Wagner: Opera Excerpts

Recorded in 1971 the film on this DVD is taken from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in the same year: their first ever concert outside America. This is the first release of this material on DVD and is the first in a series of Sir Georg Solti/CSO releases to come from ICA Classics to celebrate Solti's centenary.

Also available on Blu-ray

SOLTI – Journey of a Lifetime Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Sir Georg Solti A film by Georg Wübbolt

Featuring:
Valerie Solti
Valery Gergiev
Christoph von Dohnányi
Sir Peter Jonas
Clemens Hellsberg
Ewald Markl
and many more as interview partners as well as several musical excerpts conducted by Sir Georg Solti

Bonus:
Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10
Sergey Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, “Classical”
Modest Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina: Prelude

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Georg Solti, conductor

R E V I E W:

SOLTI: JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME • Georg Solti, cond; Chicago SO • C-MAJOR 711708 (DVD: 106: 00) A film by Georg Wübbolt

MUSSORGSKY Khovanshchina: Prelude. PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1, “Classical.” SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 1. Live: Chicago 1977

What is Georg Solti’s place in the pantheon of podium titans? He gained celebrity when he led the first complete recording of Wagner’s Ring to be issued. He created a comparable sensation when he took over the Chicago Symphony and led that orchestra in concerts and recordings that dazzled with their brilliance, virtuosity, and tonal splendor. In the 1970s Harold C. Schonberg, the influential chief music critic of the New York Times , pronounced Solti and Karajan the two most significant conductors of the age, characterizing Solti’s sonority as “molten gold,” in contrast to the “silvery” Karajan sound. As is usual, extravagant acclaim soon led detractors to weigh in, and Solti’s recordings began to be criticized as crude, unyielding, over-driven, excessively muscular, and lacking in nuance and refinement. Although he holds the record for the number of Grammy awards, his many recordings of standard symphonic repertoire rarely turn up today on lists of preferred versions, and he did not make BBC Music magazine ’s list of the 20 greatest conductors, as selected by a poll of 100 currently active conductors. (Nor, astonishingly, did Otto Klemperer or Bruno Walter.)

The centennial of Solti’s birth in 2012 saw the release on DVD of two documentaries about his life and career. The other one, which I have not seen, was reviewed by Lynn René Bayley in Fanfare 36:3. It is nearly three times as long as the one under review here and apparently more thorough and detailed, with a lengthier supplement of complete performances. The C Major release combines a 52-minute documentary with 54 minutes of performances by the Chicago Symphony. Filmmaker Georg Wübbolt was also responsible for a documentary on Carlos Kleiber that I reviewed in 35:1. As in that earlier effort, he follows the standard technique of interspersing commentary by those who knew the conductor, worked with him, or followed his career, with clips from rehearsals and performances. Solti himself is much more of a participant in the commentary than was Kleiber, who stopped giving interviews early in his career. Wübbolt also follows his earlier practice of shifting rapidly from one commentator to the next, which generates a fast-paced narrative but also leaves loose ends and unanswered questions. As in his earlier documentary, there are issues one would like to have discussed in greater detail. It is also sometimes hard to keep track of the identities of the commentators and their connection to Solti, since they are often not again identified when they reappear. They include Solti’s widow, Valerie, Christoph von Dohnányi, who served as his assistant in Frankfurt, Valery Gergiev, and the critic Norman Lebrecht, along with musicians and officials of the Chicago Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Frankfurt and Munich opera houses, the Bayreuth Festival, and others. Considering the importance of opera in Solti’s career, the absence of singers with whom he worked from the ranks of commentators is surprising and regrettable. The film is mostly in German, with English subtitles, although there is some narration and comment in English. Solti himself speaks in German.

The documentary provides a succinct overview of Solti’s career: his musical training in his native Budapest under Bartók, Ernö Dohnányi, and Leo Weiner; his 1937 visit to Salzburg, where he met Toscanini and was recruited to serve as a repetiteur; his second meeting with Toscanini in Lucerne in 1939, on the eve of World War II, which resulted in his being stranded in Switzerland for the duration of the conflict. In postwar Germany, he finally had the opportunity to begin a conducting career, since most German conductors were temporarily barred by the victorious Allies from performing. He first headed the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where life for him was very difficult. The opera orchestra (“all Nazis” according to Solti) did not take kindly to being led by a young Hungarian Jew and showed it. In 1951 he moved to the somewhat friendlier territory of Frankfurt. His career took a giant step forward when producer John Culshaw selected him for the Ring project over more senior and established figures, perceiving him as someone who was more amenable to the demands of the recording studio and capable of achieving the results Culshaw envisioned for this ground-breaking effort. The Decca Ring is said to have led to Solti’s appointment to head London’s Royal Opera, although most of Ring operas had not yet been released when this selection took place. After his successful although controversial tenure at Covent Garden (1961-71), where he brought the company to “the highest international standards,” he had had enough of presiding over opera houses and wished to devote himself to symphony orchestras. As music director of the Chicago Symphony (1969-91), he perhaps reached the peak of his career, bringing the orchestra to a level of world-wide acclaim it had never before approached. Not so successful was his brief tenure with the Orchestre de Paris (1972-75), described in the film as “a terrible orchestra” where “no one goes…except for the money.” Curiously, the documentary does not mention his involvement with the London Philharmonic, which he led in the years 1979-83 and with which he recorded Elgar’s symphonies and several Mozart operas, among other works. When Karajan died in 1989 prior to the Salzburg Festival, Solti was urgently requested to take over the production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, which he did with some reluctance. Up to then he had never been invited to conduct at Salzburg or at the Berlin Philharmonic. There was no love lost between the two conductors, but they did listen to each other’s recordings to find out how the other was approaching a work. In Solti’s final years, he renewed his ties with Munich in guest appearances with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and returned to his homeland to lead the recently founded Budapest Festival Orchestra in a recording of works by his three teachers.

When the commentators attempt to characterize Solti’s style as a conductor, words like energy, vitality, and fire crop up repeatedly and are underscored by images of his abrupt, even violent movements on the podium. These movements, according to one observer, provoked orchestras to play loudly, and he had difficulty getting them to play more softly. In addition to fire, according to Gergiev, he possessed “icy control.” Other commentators mention his perfectionism, focus on detail, and special concern for rhythm, which are reflected in his practice of singing, or rather chanting, a passage to demonstrate how it should go. The Vienna Philharmonic cellist Werner Resel emphasizes and, I think, exaggerates the role of recordings in establishing Solti’s reputation, arguing that Solti “didn’t make a career by conducting concerts and delighting audiences but by making records that turned out to be great.” This gentleman apparently missed the decades in which Solti was thrilling audiences with his Chicago Symphony concerts, in Europe as well as the U.S. Peter Schmidl, another VPO musician, makes the surprising and demonstrably false claim that “Solti’s great career as a conductor became possible only when Böhm had stopped conducting and Karajan had died…and when Bernstein was no longer around,” in other words, in the last seven years of Solti’s life. The same observer, however, expresses regret that Solti was not called earlier to Salzburg, where he could have achieved great results.

The concert performances included as a supplement are drawn from a 1977 telecast featuring Russian music. The Khovanshchina Prelude is performed in Rimsky-Korsakov’s smoothed-out and comparatively bland revision. In the Prokofiev “Classical” Symphony, Solti’s weighty approach and the massive sound of the Chicago Symphony are perhaps not the best fit for this light and frothy music, but the piece is brilliantly played and enjoyable to hear. The fast-paced, forceful, and once again brilliantly played Shostakovich is the most satisfying item on the program. As was his practice, Solti tends to set a tempo and stick to it, without much inflection for expressive purposes, and with the solid, steady rhythmic underpinning that was one of his hallmarks. Others may bring more mystery and sense of underlying menace to this work, but with Solti the menace is quite overt. The sound is free from distortion, brilliant in tutti, and wide in dynamic range, if a bit opaque and lacking in spaciousness.

Returning to the question I posed at the beginning of this review, I have no definitive answer. Solti’s Ring , which has just been reissued in an expensive, hefty “super deluxe” edition and is said to be by far the best-selling classical recording of all time, retains its status, as does his Mahler Eighth, although even they are not without their detractors, as witness Lynn René Bayley’s unfavorable comments in 36:3. Solti’s legacy as an opera conductor, in Wagner, Strauss, Verdi, and, somewhat surprisingly, Mozart, seems to me secure. Although he was never one of my favorite conductors, he was one who engaged my interest, and I have a good many of his recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, and others on my overburdened shelves. I will retain these performances as having enduring value, even if they would not necessarily be among my first choices for the works in question. Solti remains a worthy contributor to the almost infinite variety of performance that enriches our experience of music. For those interested in his life and career, the Wübbolt documentary, despite the shortcomings noted, offers a concise overview with many insights.

FANFARE: Daniel Morrison

1977 Video Production

Picture format: NTSC 16:9 (documentary) / 4:3 (bonus)
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Languages: English, German
Subtitles: French, Spanish, Korean
Running time: 52 mins (documentary) + 55 mins (bonus)
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

SOLTI – Journey of a Lifetime
Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Sir Georg Solti (Blu-ray Disc Version)

Featuring:
Valerie Solti
Valery Gergiev
Christoph von Dohnányi
Sir Peter Jonas
Clemens Hellsberg
Ewald Markl
and many more as interview partners as well as several musical excerpts conducted by Sir Georg Solti

Bonus:
Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10
Sergey Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, “Classical”
Modest Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina: Prelude

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Georg Solti, conductor

1977 Video Production

Picture format: 1080i High Definition (documentary) / 4:3 (bonus)
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Languages: English, German
Subtitles: French, Spanish, Korean
Running time: 52 mins (documentary) + 55 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

Classical Music

Classical Music

"Two visceral performances of late Bruckner as directed by Hans Knappertsbusch, a major exponent of the 'old school' of Bruckner interpretation... Knappertsbusch revered the C Minor Symphony of Bruckner and bequeathed us five inscriptions. This Vienna Philharmonic concert (29 October 1961), Kna's last with the VPO... resonates with introspective girth and massive distribution of acoustical sonority." -Gary Lemco in Audiophile Audition

This re-release of The Canterbury Pilgrims forms part of the new Hickox Legacy commemorative series on Chandos Records, leading up to (and continuing beyond) the fifth anniversary, in November 2013, of the conductor's untimely death. The two-disc set is issued for the price of 1 CD. The pioneering account of The Canterbury Pilgrims, a colorful but neglected work by Sir George Dyson, brilliantly depicts assorted characters from the prologues of Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales, while highlighting key aspects of Hickox’s recorded legacy: the championing of neglected repertoire in general, and British repertoire in particular, as well as his special affinity with choral music. ‘Chaucer’s amusingly ironic depictions and Dyson’s memorable tunes and imaginative orchestration are a winning combination. If you like Gerontius, Vaughan Williams and Ireland, you’ll like Dyson. Go out and buy this disc *****’. - BBC Music Magazine ‘This is a very fine recording… Every layer in the texture is exceptionally well defined and integrated, which is no mean feat when such elaborate forces – soloists, choir, and orchestra – are involved’ – Gramophone Magazine

Also available on Blu-ray

Gloriously affirming the Salzburg Festival’s long-standing reputation as a supreme musical event, this concert honours one of its founding fathers, Richard Strauss. Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra unite for a programme of song, opera and tone poem, genres central to the composer’s extraordinarily fruitful career. Fleming interprets four of his songs with orchestra, including the deeply moving Befreit, and provides a substantial taste of perhaps her finest operatic role, Arabella. New vistas then open as Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic take the spectacular mountain journey mapped by the composer in his titanic Alpine Symphony.

Richard Strauss:
Befreit, Op. 39, No. 4
Winterliebe, Op. 48, No. 5
Traum durch die Dämmerung, Op. 29, No. 1
Gesang der Apollopriesterin, Op. 33, No. 2
Arabella: Mein Elemer!
Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64

Renée Fleming, soprano
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live at the Salzburg Festival, August 2011

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format; LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 84 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

R E V I E W:

R. STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony. Befreit. Winterliebe. Traum durch die Dämmerung. Gesang der Apollopriesterin. Arabella: act I concluding scene • Christian Thielemann, cond; Renée Fleming (sop); Vienna PO • OPUS ARTE 7101 (Blu-ray: 84:00) Live: Salzburg 8/2011


Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra giving a Richard Straus concert at Salzburg would seem to be a no-brainer for Richard Strauss fans. Put it on your Blu-ray machine, turn off the lights, and surrender to Strauss’s beloved soprano voice and luscious orchestration. Fleming has stated that his music is ideal for her voice. And so it is. Strauss was seemingly addicted to the soprano voice, but you have to wonder if he ever heard an instrument like Fleming’s singing his music. Her rich, creamy tone blends so perfectly with Strauss’s lush orchestration that you have to forgive her when she sometimes tends to over-interpret these songs. Her lovely tone and wistful mood are perfect for the concluding scene from Arabella. Yes, she owns the part with a voice that is even more innately suited to this music than Kiri Te Kanawa’s. Gesang der Apollopriesterin is overwhelming in the hands of Fleming, Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Despite sometimes seemingly getting lost in the sheer beauty of the sound of her voice as it relates to this music (who can blame her?), Befreit also shows why Fleming is a great Straussian. The magnificent Vienna Philharmonic plays an equal role in the songs, as it should.


For some, An Alpine Symphony will never be more than a monstrous exercise in musical megalomania (sometimes I wonder whether those critics are afraid to allow themselves to actually enjoy music, rather than view it as a painful academic exercise). After all, orchestration and melody are in many cases just as important as counterpoint and structure (which is not to say that Strauss could not write structurally sound music, even if he was not a symphonist). Anyway, Thielemann seems content to let the orchestra do its thing with just the right amount of control, and the video director discreetly gives us a helpful view of all the soloists within Strauss’s gigantic orchestra, especially the woodwinds. What a pleasure it is to hear the trumpets playing effortlessly without sounding annoying or inappropriately piercing through the instrumental fabric. And those trombone fanfares are stunning. Thielemann’s tempos are generally slow, but he presses forward in the climactic “At the Summit,” thus assuring that his interpretation does not bog down or sound over-indulgent. On the other hand, he slows too much to the point of micro-managing without enhancing the music’s atmosphere for the “Vision,” “Elegy,” and “Calm Before the Storm.” For Thielemann, the true climax appears to be “Sunset,” where he broadens the tempo and unleashes a torrent of luxurious sound. The organ is too subdued in the “Storm,” but blends nicely with the orchestra elsewhere.


The DTS surround sound is ideal for the Alpine Symphony, and the video direction shows plenty of detail without being choppy. My one quibble would be that you never get a complete view of the important percussion section. There are extreme close-ups of drum sticks (but not the timpanist) and the wind and thunder machines, but not the rest of the players. Subtitles are available in English, French, German, and Spanish. What more can I say? It is hard to imagine a better audio-visual feast for Straussians.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

In a classically operatic set of comedic circumstances, we find a love triangle gone askew: Gilfen and Luise are having marriage trouble; Gilfen wishes to escape. Family friend Trott has fallen in love with Luise and hopes to profit from Gilfen's absence. In his eagerness to hasten Gilfen's departure, Trott takes over the travel arrangements - and so begins a comedy of errors. Recorded live in 1964 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of d'Albert's birth, this brief but delicious operetta is fit listening for any opera fan.

The opening concert of the Salzburg Festival, for many regarded as the world's most renowned music festival, is by tradition a high-profile event and the 2011 gala presented here was one of the best in memory. Pierre Boulez, the "grand seigneur of subtle minimalism and exquisitely beguiling sounds" (Der Standard), assembled a cast of tremendous distinction to join the Vienna Philharmonic for this prestigious concert, conceived as a tribute to Gustav Mahler: Dorothea Roschmann, Anna Larsson, Johan Botha and rising star Anna Prohaska. After two works by Mahler's pupil Alban Berg, featuring Roschmann and Prohaska, the main event of the concert if Mahler's large-scale cantata Das klagende Lied - a "great spectral opera for the mind's eye" (Vienna Zeitung).

Classical Music

The London Symphony Orchestra along with Felicia Taylor presents this wonderful collection of the all-time greatest film songs, featuring unforgettable songs such as "Unchained Melody", "My Heart Will Go On", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and many more!

Classical Music

Classical Music