Word: soltis
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Starburst. In virtually every musical capital of the world, the sight of Solti conducting is a familiar one. It is quite a spectacle: head down, baton held high, tails flying, he seems to spring from the wings. The leap to the podium is agile and sure; the bow to the audience curt, formal and, in the European tradition, from the waist, with the heels brought together in something just this side of a click. At this point, a Stokowski would spin showily and attack immediately. Not Solti. He turns thoughtfully, spreads his feet and shoots slitty glances around to make...
...gestures may at times seem overlarge, but they are no mere sideshow to titillate the audience. Solti is all business on the podium, his energies totally focused on the orchestra. He eschews any useless movement. A purring passage that does not have any tricky entrances usually finds Solti barely conducting at all. Says Chicago Oboeist Ray Still, "When everything is going fine, he doesn't interfere with the orchestra by going into a lot of acrobatics to make the audience think it's his struggling which is producing such fine music...
Often, though, his hours on the podium are indeed a struggle-in unexpected ways. The years of conducting with arms carried high in tension, or head held tilted back to watch his performers on operatic nights, have produced extensive muscle damage to Solti's shoulders and neck. If he sometimes does a spectacular 180° leap from the violins way off on the left to the double basses on the right, it is because he has to. "I can not move my head more than a few inches to the left or right without turning my body," he says...
...podium, Solti defies a current vogue: he regularly conducts from a score. That any number of young and not-so-young conductors think they must conduct from memory, he blames on Toscanini: "Why did Toscanini conduct from memory? Because he was nearsighted. Of course, he had that fabulous memory, but that wasn't really why he never used a score. Today we have an entire generation of young conductors who think they must conduct from memory-all because Toscanini was nearsighted. It is total lunacy...
Such commonsensical candidness has endeared Solti to musicians; that endearment goes a long way toward explaining his success. Without the loyalty and respect of his musicians, no conductor can long preside over an orchestra-much less produce great music. Musicians are notoriously independent, as the old saw about the French flutist demonstrates. Ordered by a conductor to play in a certain style, the musician said: "Very well, I'll play it his way at rehearsal, but just wait till the concert. After all, man ami, it's my flute." With Solti, it is different. Says Orchestre de Paris...