Sir Georg Solti was an exclusive artist of Unitel for many years, and
during this time the larger part of his abundant repertoire was recorded
for television, predominantly with his orchestra, the Chicago Symphony. To
honor the great maestro, Unitel got together with him once again in 1995 to
record a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, in which Solti paid homage
to his Hungarian homeland, his roots and his teachers, the Hungarians
Kodály, Bartók and Weiner. It is only natural that Berlioz's Rakoczy March
could not be absent from such a dazzling Austro-Hungarian concert. The
second part of the concert is devoted to Beethoven, who was not Hungarian
but was adopted by Hungary's Austrian neighbors. The concert is Unitel's
last recording with the great artist, who passed away on 5 September 1997.
Sir Georg Solti (1912-1997), one of the greatest conductors of the 20th
century, was a testament to the elegance and impeccable tastefulness of
Central European music-making. Born in Budapest in 1912, he studied with
Béla Bartók, Ernö von Dohnányi, Zoltán Kodály and Leo Weiner. In 1937,
Toscanini chose him to be his assistant at the Salzburg Festival. After the
war, Solti was appointed Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera.
Further stations in his career were the Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Opera
House Covent Garden and the London Philharmonic. His remarkable partnership
with the Chicago Symphony began in 1954; he was named Music Director in
1969 and held this post for a phenomenal 22 years. He is credited with
greatly extending and enhancing the orchestra's worldwide reputation. Solti
died in September 1997, just before his 85th birthday.
