George Szell
Part of the wave of great Hungarian conductors who took over American musical life just before and after World War II (the others included Fritz Reiner, Antal Dorati, and Eugene Ormandy), George Szell quickly transformed a middling Midwestern orchestra into one of the nation's Big Five. His cultivation of the Cleveland Orchestra set an example of discipline and hard work that gradually helped raise the standards of orchestras across America.
Although born in Hungary, Szell was raised in Vienna, where he studied composition with Eusebius Mandyczewski and piano with Richard Robert; he also studied composition in Prague with J.B.. Foerster. Szell was a wunderkind, playing a Mozart piano concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra when he was 10, and composing a number of quite solid chamber and orchestral works in lush late Romantic style as a child and teenager. He was a comparatively elderly 17 when he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a program including one of his own compositions.
Despite these early successes, Szell rose through the conducting ranks in the traditional way of the period, with a series of opera positions: Royal Opera of Berlin (1915-17), Strasbourg (1917-18), Prague (1919-21), Darmstadt (1921- 22), and Düsseldorf (1922-24). Szell's first prestigious post came to him in 1924, when he was named first conductor of the Berlin State Opera; he simultaneously served as a professor at Berlin's Hochschule für Musik. In 1929, he moved on to become general music director of the German Opera and Philharmonic in Prague, where he remained until 1937. All this activity effectively ended his career as a composer, although he did eventually produce an interesting orchestration of Smetana's String Quartet No. 1, "From My Life."
Szell began focusing more on orchestral repertory in the 1930s; he made his U.S. debut as guest conductor of the St. Louis Symphony in 1930, and in 1937 he was appointed conductor of the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow while maintaining a steady relationship with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. Szell was in America in 1939 when war broke out in Europe; he remained in the U.S. through the war, first depending on guest engagements and then, in 1942, becoming a regular conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was especially praised for his Wagner performances. In 1946 Szell took American citizenship and became music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, a post he held for 24 years (he was also the New York Philharmonic's music advisor and senior guest conductor during the last two years of his life).
Although Szell made a few recordings in Europe in the 1950s and '60s for Decca and in Cleveland at the very end of his life for EMI, as well as scattered 78-era efforts, the bulk of his substantial discography was the result of his long collaboration with Columbia Records in Cleveland.
There, Szell had inherited an able but ordinary orchestra and, through no little tyranny, molded it into one of America's finest. A Szell performance was remarkable for its textural clarity, chamber-like balances, and precision of attack and release. He drilled his orchestra mercilessly, even in works it had performed with him not long before. Szell was particularly admired for his performances of Austro-Germanic classics from Haydn to Richard Strauss, his sharp renderings of works by a select few twentieth-century composers (Bartók, Prokofiev, Janácek, Walton), and his idiomatic way with Dvorák; indeed, some collectors maintain that Szell's monaural, early-1950s recording of Dvorák's Eighth Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra has never been equaled. His treatment of French composers, on the other hand, was criticized for its lack of atmosphere, and detractors maintained that he achieved precision at the expense of emotional expression. To those who demanded a warmer approach to his beloved Mozart, however, Szell is said to have retorted, "One does not pour chocolate sauce over asparagus."
© James Reel /TiVo
-
R. Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder
George Szell, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Music Group - X5 Music Group am 02.02.2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Music of Dvořák, vol. 1
Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad, Pablo Casals, Arthur Loesser, Maud Powell, George Szell, Česká filharmonie
Klassik - Erschienen bei ArnebAudio am 01.02.2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Cosi' Fan Tutte, Don Giovanni, Le Nozze Di Figaro - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 (Remaster)
George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra, Guido Cantelli, New York Philharmonic
Klassik - Erschienen bei Nar Classical am 27.02.2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, vol. 11
George Szell, Walter Gieseking, Budapest String Quartet
Klassik - Erschienen bei ArnebAudio am 05.03.2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 (Mono Version)
George Szell, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1954
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4
The Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, Leon Fleisher
Pop - Erschienen bei Ace of Noise am 10.08.2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Franz Joseph Haydn, Vol. 5
George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei ArnebAudio am 12.02.2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven etc. George Szell and Clifford Curzon live in Cologne 1961 (Live)
Klassik - Erschienen bei Archipel am 21.07.2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Concertos pour piano Nos. 24 & 26 "Le couronnement" (Mono Version)
Robert Casadesus, George Szell, Columbia Symphony Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1957
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler & Strauss: Symphony No. 10 in F-Sharp Minor & Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24 (Live) [Remastered 2023]
Hal Morgan, The Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell
Klassik - Erschienen bei Archipel am 06.01.2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28 (Mono Version)
George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonie No. 6 "Pastorale" (Mono Version)
George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1956
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonie No. 3 "Héroïque" (Mono Version)
George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonie No. 7 (Mono Version)
George Szell, The Cleveland Orchestra
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 in C Minor
Klassik - Erschienen bei Intermusic S.A. am 10.08.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 "Choral" & Fidelio Overture
Klassik - Erschienen bei Sony Classical am 15.04.1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4
The Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, Leon Fleisher
Klassik - Erschienen bei Ace of Noise am 10.08.2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
George Szell and John Barbirolli
Klassik - Erschienen bei History am 01.09.2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Music of Dvořák, Vol. 4
David Oïstrakh, George Szell, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei ArnebAudio am 05.02.2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
George Szell ● Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra : Schumann ● Debussy ● Berlioz
George Szell, Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Ermitage Records am 13.03.2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
30 Great Conductors - George Szell, Vol. 28
Klassik - Erschienen bei Documents 2 am 13.12.2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo