Jessica Duchen's Classical Music & Ballet Blog. Novelist/journalist JD writes for The Independent, London
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Bravo Solti
Wonderful Webmaster alerts me to the fact that Sir Georg Solti would have been 95 today. So by way of tribute, here's how he turned things round at Covent Garden.
I would recommend the DVD "Solti on Solti" - from which this is an extract - to anyone at all interested in music. I also remember the first time I ever saw the maestro: on this same TV programme rehearsing "Flying Dutchman". How the wind whistled through the rigging! I was hooked, and have been ever since.
Fascinating! Thanks. I was going to ask 'what was it from?' but the previous comment has enlightened me. Evidently much of the high musical standard we now take for granted is thanks to Solti. (Was tickled by some of the errors in the Spanish subtitles btw -- 'doctor' rhythm for dotted rhythm, 'letargo' for legato...)
John Tooley says that "a sizeable portion of the public wanted him out." This was not at all my impression. Solti was hugely popular at the Proms from 1963 on. His Festival Hall concerts were greatly appreciated as was his conducting at Covent Garden - on the many occasion I was there. But... I never went to first nights. I did overhear in record shops what went on then and the sort of people responsible for the loutish behaviour: they were very young, very arrogant men with upper crust accents, dressed in the then-fashionable tweed jackets.
3 comments:
I would recommend the DVD "Solti on Solti" - from which this is an extract - to anyone at all interested in music. I also remember the first time I ever saw the maestro: on this same TV programme rehearsing "Flying Dutchman". How the wind whistled through the rigging! I was hooked, and have been ever since.
Fascinating! Thanks. I was going to ask 'what was it from?' but the previous comment has enlightened me.
Evidently much of the high musical standard we now take for granted is thanks to Solti.
(Was tickled by some of the errors in the Spanish subtitles btw -- 'doctor' rhythm for dotted rhythm, 'letargo' for legato...)
All best
Jonathan (an ROH insider, but since Solti's day)
John Tooley says that "a sizeable portion of the public wanted him out." This was not at all my impression. Solti was hugely popular at the Proms from 1963 on. His Festival Hall concerts were greatly appreciated as was his conducting at Covent Garden - on the many occasion I was there. But... I never went to first nights. I did overhear in record shops what went on then and the sort of people responsible for the loutish behaviour: they were very young, very arrogant men with upper crust accents, dressed in the then-fashionable tweed jackets.
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