accept the position as organist and choir director at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, located at 51st and Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan.  Despite his popularity with churchgoers, however, he decided to pursue a career in conducting and moved to Paris for additional instruction.  His first post brought him back to the States as principal conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.  While there, Stokowski created the concept of “pop” concerts—programs featuring short works of music with familiar themes, meant to attract more casual listeners—and also promoted pieces by living composers such as Richard Strauss, Edward Elgar, and Jean Sibelius.  A dispute with the orchestra’s board of directors in 1912 caused him to resign from the Cincinnati post.  A mere two months later, Stokowski signed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a legend was born.

As leader of one of the top five orchestras in the United States, Stokowski championed a number of innovations that remain popular today.  He encouraged his string players to work their bows more freely than was generally the case with other orchestras and also changed the way his horn and woodwind players employed breathing techniques.  These methods helped create what became known as the “Philadelphia sound,” a methodology that was soon adopted by other orchestras across the country.  Stokowski was also known for taking considerable liberties with music scores, occasionally altering them in ways that shocked the sensibilities of classical purists.  His reputation for flamboyance on the podium garnered him considerable press coverage and led to a starring role in conducting music for the Walt Disney film Fantasia.  He also appeared as himself in several Hollywood feature films, including a 1947 movie titled Carnegie Hall.

After leaving the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1940 in the capable hands of his associate conductor, Eugene Ormandy, Stokowski founded several ensembles.  These included the New York City Symphony Orchestra [1944], the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra [1945], and the Symphony of the Air [1954] that was the direct successor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.  Failing health after age 80 forced him to appear mostly in recordings, although he made his final public appearance on the podium at the age of 91 with the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

Stokowski conducts Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet” Overture/Fantasy in a video from 1969: