Solti Conducts Mozart, Strauss & Wagner

Sir Georg Solti, eighth music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1969 until 1991, begins this program with the overture to Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mozart’s C minor mass with the Chicago Symphony Chorus (and Anne Sofie von Otter in her U.S. debut) follows, along with Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration. Anticipating his 1983 debut at the Bayreuth Festival, Solti led the Orchestra in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and the program concludes with the opera’s finale.

Mendelssohn Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21
Sir Georg Solti conductor
April and May 1976

Mozart Mass in C Minor, K. 427
Sir Georg Solti conductor
Marvis Martin soprano
Anne Sofie von Otter mezzo-soprano
Jerry Hadley tenor
Malcom King bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Margaret Hillis director
October 1985

Strauss Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24
Sir Georg Solti conductor
September and October 1977

Wagner Finale from Das Rheingold
Sir Georg Solti conductor
Michelle Harman-Gulick soprano
Elizabeth Hynes soprano
Emily Golden mezzo-soprano
Gabriele Schnaut mezzo-soprano
Dennis Bailey tenor
Siegfried Jerusalem tenor
John Cheek bass-baritone
Siegmund Nimsgern bass-baritone
April 1983

Special Thanks
Norman Pellegrini program director and producer
Don Tait program host and producer
Mitchell G. Heller recording engineer
Steve Smolian, preservation engineer
Konrad Strauss digital remastering

From the CSO’s Archives: Maestro’s Choice—featuring radio broadcasts from the Rosenthal Archives as well as recordings from the CSO’s vast discography, including many releases on CSO Resound—is a cultural and community partnership between the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and WFMT, Chicago’s Classical Music Station.

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