Denis Fodor replies to Ron Chaplin:

>>I was wondering if any list members would care to comment on >gymnastic
>>conductors they've seen.  Thanks, as always.
>
>In one word: George Solti--albeit in the manner of Boris Karloff playing
>Frankenstein.  Stupendously lumbering violence.

I saw a lot of Solti in Chicago in the '70's, and this strikes me as really
unfair.  My understanding is that conducting had so developed his shoulder
and neck muscles that he was less flexible than some, having to turn his
whole body in order to face certain sections of the orchestra.  Maybe this
is what the loaded term "lumbering" is about.  But "violence"? Yes, I've
heard all the endlessly repeated, denigrating comments about Solti's
"fierceness," about the "driven" character of his interpretations,
about his shallow pursuit of merely "physical" effects, etc.  It just
doesn't correspond to my own experience in the hall.  Solti was the most
electrifying, viscerally exciting conductor I've ever heard, in person or
on recordings.  He could also manage more intimate and less flamboyant
moments better than he is sometimes given credit for.  And his conducting
did look a lot like the sound the orchestra produced.  Do I in particular
cases sometimes prefer the work of other conductors? Of course.  But
"stupendously lumbering violence"? Well, I guess what seems violent to
some is galvanizing for others.  I just wish he were still around.

I suppose what ticks me off about posts like this is not that they indicate
an unfavorable view of a conductor I enjoy.  It's the gratuitous nastiness
of the comment, it's the attempt to pump up what may be a legitimate
observation of an individual's work into a one-sided verbal sneer, it's
the lack of balance and fairness that rubs me the wrong way.

I'll just go listen to Solti's COSI FAN TUTTE and cleanse my palate . . .

Nick
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