Sir Georg Solti Archive

BARTOK: Concerto for Orchestra; Dance Suite – London Sym. Orch./ Sir Georg Solti – Decca vinyl

by Audiophile Audition | Dec 25, 2015 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews

A classic Solti recording of two Bartok works, on a remastered vinyl. BARTOK: Concerto for Orchestra; Dance Suite – London Sym. Orch./ Sir Georg Solti – Decca 4788558, 70 min. vinyl (3/6/15) ***(*):   When Solti’s Concerto for Orchestra with the LSO was released in 1965, it set standards in sound and performance that lasted for the rest of the decade. It was a brilliant statement of Decca’s commitment to doing for the music, and by extension the conductor, the orchestra and the recording company, what Stokowski had done for classical music in Fantasia – without the color animation. It was just the musicians, Bartok and your loudspeakers, and the effect was explosive, one of London’s crack orchestras showing what it could for the superstar Solti; the fact that he was Hungarian, like Bartok, made the project all the sweeter, and automatically more authentic. The competition against which Solti scored this huge success was formidable. Fritz Reiner’s 1956 Chicago Symphony still was beloved of American audiophiles, and Solti’s passionate approach and razor-sharp execution was for some “Reiner with heart.” The main contenders on the European side were Ferenc Fricsay’s 1957 taping with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, also an audiophile […]