Families...

/—

for the first time
the graves of his
grandparents and
uncle. It was a
moment which
set the seal on the
growing rap-
prochement
between Hungary
and one of her
greatest sons,
who had fled the
country in 1939
and lived abroad
ever since.
Solti was
born Gyorgy
Stern in
Budapest in
1912, when the
Austro-
Hungarian
Empire still held
sway, and paid his last visit when a
speaks of what he intends to do in the
transformed Hungary was on the
future — and what now will never be
brink of joining the European
done: conducting the Metropolitan
Union. While Hungary's Jews of the
Opera Orchestra in a recording of
generation of Solti's grandparents
Mahler's Eighth Symphony in 1998
had been the, most assimilated in
(Solti was scheduled to conduct for
the University Musical Society in Ann
central Europe, lurking anti-
Semitism came to the fore during the
Arbor earlier this month).
He goes on: "I would like to learn
inter-war years.
Solti's father chose a "suitable
[Prokofiev's] fifth and sixth sym-
Hungarian" surname for his children,
phonies; I would especially like to
but Solti's career could never flourish
conduct again Shostakovich's 13th
as long as restrictions on Jews were
symphony, Babi-Yar. I am planning to
perform [Tchaikovsky's opera] Queen
written into the law.
After spending the war years in
of Spades in the near future; I have
Pelleas
et
exile,
Solti contacted his old employ-
not done [Debussy's opera]
and
this
is
one
of
my
last
ers
in
Budapest but was told he wasn't
Milisande
needed. On the road to becoming a
musical ambitions."
world-renowned conductor, his visits
But while these ambitions lie
to Budapest were infrequent. "How
unfulfilled, Solti's final recording ful-
many times to you have to be told
fills perhaps a more important dream.
you are not wanted in your own
Listeners can hear the results in Sir
Georg Solti: The Final Recording,
country?" he asked.
Solti grew to feel he was no longer
released this month on CD by
Hungarian,
nor English, but a cos-
London Records.
mopolitan — "a terrible word." He
According to the CD's liner notes,
preferred to think of himself simply as
Solti had returned to Hungary to
make this recording in the summer of
a musician.
Yet, as he stood in the Jewish
1997, when friends and colleagues
cemetery of Balatonfokajar, his grand-
.
planned a surprise.
parents graves reminding him that
They suggested a trip to
the remains of his other relatives lie
Balatonfokajar, where Solti's family
"God knows where," he began to
had its roots.
reconsider his rootlessness.
When he arrived, a reception was
As he expressed it, that summer
waiting for him. The mayor gave a
afternoon made him feel "for the
speech and the village children played
first time in 40 years that part of
folk melodies on recorders as Solti
me still belonged to Hungary." The
planted a tree in the square. A plaque
program of Solti's final recording, in
commemorating "Solti, Gyorgi — Sir
which he conducts the Budapest
Georg Solti, the international conduc-
Festival Orchestra with the Choir of
tor" and his family connections with
Hungarian Radio and TV, was
the town marked the spot.
devised as a tribute to three of
The visitors were then led to the
old Jewish cemetery, where Solti saw

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