Being a Hungarian conductor active in the middle years of the twentieth century,
Georg Solti, like his contemporary countrymen
Fritz Reiner and
Ferenc Fricsay, naturally was an advocate of
Béla Bartók's music and recorded the great Hungarian composer's best-known works several times during his career. He first recorded the Concerto for Orchestra and the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin with the
London Symphony in 1965 and then returned to the former in 1981 and the latter in its full score in 1989, both with the
Chicago Symphony. Among
Solti's fans, the earlier recordings are revered for their vibrant colors and polished sophistication while the latter are admired for their flashy virtuosity and raw power.
The two recordings on this Archipel disc, however, both predate
Solti's London recordings: the Concerto for Orchestra with the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester comes from 1955, while the full-length Miraculous Mandarin with the Sinfonie-Orchester des Hessischen Rundfunks comes from 1956. These recordings cannot compete with
Solti's studio recordings: Decca's sparkling stereo and vivid digital sound far surpasses Archipel's dim, gray monaural sound. Nor, it must be acknowledged, can the performances themselves compete with the later performances. Though both ensembles play surprisingly well considering they were recently formed radio orchestras at the time, they cannot match the technical abilities of the English and American orchestras. Even
Solti's interpretations cannot seriously challenge his later accounts of the works. At this point in his career,
Solti, though clearly a talented and accomplished conductor, was not yet wholly himself, and neither performance here has the fire-breathing intensity of his later recordings. Thus, this disc will most likely be of interest only to listeners who already know
Solti's later recordings and who cannot help but be interested in his earlier performances of these canonical works.