Famed Conductor Sir Georg Solti Succumbs At 84 He Built Renowned Reputation Of Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Sir Georg Solti, the world renowned conductor who led the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to fame, died Friday. He was 84.

His executive assistant Charles Kaye said Solti died peacefully in his sleep while on holiday at Antibes in the south of France. Kaye said Solti had been taken ill on Tuesday but did not state the nature of the illness.

Hungarian-born Solti, who became a British subject in 1972, was an energetic conductor who generated the kind of excitement that brought audiences to their feet. His athleticism defied the years and he was in top form well into his 70s.

A maestro to his fingertips, the short, wiry Solti was autocratic in his early days. But at Chicago, he achieved harmony with his musicians.

In Solti’s 22 years at the helm, the Chicago Symphony toured the world, built a reputation for fine recording and won 23 Grammy awards.

“Chicago is a very fortunate city indeed,” violinist Isaac Stern once told Solti, “for during your tenure, you have brought it to the forefront amongst the world’s greatest orchestras.”

“I think this is the legacy I leave, nothing more and nothing less,” Solti said in 1991 when, at age 78 he turned over his baton to Daniel Barenboim and became music director laureate. After Chicago, while still remarkably fit, he continued to perform as guest conductor with the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic, and took over at the Salzburg Easter Festival.

When Solti became the orchestra’s music director in 1969, it had a good reputation but hadn’t toured overseas. He took it on its first European tour in 1971. The returning musicians were treated to a ticker-tape parade down State Street in Chicago.

Sir Georg retired from Chicago in the orchestra’s centennial year.

Born in Hungary Oct. 21, 1912, Solti was a child pianist. He studied with Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly and Erno Dohnanyi in Budapest, and became “repetiteur” at the Budapest State Opera, rehearsing the singers.

He assisted conductor Bruno Walter in Salzburg, then in 1936-37 was assistant to Arturo Toscanini, who inspired him to change from the piano to the podium.

The following year 26-year-old Solti conducted for the first time, becoming the first Jewish conductor at the Budapest Opera since Mahler in the 19th century.

But in 1939, as the government began to move into Hitler’s Reich, he was fired as a “non-Aryan.”

In August 1939, little more than a week before Germany launched World War II, Solti was in Switzerland to see Toscanini when his mother cabled to tell him not to come back. He spent the war in Switzerland, teaching piano. His family was wiped out in the Holocaust.

In 1952, he became music director at Frankfurt Opera.

Solti was music director of the opera at Covent Garden, London, from 1961 to 1971, a decade considered its golden age; principal conductor of the London Philharmonic 1979-1983 and chief conductor of the Orchestre de Paris 1971-75.

Solti’s first marriage, to Hedwig Oeschli, ended in divorce. In 1967, at age 55, he married 30-year-old Valerie Pitts, a BBC journalist. They had two daughters, Gabrielle and Claudia.

He is survived by his second wife and his two daughters.