Decca presents the third in a trilogy of Solti releases which compliments the Solti/Chicago & Solti/London boxed sets ... Solti (in) Europe.

Containing 45 CDs + 2 DVDs from his very first recording on Decca (as a pianist in 1947) to his last studio album made three months before his death (which were his very first recordings made in his native Hungary with Hungarian musicians).

Highlights include: Solti’s first recordings on Decca as a pianist accompanying violinist Georg Kulenkampff – Brahms’s Violin Sonatas, Mozart Violin Sonata in B-flat major, K.454 & Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata

Beguiling accounts of Tchaikovsky’s Second and Fifth Symphonies with the Orchestre de Paris

3 recordings with the Berliner Philharmoniker including a dashing live account of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis

Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra from 1961 and a thrilling Rite of Spring and Shostakovich’s First Symphony caught live in performance made 30 years later

Countless benchmark recordings made in the Sofiensaal in Vienna including the 1967 recording of Verdi’s Requiem which was producer John Culshaw’s last Decca recording. The recorded sound has scarcely been bettered since

The potent demonstration disc of orchestral excerpts from The Ring, in glorious Decca digital sound, Solti’s last orchestral recording made at the Sofiensaal o Mozart Piano Quartets K478 & K493 with members of the Melos Ensemble

The 1995 UN 50th Anniversary Concert with Solti’s World Orchestra for Peace, on CD & DVD

Mozart Requiem recorded live in Vienna’s Stephansdsom on the 200th Anniversary of the composer birth

Solti’s last live recording with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. In what proved to be one of the last concerts before his death, Solti presided over an interpretation that tempers immense power with yearning introspection

Includes a bonus audio documentary produced by Jon Tolansky with contributions from Angela Gheorghiu, Kiri Te Kanawa, Clemens Hellsberg (former violinist and Chairman of the Wiener Philharmoniker), Dr Michael Haas (former Decca Producer) and Charles Kaye (Director and General Manager of the World Orchestra for Peace), amongst others

The recordings are accompanied by a 80pp book (En/Fr/De) with new notes by Andrew Stewart • Two-piece capbox, 80pp booklet, 45CD + 2DVDs, original jackets / dimensions: to follow

Artists

Georg Kulenkampff (violin), Sir Georg Solti (piano), Max Lichtegg (tenor), Clifford Curzon (piano), Dame Joan Sutherland (soprano), Marilyn Horne (mezzo-soprano), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), Martti Talvela (bass), András Schiff (piano), Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano), Elisabeth Norberg-Schulz, Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano), Uwe Heilmann, René Pape (bass), Wiener Staatsoper (opera company), Arleen Auger (soprano), Cecilia Bartoli (mezzo-soprano), Vinson Cole (tenor), Wilhelm Melcher (violin), Gerhard Voss (viola), Peter Buck (cello), Hermann Voss (viola), Julia Varady (soprano), Iris Vermillion (mezzo-soprano), Sylvia Stahlmann (soprano), Marjana Lipovsek (contralto), Thomas Moser (tenor), Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, World Orchestra for Peace, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Berliner Philharmoniker, Paris Conservatoire Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra