Sir Georg Solti conducts Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev

Sir Georg Solti was a frequent guest conductor with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Born in Hungary in 1912, he played a decisive role in rebuilding the Bavarian National Theatre after the war. From the 1960s onwards, he was considered one of the world's leading conductors alongside Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan. Georg Solti returned to Munich once more for a special concert on February 10, 1984, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. Aged 71 and at the height of his career, he conducted excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. Works by these two Russian composers, as well as Bruckner and Mahler, suited him particularly well, as they sounded musically spirited and exceptionally transparent.

Prokofiev's three-act ballet Romeo and Juliet was written in 1935 for the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow – but the trial performance there was unsuccessful. The premiere of this most popular Shakespearean work as a narrative ballet did not take place until 1938, in Brno in the Czech Republic. The score comprises 52 numbers in total; Prokofiev compiled three suites of six or seven movements each for performance in the concert hall. At the special concert in Munich in 1984 with Georg Solti, fifteen numbers from the ballet music were performed in chronological order – from the introduction of the first act and the famous balcony scene, through to Mercutio's death and the tragic finale.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky dedicated his Fourth Symphony – composed in 1877/78 at the same time as his opera Eugene Onegin – to his patron Nadezhda von Meck. Despite their lengthy correspondence, they never actually met. In a letter to her dated March 1878, Tchaikovsky outlined the feelings he had experienced while composing his Fourth Symphony. While no specific programme can be identified, he associated musical motifs and themes with general emotional states such as the power of fate and dreams of happiness (first movement), melancholy (slow movement), images of fantasy (scherzo), and joy in others’ happiness (finale).

The live recording was made on February 10, 1984 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz.

BR-KLASSIK 2CD 900230

Sergei Prokofiev
Romeo & Juliet, op. 64 (excerpts)

Pjotr I. Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 4 f minor, op. 36

Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Sir Georg Solti conductor

Total Time: CD 1 – 38'50 min. / CD 2 – 41'51 min.