Luogo e data di registrazione		Tonhalle, Zurich (Svizzera) - 12 & 13 luglio 1997
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recording
	Recording producer		Rolf Grolimund (for Schweizer Radio DRS)
	Recording engineer		Jürg Jecklin (for Schweizer Radio DRS)
	Mastered		Ian Watson & Jenni Whiteside
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Edizione CD		Decca | 475 9153 | (1 CD) | durata 68' 51" | (p) 1997 & (c) 2007 | DDD
	Note		This recording was made using B&W Loudspeakers. Sir Georg Solti's last ever performance in a concert hall was, fittingly, of his beloved Mahler. This account of the most popular of all of Mahler's symphonies was recorded live in the Tonhalle, Zurich, in July 1997, and is now released as a tribute to the great Hunfarian conductor, ten years after his death.

SIR GEORG SOLTI’S LAST CONCERTS Sir Georg Solti's two performances with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich on 12 and 13 July 1997 were of Mahler's Fifth Symphony. No one had any idea at the time that these would be his last in the concert hall. His next concert with the Tonhalle Orchestra, also of this work, was planned for September that year in Turin. Unfortunately, just a few days before that concert, Sir Georg - who was on holiday with his family - phoned me to say that he had been suddenly taken ill and admitted to hospital in Antibes and would not be able to conduct. At short notice, we were able to obtain the services of Franz Welser-Möst (who was then rehearsing at the Zurich Opera House) for the Turin performance but on 6 September, on my way to Turin, the tragic news reached me that Sir Georg had died. I called Welser-Möst, who was already in Turin with the orchestra, and we agreed that our concert that evening would be dedicated to Sir Georg's memory. As an encore the orchestra repeated the famous Adagietto from the Symphony and we all left the concert hall in sadness, but thankful for all our work with Sir Georg in recent years. The collaboration between Sir Georg and the Tonhalle Orchestra went back over fifty years, to his recording debut as a conductor for Decca in 1947. Switzerland had always played a significant role in his life, and in his last years the collaboration with the Tonhalle Orchestra became closer. From the 1995-96 season onwards the orchestra stood on the brink of international recognition under the leadership of its new chief conductor, David Zinman. Sir Georg, of course, could have his pick of the leading orchestras of the world, and he gave us a great vote of confidence by wanting both to tour with us and to forge long-term plans together. The re-introduction of Mahler's Fifth Symphony into Solti's repertoire also has its own story. He preferred longer intervals between performing the major symphonic works in order to work out fresh interpretations. He was always keen to try a new approach, which of course was something special for the musicians of the Tonhalle Orchestra, who had already experienced this the previous year with the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony. I can still clearly recall the markings in Sir Georg's conducting score, dense with diverse colours. With every work he would always start anew, as if conducting it for the very first time. Rehearsals were intense and Sir Georg challenged both himself and his musicians to the utmost. The two concerts on 12 and 13 July 1997, which brought the first Zurich Festival to a close, will linger deep in the memory of both audience and orchestra. This CD has been produced from the recording for broadcast made at those concerts. No one could have predicted that they would also be Sir Georg's farewell to the concert hall. His reading of Mahler's Fifth did indeed impress as new, but was certainly an ongoing and still developing interpretation of a work he had conducted for over thirty years. We are very proud that he chose Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra for his first "re-encounter" with the symphony. For me personally, the collaboration with such a legendary conductor was of the greatest significance. When actually meeting such a personality face-to-face, with the knowledge of all his great interpretations - one has only to think of the works of Béla Bartók or Wagner's Ring - it might have been easy to feel insecure. Sir Georg however very soon remedied that and showed me his generosity, openness and deeply humanitarian attitude. It was somehow quite natural to talk to the eightyfive-year-old conductor about our plans for the next decade: touring, familiar works such as Beethoven's Missa solemnis, or neglected composers such as Leó Weiner. He constantly expressed his desire, too, to work with young soloists of the next generation. My original collaboration with Solti at the Tonhalle began with the fiftieth anniversary gala concert for the United Nations in Geneva, when he founded the World Orchestra for Peace and proposed that some members of the Tonhalle Orchestra take part. At the gala concert on 5 July 1995, the Orchestra was represented by one male and one female musician, playing together side by side with colleagues from other leading orchestras. The following year, we made plans at short notice for a tour together. Two concerts in Zurich - which included the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony and Beethovens "Eroica" - followed by a further five were in the Canary Islands and in Spain, with the addition to the programme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Our orchestra had not undertaken any major tours in recent years, and so this was our first opportunity to reappear on the international music stage. The tour with the then eighty-three-year-old Solti was a great success. His amicable relations with the musicians deepened yet further, and we all hoped that we would meet up more frequently in the coming years - in Zurich as well as on tour. It indicates his boundless optimism and youthful energy that we discussed a tour to South America, as well as a further concert tour to Spain, whilst for Zurich we had agreed programmes well into the twenty-first century. The next project after Mahler's Fifth was to be a tour to Portugal and Spain in February 1998. After Solti's death, our first thought was to cancel this project, but in Neeme Järvi we found a conductor who was immediately willing to alter his plans and to draft a new programme in memory of the great conductor. The concerts - a reprise of the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony from the final Solti tour and the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, together with Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony - were able to go ahead as planned. Although Neerne Järvi naturally conducted these works in his own way, there were constant memories of Sir Georg during these concerts. In my thirteen years as Intendant at Zurich the collaboration with Sir Georg Solti holds a very special place. I am very happy that through this CD the magical atmosphere he created at that time can now be appreciated by a wider audience. Trygve Nordwall lntendant of the Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich, 1994-2007 Translation Mari Pračkauskas