Customer Reviews

Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Historic Telecasts with George Szell (Mussorgsky / Beethoven / Berlioz / Mozart)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was delighted to find a DVD of George Szell's work. Unfortunately it's with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra rather than the Cleveland Orchestra, the musical instrument that George Szell turned into the greatest orchestra in the world. I was tempted to give only four stars because of the antiquated audio of the DVD; but I decided that was a "revisionist" injustice. George Szell was the greatest orchestral conductor of the Twentiesth Century. Seeing him work with any orchestra is a miracle. Sadly. even now only the most dedicated of classical music nuts know who he was and he's been gone only thirty-some years.

The product summary refers to this 1961 recording as having been made in the "twilight" of Szell's career. I would beg to differ and suggest that he did some of his very best work in the ten years before his death in 1970.

As another reviewer noted, it would be nice to see more video of Szell with Cleveland, an orchestra he personally turned into (one of) the best in the world. (It still is: A number of years after Szell died, Cleveland's subsequent music director Christoph von Dohnányi was quoted in the NYT as saying, "We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review.")

That said, while Szell was building a superb orchestra in Cleveland, Fritz Reiner was also polishing what was already a pretty fine orchestra in Chicago. The CSO's style then was similar in some ways to the style of Szell's Cleveland Orchestra.

So even though this recording is not with Cleveland, it's still a very interesting look back at what one great maestro could do with another great maestro's outstanding orchestra.

Recommended for :

(i) the nice and rather easly listening repertoire;

(ii) it gives us a much better idea of how Szell conducts;

(iii) we could readily compare Szell with his successor Sir George Solti, and

(iv) most importantly of all, we have Morini, one of the greatest violinists of the century (from the Viennese School) playing Mozart-- her footage alone is worth the ticket already, especially for those who have a ear or taste for the more refine and assuring sort of music and suffice to say that among all violinists of the past, Hilary Hann would particualarly love to see Morinin at work!

The sound is indeed quite good and the picture is more than acceptable.