Album

Once, the release of a live Eroica with Georg Solti conducting the London Symphony Orchestra coupled with live recordings of excerpts from Götterdämmerung and Tristan und Isolde from the same conductor leading the Covent Garden Orchestra with soprano Birgit Nilsson would have been considered a significant addition to an important conductor's discography. But since his death 1997, Solti's stock has fallen precipitously and his reputation has gone into almost complete eclipse. This is, needless to say, unfair. Solti turned in some of most exciting and most influential recordings of the second half of the twentieth century—among them, his complete Beethoven cycle with the Chicago Symphony and his complete Ring cycle with the Wiener Philharmoniker—and to forget him is to forget some of the most thrilling performances ever recorded.

So for those who remember and for those who don't, here are magnificent reminders of exactly how great a conductor Solti was in his prime. His 1968 Eroica is fast, tough, strong, and, yes, extremely exciting. The LSO, then Solti's orchestra, responds with palpable enthusiasm to his leadership and its playing has an edge-of-the-seat quality that the conductor and the music demand. And his 1963 Götterdämmerung and Tristan excerpts are even better. Though the Covent Garden Orchestra isn't technically in the same class as either the LSO or the Wiener Philharmoniker, it plays superbly for Solti in "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" from Götterdämmerung and in the Prelude to Act 1 of Tristan. Best of all is Nilsson and Solti's ecstatic account of the "Love-Death" from Tristan. Nilsson's clarion voice is in top form, nailing her high notes with ease and soaring over the orchestra with unstoppable energy. And Solti and the Covent Garden musicians are right there with her, moving from wonder to awe to starry-eyed transcendence with her. Though the live sound here is distant and a bit dull, the quality of the performances makes these sonic shortcomings easy to forgive.

© James Leonard, Rovi

CD 1
Ludwig van Beethoven Composer Symphony No.3 in Eb, Op.55 ('Eroica') Work Recorded 1968 52:15 London Symphony Orchestra Orchestra, Georg Solti Conductor
1	1.Allegro con brio	15:58			$2.49
2	2.Marcia funebre: Adagio assai	17:30			$2.99
3	3.Scherzo: Allegro vivace	6:05			$0.99
4	4.Finale: Allegro molto	12:42			$1.99
Richard Wagner Composer Götterdämmerung (opera), WWV 86d...Prologue Work Recorded 1963 Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden Orchestra, Georg Solti Conductor, Birgit Nilsson Soprano
5	12.Orchesterzwischenspiel: Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt	8:00			$1.49
Richard Wagner Composer Tristan und Isolde (opera), WWV 90 Work Recorded 1963 18:44 Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden Orchestra, Georg Solti Conductor, Birgit Nilsson Soprano
6	Act 1. Prelude	11:35			$1.99
7	Act 3. Death of Isolde	7:09			$1.49