Georg Solti
Georg Solti was a Hungarian and British conductor. Born György Stern in Budapest on October 21, 1912, he studied piano and composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. His teachers included Ernő Dohnányi, Leó Weiner, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, and Arnold Székely.
Solti began his career as a répétiteur at the Budapest Opera. He assisted Bruno Walter in 1935 and Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival in 1936 and 1937. He made his conducting debut in Budapest in 1938 with Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. After moving to Switzerland in 1939, he performed as a pianist and won first prize at the Geneva International Competition in 1942.
After the war, Solti became music director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Frankfurt Opera. He made his Salzburg Festival debut in 1951, conducting Mozart’s Idomeneo, and led the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1961–62. From 1961 to 1971, he directed the Royal Opera in London. He became a British citizen in 1972.
Solti served as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1969 to 1991, conducting it 999 times. Their recordings included operas by Schoenberg, Verdi, and Wagner, as well as the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler. He also led the Orchestre de Paris from 1972 to 1975 and the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1979 to 1983, and worked with the Vienna Philharmonic. His recordings with these orchestras included works by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Tippett, and Shostakovich. He directed the Salzburg Easter Festival in 1993 and 1994.
His recordings of Wagner’s operas, especially The Ring of the Nibelung, as well as works by Mozart, Verdi, Richard Strauss, and Schoenberg, were among his major achievements. His symphonic recordings included music by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, and Bartók. Solti’s interpretations were noted for their scale, expressiveness, attention to detail, and dramatic coherence. He wrote his memoirs, Solti on Solti, with the American writer Harvey Sachs; the book appeared in 1997.
Solti received the Order of the British Empire in 1971, the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal in 1989, and France’s Order of Arts and Letters in 1995. His recordings received 31 Grammy Awards, a record recognized by the Guinness Book of Records. He was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame. Solti died in Antibes, France, on September 5, 1997, and was buried in Budapest, near Béla Bartók’s grave.