“Solti’s energy, bordering on the electric, provided the dynamic force necessary to galvanise an orchestra and a city into realising its rightful place as a stellar international centre of commerce, industry and art. That was Solti’s gift to Chicago” (Gramophone).

Internationally renowned for his opera conducting as musical director of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, particularly his interpretation of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Hungarian-born Sir Georg Solti was also a celebrated symphonic conductor.

Taking up the post as director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1969, Solti remembered his early performances with the CSO as “an absolute joy” and would remain with them for 22 years, leading them in their debut European tour – of which the concert on this recording was the first fixture.

Recorded in 1971, the film on this DVD is taken from the CSO’s appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in the same year: their first ever concert outside America. In a first filmed edition of this performance, Solti conducts the orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture and Brahms’s Symphony No.1. His subsequent performances of the Brahms have been praised for their “dignity, energy and splendour”.

With his sometimes Samurai-like gestures, Solti summons tremendous power, elegance and clarity from the Orchestra, which includes such legendary instrumentalists as Dale Clevenger, Adolph ‘Bud’ Herseth and Frank Miller, and which led critic William Mann to write: “I am tempted to describe it as the United States” most completely accomplished orchestra’. Of his relationship with the CSO, Solti remarked: “It’s a marvellous thing to be musically happily married. I am, and I know.”

This is the first release of this material on DVD and is the first in a series of Solti/CSO releases to come from ICA Classics to celebrate Solti’s centenary.

Sound format: Enhanced Mono

DVD format: NTSC

Picture format: 4:3

Running time: 67’

Subtitles: French/German

Menu languages: English

Booklet languages: E/F/G

Region code: 0

Territory Restrictions: None