Sir Georg Solti

September 10, 2023

Solti and the Orchestra with Nothing to Hide

Surprises are the stuff of life, and no one is exempt.

Just over 50 years ago, I witnessed one such moment that led to another one day later. The first included a presentation of Mahler’s Symphony #5 on December 4, 1972, under the direction of Sir Georg Solti, well ahead of Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of the conductor of this piece in the movies. The second contained what musicians sometimes call a “train wreck.”

Both performances were expected to be among the most formal of entertainments: the well-established concert routine of the superb Chicago Symphony (CSO). The two events in question, however, were anything but routine.

The first shock occurred before the players took their seats. Artists on the road are always ready to “show their stuff,” but not how these instrumentalists had to.

The tour occurred before player contracts guaranteed proper dressing rooms, comfortable hotel lodging, and the kinds of auditoriums that made the group shine.

Jadwin Gymnasium, however, the program’s site in Princeton, offered no adequate facilities to allow the entire band to change clothes in private.

The ensemble found itself in street clothing in the back of a partition, separating them from the area in front of the screen where they would perform. Presumably, the barrier was also intended to reflect some of the sound produced by Solti and Company toward the patrons sitting on bleachers forward of the ground-level stage.

Matters worsened when the CSO members realized incoming spectators witnessed them removing their regular attire and donning the formal wear retrieved from the nearby wardrobe trunks. Indeed, those ticket buyers occupying the top of the audience risers on the screen’s opposite side saw over the partition. They received more of a show than they paid for.

You would think that was bad enough, but it wasn’t.

The program began with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. The Mahler followed. During its second or third movement, the gymnasium’s cooling system started, sounding out at full blast.

At the movement’s end, Solti walked off the podium with a sharp “click, click, click” from his shoes against Jadwin’s floor. The headman appeared more than angry when talking with nearby facility personnel.

It was clear he did not intend to do battle with the giant fans murdering his effort, Mahler’s composition, and the Chicago Symphony’s art.

The maestro had reason to stop. The gym sounded like an airplane hangar with all the engines and propellers operating. The sheer volume of the CSO at full tilt could not defeat Princeton University’s inbuilt equipment. After a wait, the machinery shut down, and the rest of the Mahler was completed.

Jorgensen Auditorium at the University of Connecticut (UC) was the next destination on the tour, scheduled for December 5. Solti had enough, telling management personnel he would not conduct in the unfamiliar hall  (or perhaps another gym). Otherwise, he intended to keep to his schedule, including two much-anticipated Chicago Symphony appearances at Carnegie Hall. Henry Mazer, the Associate Conductor, filled in for the UC visit.

Mazer was not Sir Georg — not in fame, talent, or communication effectiveness. The final piece in the Connecticut concert, Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) therefore proved problematic and no day for heroes.

About midway through the composition, Strauss requires a buildup of intensity leading into a segment he called The Battlefield, commonly designated The Battle Scene.

Just before launching the instrumentalists into the composer’s musical depiction of combat, some conductors pause momentarily. Others do not hesitate for the “battle” to begin. Solti preferred the latter interpretation: no stopping; Mazer liked the former. Of course, the CSO was used to Maestro Solti’s way, not Mazer’s.

I have not been able to find out whether Mazer communicated his change of approach to section leaders within the orchestra, but when the moment came, the CSO didn’t play in unison. According to conversations, most paused, while numerous others forged ahead. Among the musicians who didn’t wait was a string player who recognized Mazer’s visible effort to telegraph the brief silence he desired and, therefore, tried to restrain his bow. He lost control of it, causing him and his standmate to try to catch it on the way down.

All in all, a metaphorical trainwreck happened, which virtually never occurred to a group known worldwide for its discipline and precision. The conscientiousness of the players who entered too soon made some feel they had single-handedly ruined the performance.

Tom Hall, a retired CSO violinist, told me the following long after the tour:

My suggestion to the (CSO’s) Marketing Department was that they report the (first) concert as “Roaring Fans Greet Orchestra at Princeton.”

Lest you get the wrong idea, during Solti’s tenure as Music Director, the CSO would get more cheers by walking on stage (especially in Carnegie Hall) than some orchestras received after the music stopped.

So far as I know, this was the only time ever the CSO encountered  “Roaring Fans.” At least the inadvertent dressing room’s pseudo-peep show didn’t cause them to be called “The Orchestra with Nothing to Hide.”

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All of the photos are of Sir Georg Solti. The oldest is the second, when his name was György Solti, from 1936. It was taken by Pál M. Vajda and sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The last picture is the work of Allan Warren, at a photo session in London in 1975, also sourced from Wikimedia Commons. 

November 14, 2010

Give Me Presence! The Magic of Charisma

No, the third word in the title isn’t a misspelling. I do mean “presence,” not presents.

Just wanted to get your attention.

According to the online “wiktionary,” the word presence can be defined as “a quality of poise and effectiveness that enables a performer to achieve a close relationship with his audience.” It goes on to give an example: “Despite being less than five foot, she filled up the theater with her stage presence.”

It is that almost indefinable quality about which I am writing. An ineffable “something” about a person which draws us to him, focuses our attention, grabs us so that we are “taken” by him to the point of being more easily influenced, touched, or otherwise affected. The kind of characteristic that people refer to when they say that they can’t take their eyes off of someone or are mesmerized by his voice.

It tends to be a thing that one either has or doesn’t have, not a talent that is easily taught or self-created.

Wilhelm Furtwängler had it. Furtwängler was best known as a German symphony and opera conductor who lived from 1886 to 1954. He was a physically unattractive man (see photo above): tall, bald, and socially awkward. Yet remarkable stories are told about him, and his recordings of the great German composers (e.g Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert) are riveting.

The long time timpanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, Furtwängler’s orchestra, recalled a rehearsal at which they were led by a guest conductor. Werner Thärichen, the timpanist, was waiting for his part in the composition and simply following along in the musical score, turning pages as he did so. Then, suddenly, he noticed that the tonal quality of the sound changed dramatically; that is, the intensity, expressiveness, and beauty of sound abruptly increased.

Startled, he looked up.

Furtwängler had simply walked into the hall in order to observe the rehearsal. His physical presence alone, even in the absence of a look or gesture, was enough to alter the way that the musicians played and evoke a different aural characteristic.

Surely you have known people like this. They have big personalities and a magnetism that is hard to resist. It is said by those who have spoken face-to-face with Bill Clinton, even by some of his detractors, that when he talks to you his gaze makes you feel as if you and you alone are the only thing that exists in his universe.

But “presence” is not always benign. Some people, without ever saying a word, have a physical bearing and facial expression that produces intimidation. Others can intimidate not by looking menacing, but by the combination of their intensity, seriousness, and apparent intellect.

One can try to change or soften one’s presence, but it can be difficult. It is said that the dramatic and exciting conductor Sir Georg Solti sometimes implored the members of his orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, to play in a softer, less aggressive way than they characteristically did for him. To his dismay, despite his words, the musicians were compelled to respond to his large, angular gestures and the urgent, kinetic quality of his being. Although they desired to achieve what he wanted, he evoked a different sound than that which he described on these occasions; the players were irresistibly carried along in a way that neither they nor he wanted.

Might you know someone whose basic good humor and shining presence makes you feel good when he enters a room? My youngest daughter, from an early age, would complain that “people are looking at me!” At first my wife and I worried about the possibility of an early developing paranoid state.

But then, we noticed something interesting.

People were looking at her. Carly had an animation and expressive vitality that drew the eyes of strangers and today, make her an excellent performing musician. She “owns” the stage and that quality was there, on its own, from the start.

Confidence and a lack of self-consciousness help to create a big personality, of course, but they are not absolutely essential.

No, this is something quite mysterious. You can be beautiful and not alluring, plain but engaging, unwise but compelling; you can have the right answers to which no one listens; or be a charismatic leader with the wrong answers — indeed, disastrous plans that can sweep a whole nation along with you to its doom. Any time we worship at the altar of charisma we are at risk.

Even so, it is better for each of us to have a strong presence than not and best to know how we are perceived by others and whether we are producing an unwanted impression.

Still, most of us don’t want to be the guy who, when he is in a crowd, makes the crowd stand out. Having some impact is usually better than having none.

But, as relationship consumers, each of us needs to be sure that the person we are with is not simply a great “presence,” but that he has something substantial to offer.

Be careful.

We are all drawn to the sound of the “sizzle” of a steak on a grill, even without the steak actually being there.

Unfortunately, the sizzle without the steak doesn’t make much of a meal.

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The top image is of Wilhelm Furtwängler. The bottom image is of Sir Georg Solti.