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George Szell (June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll or Georg Szell,[1] was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, and for the recordings of the standard classical repertory he made with Cleveland and other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over a respected orchestra in a midsized industrial city, just recovering from World War II disruptions. By the time of his death, he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into "what many critics regarded as the world's keenest symphonic instrument."[2] Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name in some circles remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. While on tour with the Orchestra In the late 1980's, then Music Director Christoph von Dohnányi remarked, "We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review."[3]
Life and careerEarly career
At age eleven, Szell began touring Europe as a pianist and composer, making his London debut at that age. Newspapers declared him "the next Mozart." Throughout his teenage years he performed with orchestras in this dual role, eventually making appearances as composer, pianist and conductor, as he did with the Berlin Philharmonic at age seventeen. Szell quickly realized that he was never going to make a career out of being a composer or pianist, and that he much preferred that artistic control that was granted to conductors. He made an unplanned public debut as a conductor when he was sixteen. When the orchestra at a summer resort where he was vacationing with his family suddenly found itself without a conductor (due to his arm being injured), Szell was asked to substitute. Szell quickly turned to conducting fulltime. While he ceased composing, throughout the rest of his life he occasionally played the piano with chamber ensembles and as an accompanist. Despite his rare appearances as a pianist after his teens, he remained in good form. During his Cleveland years he occasionally would demonstrate to guest pianists how he thought they should play a certain passage. In 1915, at the age of 18, Szell won an appointment with Berlin's Royal Court Opera (now known as the Staatsoper). There, he was befriended by its Music Director, Richard Strauss. Strauss instantly recognized Szell's talent and was particular impressed with how well he conducted his own music –- Strauss once said that he could die a happy man knowing that there was someone who performed his music so perfectly. In fact, Szell ended up conducting part of the world premiere recording of Don Juan for Strauss. Due to oversleeping, Strauss showed up an hour late to the recording session. Strauss had Szell rehearse the orchestra for him, and since the recording session was prepaid for, and there was no Strauss, but Szell was there, Szell conducted the first half of the recording (since no more than five minutes could be fit onto a side of a 78, the music was broken up into four chunks). Strauss arrived as Szell was finishing conducting the second part; he exclaimed that what he heard was so good that it could go out under his own name. Strauss went on to conduct the last two parts, leaving the Szell-conducted half of the recording as part of the full world premiere recording of Don Juan.
During the 1920s and '30s Szell moved around from opera houses and orchestras in Europe: in Berlin, Strasbourg, where he succeeded Otto Klemperer at the Municipal Theatre, Prague, Darmstadt, Düsseldorf and Glasgow before becoming principal conductor, in 1924, of the Berlin Staatsoper, which had replaced the Royal Opera. In 1930, Szell made his United States debut with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. At this time he was better known as an opera conductor than orchestral. Move to the U.S.At the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, Szell was returning via the US from an Australian tour; he ended up settling with his family in New York City.[5] After spending a year teaching, Szell began to receive frequent guest conducting invitations. Important among these invitations was a series of four concerts with Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1941. In 1942 he made his Metropolitan Opera debut; he conducted the company regularly for the next four years. In 1943 he made his New York Philharmonic debut. In 1946 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. The Cleveland Orchestra: 1946 to 1970In 1946, Szell was asked to become the Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. At the time the Cleveland Orchestra was a well regarded regional American orchestra (the top-tier American orchestras were: Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and NBC Symphony Orchestra). For Szell, working in Cleveland would represent an opportunity to create his own personal ideal orchestra, one which would combine the virtuosity of the best American ensembles, with the homogeneity of tone of the best European orchestras. Szell made it clear to the managers of the Orchestra that if they wanted him to be their next conductor, they would have to agree to give him total artistic control of the Orchestra; they agreed. He held this post until his death. The next decade was spent firing musicians, carefully hiring replacements, increasing the orchestra's roster to over one hundred players, and relentlessly drilling the orchestra. Szell's rehearsals were legendary for their intensity. Absolute perfection was demanded from every player. Musicians would be dismissed on the spot for making too many mistakes or simply questioning Szell's authority. Although Szell was not alone in this practice — Toscanini was nothing if not dictatorial — such firings would not happen today: musicians' unions are much stronger now than they were then. If Szell heard a player practicing backstage before a concert and did not like what he heard, he would not hesitate to berate the musician and give detailed notes on how the music should be played, despite the concert being minutes away. Szell’s autocratic style extended to giving suggestions to the Severance Hall janitorial staff on mopping technique and what brand of toilet paper to use in the restrooms. Szell proudly boasted that "the Cleveland Orchestra gives seven concerts a week and the public is invited to two." Some critics found the Orchestra to sound over-rehearsed in concert, lacking spontaneity. Szell conceded this critique, saying that the orchestra did much of its best work during rehearsals. But Szell's high standards paid off. By the end of the 1950s it became clear to the world that the Cleveland Orchestra, noted for its flawless precision and chamber-like sound, would take its place alongside the greatest orchestras in America and Europe. In addition to taking the Orchestra on annual tours to Carnegie Hall and the East Coast, Szell led the orchestra on its first international tours to Europe, the Soviet Union, Australia, and Japan. Conducting styleWhile Szell was an autocratic taskmaster, he maintained legitimacy by meticulously preparing for rehearsals. A chief component of his rehearsal process was arranging the entire score for piano and playing it straight through, resulting in a mastery of the score. He would only take on conducting students if they too possessed this ability (one of them was James Levine). A literalist in his approach, Szell felt that everything he needed to know about how to conduct a score was in its pages; no knowledge of the composer’s biography was needed. He was more concerned about phrasing, transparency, balance and architecture than emotionalism in order to bring to fruition the composer's intentions as written in the score. As a result, Szell’s conducting was, and still is, sometimes criticized for being cold. In response to such criticism, Szell expressed this credo: "The borderline is very thin between clarity and coolness, self-discipline and severity. There exist different nuances of warmth - from the chaste warmth of Mozart to the sensuous warmth of Tchaikovsky, from the noble passion of Fidelio to the lascivious passion of Salome. I cannot pour chocolate sauce over asparagus." RepertoireSzell mainly stuck to conducting the core Austro-German classical and romantic repertoire, from Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, through Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, and on to Bruckner, Mahler and Strauss. He said once that as he got older he consciously narrowed his repertoire, feeling it was "actually my task to do those works which I thought I'm best qualified to do, and for which a certain tradition is disappearing with the disappearance of the great conductors who were my contemporaries and my idols and my unpaid teachers."[6] He did however program contemporary music; he gave numerous world premieres in Cleveland, and he was particularly associated with such composers as Walton, Prokofiev, Hindemith and Bartók. Szell also helped initiate the Cleveland Orchestra's long association with composer-conductor and avant-garde icon Pierre Boulez. At the same time, Szell championed the music of Haydn and Mozart in a period when those composers were little represented in concert programs. Other orchestrasAfter World War II Szell became closely associated with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, where he was a frequent guest conductor and made a number of recordings. He also regularly appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and at the Salzburg Festival. In the last years of his life, he also served as Musical Advisor to the New York Philharmonic. Personal lifeSzell was married twice. The first, in 1920 to Olga Band, ended in divorce in 1926. His second marriage, in 1938 to Helene Schultz Teltsch, originally from Prague, was much happier, and lasted until his death.[7] When not making music, he was a gourmet cook and an automobile enthusiast. He regularly refused the services of the orchestra's chauffeur and drove his own Cadillac to rehearsals in Cleveland until almost the end of his life. DiscographyA selection of Szell's most famous recordings (all with the Cleveland Orchestra unless otherwise noted):
Most of Szell's recordings were made with the Cleveland Orchestra for Epic/Columbia/CBS (now Sony). Few of his mono recordings have been reissued. Many live stereo recordings of repertoire Szell never conducted in the studio exist, both with the Cleveland Orchestra and other orchestras. Notes
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