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The May 2012 issue of Gramophone magazine includes the first installment of their Hall of Fame, and Sir Georg Solti is included on the list.
The print edition of the magazine includes a tribute written by pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet: “The more I grow in my life as [a] musician, the more the example of Sir Georg shines in my private pantheon. With his always-ongoing energy, insatiable curiosity, and desire to meet and help the younger generation, he showed us how a career should be built progressively and organically in order to achieve one’s own artistic goal. I feel extremely fortunate to have had the chance to meet Sir Georg in the last three years of his life when he was extremely generous to share with me his extremely precise and powerful musical ideas. He also gave me the best advice: ‘Never give up, keep working, there is always room at the top.'”
Online, Gramophone also includes a link to an article from 1981, written by Edward Greenfield. The article describes some of the recording sessions for Solti’s 1981 recording of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for London. A dream cast had been assembled:
Count Almaviva Thomas Allen, baritone
Countess Almaviva Kiri Te Kanawa, soprano
Susanna Lucia Popp, soprano
Figaro Samuel Ramey, bass
Cherubino Frederica von Stade, mezzo-soprano
Marcellina Jane Berbié, mezzo-soprano
Doctor Bartolo Kurt Moll, bass
Don Basilio Robert Tear, tenor
Don Curzio Philip Langridge, tenor
Barbarina Yvonne Kenny, soprano
Antonio Giorgio Tadeo, bass
Jeffrey Tate, continuo
London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Opera Chorus
The recording won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Three other notable conductors affiliated with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra also made Gramophone‘s list: Pierre Boulez (principal guest conductor 1995-2006, conductor emeritus 2006- ), Daniel Barenboim (music director 1991-2006), and Claudio Abbado (principal guest conductor 1982-1985).
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