Solti and New Music

I lived in Chicago from 1977 to 1989, where I frequently heard Georg Solti conduct the Chicago Symphony, and several times reviewed him and wrote about him. Around 1985, Solti held a press conference which I wasn't present for, but a tape recording was made that I transcribed shortly afterward. Someone asked why the orchestra didn't perform more new music. Solti responded to the effect that new music was always experimental, and that a great instrument like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra could not be used for "experiments." This is why, in my previous blog entry, I called him an anti-new-music snob. He then continued, "And why should I conduct a symphony by Mister X when there are Haydn symphonies I haven't conducted yet?" This is why I called him self-indulgent: his pleasure in conducting the repertoire he already loved was more important to him than his sense of responsibility toward keeping classical music a living art. Chicago's composers (notably Ralph Shapey) were livid, and damned Solti for months in conversation and print. I remember Solti conducted (and commissioned) Lutoslawski's Third Symphony during those years, but I remember nothing he did for any composer born as late as 1920.

So with all due condolences to the person who wrote me royally pissed off about my glancing snipe at St. Georg, my opinion stands, for the period I was familiar with and for that incident in particular, and I am entitled to it. Perhaps after I left in 1989 Solti became a heavy-metal freak and commissioned seven symphonies from John Zorn, but if so I didn't hear about it.

September 30, 2003 10:04 PM |

Categories:

Sites To See

Postclassic Radio! - Kyle Gann's internet radio station that accompanies the blog; see the playlist at kylegann.com

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page - great Downtown composer

Just Intonation Network - a meeting place for people interested in alternative tunings

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by PostClassic published on September 30, 2003 10:04 PM.

Happy Anniversary!! was the previous entry in this blog.

Long-Sought Treasures Found at Ubuweb is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Ads

Introducing
AJ Arts Blog Ads

Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.

Advertise Here

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Stage Write
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.