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Cast
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Sir Georg Solti — Conductor
Program notes
At the Edinburgh Festival, Sir Georg Solti conducts Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream and Brahms's Symphony No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
1971: the charismatic conductor Sir Georg Solti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra outside American borders, the first tour of the orchestra in Europe since its creation. This tour led them across ten European countries and helped the orchestra to become one of the best orchestras of the world.
Sir Georg Solti, the "Fastest Baton in the West" as he had been nicknamed by the Time Magazine, conducts during the first part of this concert Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream that he composed aged only 17. This overture was qualified by the music critic Sir George Grove as "the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music". Its performance leads the audience at the heart Shakespeare's fairy and in the Genius of the young Mendelssohn.
During the second part, Sir Georg Solti conducts Brahm's powerful Symphony No. 1. With the maestro's energy and impressive art of conducting, the performance of this work perfectly reflects all the musical facets of this symphony.
In the last part of this film, Sir Georg Solti talks about the incredible link he had with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a link that allowed them to develop together a kind of unique symbiosis in their music. Indeed, Sir Georg Solti had a deep esteem for this orchestra during their collaboration to such an extent that he called its members "my musicians".
