Classical Court From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here.

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Nice site!

62.108.1.71

Posted by Rob on April 28, 2000 at 05:18:51

In Reply to: Theme and Variations posted by The Real Dave on April 28, 2000 at 04:54:46:

Let the truth be told!

Solti learned the score of Das
Rheingold, the beginning of the famous Ring recording, for the recording itself, never having
conducted the work straight through.
No wonder his interpretation, if it can be called that, is all fits and starts, or that it combines, in the
composer Robin Holloway's
phrase, "sloppiness and rigour"; that any sense of the theatre comes from Decca's now
comic-sounding effects department.

Decca, the company which created Solti, had a staggering list of singers on their roster, but not
many operatically inclined
conductors; but John Culshaw, their chief producer, unable to conduct himself, found in Solti a
useful tool to do Wagner, and
other composers he liked, his way. It was essentially the way of a vulgarian, someone who loved
the sound records make rather
than the sound of music performed live, and wanted instant thrills. The result was the celebrated
Solti style, nervous, offering
surface excitement and profound emptiness, with no sense of overall structure.

The effect in symphonic music is devastatingly episodic, a great work by Beethoven, for instance,
being reduced to a series of
instant crude "effects". Solti always remained wedded to the bar-line too, with an accent on the
opening beat of each bar, and no
suggestion of phrasing through. His idea of depth was lugubrious slowness, and of intensity jabbing,
harsh and noisy chords.
Climaxes are a shapeless mess of sound, the kind of thing that gets people to preen themselves on
their hi-fi system rather than
taking records as, what they should always be, a substitute for the live experience.

On the other hand, painful as hearing Solti conduct was, watching his spasms on the podium was far
worse. In that sense we
may be grateful that he was primarily a recording conductor.

Oh yes! And a bad one too!

Rob

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