Sir Georg Solti conducts Elgar: Symphonie No. 2, Enigma Variations
London Philharmonic Orchestra
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Cast
Sir Georg Solti — Conductor
Program notes
In February 1972, Hungarian-born conductor Sir Georg Solti recorded Elgar's First Symphony with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Decca Records. Although, at first glance, the musician's association with such a repertoire might seem unlikely, as noted by music critic Edward Greenfield in Gramophone magazine, Solti had in fact long wanted to conduct this work in concert. The disc's promotional texts emphasized Solti's connection with his own composer's recording of the First Symphony. Indeed, Greenfield had personally suggested the idea to the conductor: “I told him right away that he needed to hear the composer's recording, which so passionately develops the score's potential.” Solti's public acknowledgement that he relied on Elgar's recordings for his interpretations of the composer's music was significant, as it helped to justify the practice, which was commonplace at a time when it was often denied. In the words of Lady Solti, the conductor's widow, to a journalist, “what he did when he was approaching a new work, for example with Elgar, was to listen to the composer conducting [...] and that was very important to him, because he could hear the real tempo: sometimes the tempo on the score is altered, so that process was very important to my husband.”
If Solti's reference to Elgar's recordings contributed to his own identification with the composer's music, it was also associated with the knighthood conferred on the conductor in the summer of 1971 and his subsequent adoption of British citizenship. As Decca's editor wrote in the promotional text for the disc's first release: “It is fitting that Solti's first recording since becoming a British citizen should be the greatest of the English symphonies.” At the same time, the relationship between Solti's more usual repertoire and that linking him to his predecessors (such as Hans Richter, also born in Hungary, who first conducted the Enigma Variations) was clearly underlined: “He brings to Elgar's wonderful work the passionate commitment so remarkable in his readings of the German Romantics, and reveals its truly European stature.” This statement established a direct link between the English character of these pages and Solti's international conducting style, resulting in a new approach to Elgar's interpretation.
The recording of the First Symphony met with immense critical and public success, so that the same team wasted no time in tackling the Second, which they recorded in February 1975. Once again, Solti studied both the score and Elgar's recording in great detail. Before presenting the work in England, he conducted it in the USA with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in November 1974. The combination of the Chicago phalanx's patina of sound and great orchestral precision with Solti's deeply considered and thoughtful reading was a revelation, dispelling the mists of English interpretative tradition and replacing them with formidable musical clarity. Solti then programmed the Symphony for two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, on February 13 and 16, 1975, with recording sessions for Decca in between. The BBC television broadcast of the Symphony appears to have taken place at the first of these concerts, where it was unusually placed at the beginning of the program. By pairing it in the Chicago and London programs with major works by Mozart, Solti also subtly suggested the international character of Elgar's music.
As with his performance of the First Symphony, his reading of the Second earned Solti the highest praise. The eminent Elgar scholar Jerrold Northrop Moore had the right word for the power of Solti's reading in his review of the Decca recording, again for Gramophone: “Elgar's symphonies are not only central to the expression of their composer: they concentrate the symphonic expression of an entire epoch, indeed of a nation. Of course, this is something that becomes more evident in retrospect, with maturity, so it is particularly appropriate for Solti to convey it at the height of his experience. He memorably expresses these essentially international elements, offering as far as I'm concerned a deeply satisfying experience.” In fact, what Solti did was to place Elgar at the heart of the same expressive universe as Mahler and Richard Strauss, two composers of whom he was one of the most illustrious interpreters. The result was revealing: James Malllinson, one of Solti's record producers, made an illuminating comment on the relationship between Solti and Elgar's symphonies: in an interview, he claimed that they were “completely alien to his world, and suddenly here he was conducting wonderful Elgar. The two symphonies are among his best recordings, because I think he was completely open when he approached Elgar [...] He came to it without any preconceived ideas, just reading this music [and] it's quite useful to hear someone like Elgar conducting his own works.”
Following these successes, Solti fully embraced Elgar. The Enigma Variations were recorded in Chicago for Decca in 1976, the following year. In his review of this recording, Gramophone's critic observed: “The Chicago Orchestra gives such a virtuoso performance of the Enigma Variations that one's ears prick up in wonder at such precision from this ensemble.” In 1979, Solti frequently conducted Elgar with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. At the time of the television broadcast of the present version of the Enigma Variations, also coupled for the concert with Mozart, he was also conducting three Elgar pieces in the same program: the concert overture In the South, the Cello Concerto and the symphonic poem Falstaff. Commenting on the program in The Times, music critic William Mann wrote that the concert “testified once again to the excellent musical health of the London Philharmonic [...] as well as to the novel and generally luminous viewpoint that Solti brings to the rich pages of this composer.” As the conductor himself told Humphrey Burton, who interviewed him at the time of the broadcast: “I love Elgar, and in my opinion, the Enigma Variations are his masterpiece.”
