Georg Solti: The Making of a Maestro (Widescreen)

The documentary is basically divided into five segments that flow into one another seamlessly: Solti's early life, up to and including his stint with the Munich Opera; his controversial engagement with the Royal Opera at Covent Garden; the historic studio recording sessions of Wagner's "Ring" cycle with Decca; Solti's encounters with composer Richard Strauss; and Sir Georg's later years with the Chicago Symphony. Of these sequences, I found the famous studio sessions to be the most interesting. As one would expect, interviews with family, friends and colleagues are liberally sprinkled throughout the program. Added to these are numerous location shots of several cities and their music halls, with a trip to the home of Richard Strauss as one of the highlights. Essentially, the film follows the same format as Solti's "Memoirs," which appears to have been worked on simultaneously. The maestro showed great timing to the end, for both works were finished very shortly before his death.

Though this documentary is obviously the work of professionals, it lacks the electricity of more creative minds. Nevertheless, the filmmakers managed to produce a fairly engaging film on a limited budget. It appears that a digital camera was used in the process; while the video quality is not film-like, it is generally very sharp and clean. The audio is pleasing, as it should be for material that is musically pregnant. There are no supplements included, not even subtitles. Captions would have been useful, as some in the film, including the subject, are occasionally hard to understand due to their accents.

Fans of Solti, and classical music in general, should be interested in considering purchase of this DVD. Those that have read his autobiography may want to pass, since the film covers little that isn't discussed in the book. Some who haven't may prefer to watch the film instead. In any event, this DVD respectably chronicles the life of a great musician.

There isn't any discussion on any composer, nor any musician alive or dead, nor any orchestra at all. He only barely touches on music. About Bartok he only told us that he had taken 6 weeks lesson from him and that Bartok, unlike himself, was very soft spoken. That is it!

Otherwise, on music, all we could see is how he marked on the score and some short clips of him rehearsing and conducting while in performance, plus the fact that he pays much attention to rhythm, one of the only two or three basic elements of music, something which so many musicians including singers ( i.e. Fischer-Dieskau, as per Menuhin ) who either don't know enough or else must have forgotten. We are also told how he tamed Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We can also see that music has really brought him great happiness. Yes, we were brought to some of the great music halls and also the Budapest Academy of Music, the one found by Liszt. So they use Kawai grand pianos... Otherwise, in this DVD there is not much inspiration, neither insight nor depth, almost the same level as "Oistrakh, Artist of the Peole" and categorically inferior to Menuhin's or even Kissin's "Gift of Music".

It is however not boring to watch it as the visual effects are quite good, albeit that Sir George was very old and despite that he spoke with a heavy accent. But I bet I wouldn't go back to it unless I really have nothing worthwhile to do.