Georg Yankovsky

Decca celebrates one of the world’s most prolific conductor-orchestra partnerships with a deluxe 108-CD box set marking both the 20th Anniversary of the passing of Sir Georg Solti and the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 108 CDs presenting Solti’s and the CSO’s complete recorded legacy together: from their very first recording at Medinah Temple in March 1970 of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony to their last at Orchestra Hall, Chicago in March 1997 of Shostakovich’ Symphony No.15.

Decca celebrates one of the world’s most prolific conductor-orchestra partnerships with a deluxe 108-CD box set marking both the 20th Anniversary of the passing of Sir Georg Solti and the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 108 CDs presenting Solti’s and the CSO’s complete recorded legacy together: from their very first recording at Medinah Temple in March 1970 of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony to their last at Orchestra Hall, Chicago in March 1997 of Shostakovich’ Symphony No.15.

Decca celebrates one of the world’s most prolific conductor-orchestra partnerships with a deluxe 108-CD box set marking both the 20th Anniversary of the passing of Sir Georg Solti and the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 108 CDs presenting Solti’s and the CSO’s complete recorded legacy together: from their very first recording at Medinah Temple in March 1970 of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony to their last at Orchestra Hall, Chicago in March 1997 of Shostakovich’ Symphony No.15.

Decca celebrates one of the world’s most prolific conductor-orchestra partnerships with a deluxe 108-CD box set marking both the 20th Anniversary of the passing of Sir Georg Solti and the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 108 CDs presenting Solti’s and the CSO’s complete recorded legacy together: from their very first recording at Medinah Temple in March 1970 of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony to their last at Orchestra Hall, Chicago in March 1997 of Shostakovich’ Symphony No.15.

So this is, on the whole, a fine performance. The only other commercial recording of Die Meistersinger to come along in the last couple of decades has been Sawallisch's (for my review see Fanfare 18:3). And that one, despite its many virtues, is seriously disfigured by Weikl's Sachs. So if you want a Meistersinger in up-to-the-minute digital sound, you would do better with Solti. I must add, however, that while the sound on this new recording is very full and clear, it lacks warmth.

The baritone Georg Nigl is fascinated by ballads, which unfold in him "dream images". Schubert's long and little-known lied Viola , based on a poem by Franz von Schober, or the great ballads based on texts by Goethe "opened up a world that has always accompanied me, that of the storyteller (…) stories of frightening beauty, with as many colours as possible…". The magnificent pianos on this recording - a Christoph Kern fortepiano after Conrad Graf (Vienna, 1826) and a Steinway & Sons concert grand piano (New York, 1875) - beautifully played by Olga Pashchenko, with whom Georg now forms an intimate and inspired duo, allow us to hear "unknown sounds and sometimes unheard-of colours"…

Composer and Guitarist Morten Georg Gismervik´s new album «Dunes at Night» explores two completely different characters.

George Tintner's sudden, untimely death in the fall of 1999 coincided with the completion of his Naxos cycle devoted to Bruckner's complete symphonies. In nearly every case where more than one Bruckner version exists, Tintner favors the composer's first thoughts. Thus we have the first recording of Symphony No. 1 in its unrevised 1866 version, the original 1872 Second, plus the seldom heard 1873 Third and 1887 Eighth. By contrast, Tintner preferred Bruckner's revised Fourth of 1878/80, with its new and beloved "hunting" Scherzo.

Involving, as it does, three master musicians and a fine chamber orchestra this was never likely to be be other than rewarding. It may not correspond with the ways of playing Mozart at the beginning of the twenty-first century which are fashionable at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but it has virtues – such as high intelligence, sympathy, certainty of purpose, grace, alertness of interplay – which transcend questions of performance practice. Looking at the names of the pianists above, we might be surprised by the presence of Sir Georg Solti, so used are we to thinking of him as a conductor. But the young Solti appeared in public as a pianist from the age of twelve and went on to study piano in Budapest, with Dohnányi and Bartok.

Georg Graewe began composing and performing professionally at the age of 15. He has since been leading a variety of ensembles - which have involved some of the leading instrumentalists in contemporary music. His compositions include chamber music and works for full orchestra as well as scores for films, theater productions, radio drama and video, operas.