October 21, 2012 marks Sir Georg Soltis centenary and Decca is celebrating this with several important reissues.
Sir Georg was an exclusive Decca artist for 50 years.
In 1947 he signed his first contract with Decca - as a pianist and that same year he made his first record as a conductor (with the Zurich Tonhalle in Beethovens Egmont Overture). His last public concerts took place just a few weeks before his death in 1997 and were with the Zurich Tonhalle.
Solti was a musician with extraordinarily wide musical interests and sympathies and he was without doubt one of the most important opera conductors of the second half of the twentieth century. His legacy of recordings is dominated by opera and his recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen - the first ever complete studio recording - has been described as the greatest recording of all time [BBC Music Magazine, January 2012]
CD 1-2 Arabella
CD 3-4 Ariadne auf Naxos
CD 5-6 Elektra
CD 7-9 Die Frau ohne Schatten
CD 10-12 Der Rosenkavalier
CD 13-14 Salome
CD 15 - bonus CD Elektra - excerpts (historic recording - Munich, August 1952) Vier letzte Lieder (Kiri Te Kanawa) Daphne - transformation scene (Renee Fleming)