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This book is the first full biography of George Szell, one of the greatest orchestra and opera conductors of the twentieth century. From child prodigy pianist and composer to world-renowned conductor, Szell's career spanned seven decades, and he led most of the great orchestras and opera companies of the world, including the New York Philharmonic, the NBC and Chicago Symphonies, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and Opera, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. A protégé of composer-conductor Richard Strauss at the Berlin State Opera, his crowning achievement was his twenty-four-year tenure as musical director of the Cleveland Orchestra, transforming it into one of the world's greatest ensembles, touring triumphantly in the United States, Europe, the Soviet Union, South Korea, and Japan.
Michael Charry, a conductor who worked with Szell and interviewed him, his family, and his associates over several decades, draws on this first-hand material and correspondence, orchestra records, reviews, and other archival sources to construct a lively and balanced portrait of Szell's life and work from his birth in 1897 in Budapest to his death in 1970 in Cleveland.
Readers will follow Szell from his career in Europe, Great Britain, and Australia to his guest conducting at the New York Philharmonic and his distinguished tenure at the Metropolitan Opera and Cleveland Orchestra. Charry details Szell's personal and musical qualities, his recordings and broadcast concerts, his approach to the great works of the orchestral repertoire, and his famous orchestrational changes and interpretation of the symphonies of Robert Schumann. The book also lists Szell's conducting repertoire and includes a comprehensive discography.
In highlighting Szell's legacy as a teacher and mentor as well as his contributions to orchestral and opera history, this biography will be of lasting interest to concert-goers, music lovers, conductors, musicians inspired by Szell's many great performances, and new generations who will come to know those performances through Szell's recorded legacy.
- Sales Rank: #1137797 in eBooks
- Published on: 2011-06-01
- Released on: 2011-06-01
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"Reading this book would serve as a manual of music appreciation. Charry's tribute reflects the scope and brilliance of Szell's career, in the careful detailing of his performances and music critics' opinions of them."--Ohioana Quarterly
"A fine biography of one of the 20th century's greatest classical conductors. This thorough biography of one of the most important figures on the American classical scene in the post-World War II era is a valuable contribution to the literature on classical music."--Library Journal
"A discerning and highly informed new biography. Charry makes a convincing case for admiring his subject's skill in musical matters without concealing Szell's many personality flaws."--Forward
"Charry not only gives us invaluable insights into his leadership style and musical tastes ... but details some of the financial and political issues facing the orchestra during that era. . . . Perhaps the book’s greatest value lies in humanizing a man whom many have come to see as a humorless (or perhaps joyless) martinet."SymphonyNow
"Charry’s achievement is unlikely to be surpassed for a long time, if ever, and the reader will come away with a real depth of insight into this towering, complex figure, which can only enhance our appreciation of his extraordinary accomplishment and artistic legacy."--Fanfare
About the Author
Michael Charry has conducted widely in the U.S. and internationally. He was a member of the conducting staff of the Cleveland Orchestra for nine years under George Szell and for two years after Szell's death. He is on the faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music, in New York City, where he was head of orchestral studies and music director of the Mannes Orchestra.
Most helpful customer reviews
48 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
A good overview of Szell's life, but lacking in substance
By R.D. Monsoon
As a big George Szell fan, I was hoping to love this biography, but I was disappointed. I did not feel that the Michael Charry revealed any new insights about what made Szell such a great and noteworthy conductor.
The major problem is that Charry feels the need to account for every moment in Szell's life. As a result, many of the chapters provide superficial overviews of a year in Szell's life, mentioning just the music he conducted, anecdotes about contract negotiations, and discussions with administrators at other orchestras about programming for guest appearances. It feels like it was originally written in bullet form and then converted into complete sentences. Understandably, Charry paces things very quickly to get to Szell's Cleveland tenure as soon as possible, and devotes the majority of the book to that. A lot of this period in Szell's life is already well known -- in fact, a lot of the stories and anecdotes Szell devotees will recognize from CD liner notes (many written by Charry) as well as Szell's hour long interview with John Culshaw for the BBC (which is by far the most insightful Szell document), audio interviews with Paul Myers and WQXR, and the Bell Telephone Hour documentary. What I wanted to know more about was Szell's life before Cleveland, especially when he was a prodigy in pre-war Europe.
Szell continues to fascinate listeners over 40 years after his death because of his unique interpretations and ability to exert total control over how the Cleveland Orchestra sounded -- so I was hoping for more analysis of this. From reading about Szell in the past, I know that he was meticulous at preparing a score he would conduct -- he would play through them on the piano several times -- and that his rehearsals were legendary for their intensity. Rather than trying to touch on every single year in Szell's life, I would have preferred if more of the book had been devoted to stories about Szell's creative process, leaving out years where not a whole was happening.
One thing I found particularly annoying, is that while Charry does touch on Szell's infamous temper, he never contextualizes it. For instance, Charry mentions a few incidents where Szell abruptly quit guest conducting gigs because he thought he was being shorted on rehearsal time, that singers were completely unprepared for their parts, general disagreements with management, etc. Whether or not Szell was in the right for walking out -- Charry typically includes Szell's lengthy defense for his actions that have been preserved in letters -- I was left wondering if other conductors of Szell's stature acted this way during his lifetime, or was it unique to him? Were these incidents major news back in the day, or did they happen regularly enough that it wasn't worth mentioning? Did these actions harm Szell's reputation?
Another issue I have with Charry is that he is a bit disingenuous with making it seem like Szell's repertoire was broader than it really was. Szell is often criticized for mainly conducting the 19th Century Austro-German repertoire and rarely touching 20th century music, and Charry's extensive listing of Szell's concert repertoire in the appendix does confirm this. But throughout the book, Charry mentions every time Szell conducted a premier of some kind. To give an example, Charry gives the impression that Szell was a major champion of Hindemith -- he conducted lots of Hindemith pieces when they were still brand new. But the appendix reveals that with the exception of "Symphonic Metamorphosis," Szell conducted them each just that one time (he did conduct Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass Instruments twice). And this is the case for most 20th century music Szell conducted -- he did conduct a lot of 20th century music and made numerous premiers, but he rarely conducted any of those pieces a second time. I would have liked to hear why Szell was so conservative in his programming (and one theory I've heard is that a component of making Cleveland a great orchestra was that he monopolized repertoire -- lots of pieces and composers were off-limits to guest conductors, resulting in 24 years of the Orchestra only playing Beethoven, Brahms and R. Strauss, etc. his way).
I do have to give credit to Charry for reminding us that Szell had a long career -- and in some senses many lives -- before he came to Cleveland. So much attention has been given to the last 24 years of his life that we forget for a period Szell was a composer, pianist, and for several decades he was best known as an opera conductor. Today we think of Szell has a genius of the orchestra, but had he died in 1950, he'd be remembered as one of the preeminent conductors of German opera.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Charry does talk about Szell's wife, Helene, and aspects of his personal life, such as extensive details on his summer vacationing habits, which was actually pretty interesting. Szell's conducting activity in the summer was very limited so he could spend a lot of time simply relaxing and playing golf in Europe. Part of his summer ritual included extensive driving from one city to the next. Charry even (briefly) mentions Szell's relationship with his stepson -- despite his temper with an orchestra, it actually sounds like Szell was a pretty good step-dad.
Despite my qualms, I'm sure that Szell fans will still want to buy the book, and it is worth getting just for extensive listing of Szell's discography (which includes 78-rpm recordings from the 1920s) as well as repertoire (with dates of when he conducted each piece). Getting to see a conductor's career laid out like this is fascinating. It reveals who were Szell's favorite composers and his favorite pieces. For instance, Brahms and Beethoven totally dominate season after season. The surprises are the most interesting. Szell is known as one of the great Dvorak conductors, yet he never conducted the 9th after the '58-'59 season when he recorded it (but he continued to conduct the 8th every other season). Whiles he's not remembered for french music, "La Mer" and "Daphnis et Chloe" Suite No.2 were routinely programmed. And despite his devotion to Haydn on recording, he only conducted most of the symphonies once or twice, and most performances were pre-1960. Another cool fact: Szell loved Walton's "Hindemith Variations." From the season it was premiered ('62-'63) until his death (1970), Szell conducted it all but two seasons. It's hard to imagine many 20th century pieces today being programmed with such regularity. Finally, even Szell's opera repertoire has been included. To give you an idea of his opera activity, at the Berlin State Opera, between 1924 and 1929, he led 371 performances of 34 operas. "Tosca" was among the post performed -- just imagine what Szell conducting "Tosca" must have sounded like!
Final thought: the real missed opportunity here was to aggregate all the various audio and video interviews Szell made, and for the first time ever, make them widely available to the public. It's a shame that there is all of this multimedia out there featuring Szell reflecting on his life, his conducting style, his thoughts on music, etc., and it is languishing in obscurity. If there was ever a biography which should have been an electronic book with embedded multimedia, this was it.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Great Contribution, Missed Opportunity
By Gerald Marxman
Charry's book is an important contribution, because it's the only biography (as far as I know) of George Szell, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. It's a good book, well written and loaded with factual information about Szell's life as a musician. But it could have been a great book by telling us more about Szell, the man. He was, after all, a controversial figure, a musical genius capable of occasional juvenile behavior.
Charry was one of Szell's closest associates for nine years and knew many other musical greats of that era. He could have told us more about Szell's opinions of contemporary conductors, whose performances often contrasted with his own. And it would have been interesting to know how those conductors and other artists of that time viewed Szell. Charry also might have offered more insight into Szell's likes and dislikes among the great classical composers.(We can discern some of that from the book's detailed listings of programs for all of Szell's performances.) And it would have been interesting to know how today's great conductors and artists view Szell's legacy to classical music. Which of his performances might be considered by musicians and critics as the ones never likely to be surpassed? Did his transformation of the Cleveland Orchestra into one of the world's best influence an overall improvement in American orchestras that has occurred since his time? Charry had a unique opportunity to answer questions like those, and unfortunately most of the people who might have provided some of those answers are now gone. Despite this missed opportunity, Charry's book is a must for lovers of classical music, and especially for admirers of George Szell.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
very interesting
By Brian G. Ruschel
R.D. Monsoon's detailed review is excellent. I love classical music but almost all my experience has been listening to it on Cleveland radio. In reading this book, I could see in writing the names I've heard.
The book starts out very well-edited, conscientiously and clearly written, etc. (The acknowledgments point out various people who helped edit it.) But it seemed to be less excellent in the second half--still very well-edited and written but something different (for example, I found myself needing to re-read sentences).
I had some big questions, never answered, including:
We get an interesting tidbit that Szell's father moved to Vienna and opened the first security service there--and was apparently prosperous at it. Then, in the rest of the book, there is not ANY mention of the parents. I kept wondering what happened to them. And my stream-of-consciousness kept wondering if George inherited anything from them. Did they die in the holocaust? Did others in his family? (We are never even told of ANYBODY else in his family!) Reading this book, it seems George totally eliminated all his family from his life.
There is quick mention that Helene's father and brother had died in France during WWII. What happened to them? Also, was Helene of Jewish origin? All we hear about his her sister in England (who she visited often)--but almost nothing else about her (just that she lived west of London in something-on-Thames (I can't find in the index)).
Although we are told a few times that Szell got, for example, $850 a concert in one place, and something else somewhere else (very limited mention of this) I never got any sense of how much he made, or how much he was worth.
I know people will think this is vulgar, but did Szell die rich? I think in this kind of book, some details about that should have been included.
What ever happened to the step-son?
I rate the book a 5-star because it is carefully written (not like the pop crap being cranked out nowadays) and it seemed like every two pages has something very interesting. If this would have been written by one of these pop authors, it would have been filled with a bunch of fluffy crap, pseudo-personalization, etc., and been badly written.
Also, it was very interesting to read quotes from Szell's letters, etc. He wrote very conscientiously.
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