Georg Solti

Sir Georg Solti was a renowned orchestra and opera conductor, best known as the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who set a since-surpassed record by winning 31 Grammy Awards. He was born György Stern in Budapest, Hungary (his Germanic last named was changed under the country's post-World War One "Hungarianization" policy) into a Jewish family. His mother had a musical background and the young Georg would accompany his sister, who was encouraged to sing by their mother, on piano. When he was 10 years old, he began his musical education at Budapest's Ernö Fodor School of Music before transferring to the Franz Liszt Academy, which was more highly regarded, with a faculty that included Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. At the age of 12, a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth instilled in him the desire to conduct an orchestra. He had to finance his own further musical education from the age of 13 on by providing piano instruction. He graduated in 1930 and became a member of the Hungarian State Opera staff. He also worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. Hungary was destined to become an ally of Adolf Hitler during World War II, and the future for a Jew in Hungary was not bright. In 1938, he served a season at the Royal Opera House in London conducting Russian ballet, after which he sought sanctuary in Switzerland. He remained there throughout World War II, forced to support himself as a pianist as he was forbidden to conduct. In 1946, he was named the director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, moving to the Frankfurt Opera in 1952, where he stayed until 1961, when he was appointed musical director of London's Covent Garden Opera Company. Solti won fame for turning Covent Garden into a world class company, winning for it the honorific "Royal". He moved on to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1969, where he would serve as music director until 1991. That orchestra had seen its reputation in decline after maestro Fritz Reiner's departure in the early '60s, but under his baton, Chicago re-established itself as one of the world's premier orchestras. With Chicago, Solti would win 24 of his 31 Grammy Awards. Solti in his career produced than 250 sound recordings. One of his works, a complete set of Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen' produced between 1958 and 1965, has been cited as the greatest recording ever made. Sir Georg Solti died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 84.