Tuesday (5/17) on the New York Times blog ArtsBeat, Daniel J. Wakin writes, “Like most conductors, Georg Solti marked up his scores, noting tempos, voices to emphasize and the occasional cut. But he was also a prodigious reviser of his interpretations, according to scholars, leading him sometimes to acquire four or five copies of a score to note his ideas freshly each time. That has led to a large collection of scores—some 500—that Harvard University has just received. The family of Solti, who died in 1997, donated the collection to the Loeb Music Library at Harvard, university officials said on Tuesday. ‘They are the most heavily marked-up scores I have ever seen,’ said Virginia Danielson, the Loeb’s librarian, and a source of valuable insight into Solti’s musical thinking. The library will also receive correspondence, photographs and private recordings over the next five years, Ms. Danielson said. It will eventually scan the scores and make some of the materials available at the scores and libretti section of the library’s Web site. Other Solti materials rest with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where he was music director from 1969 to 1991.”
Posted May 19, 2011
