Solti : A Passion for Music (5 CD set)

"Georg Solti fans will already have heard most of the performances offered here -- perhaps many times (Glinka and Borodin with the London Symphony, Strauss and Stravinsky with the Chicago Symphony, Wagner with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and Bartók and Kodály with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra). All have been readily available on Decca since they were first released. But the 1947 performance of Beethoven's Egmont Overture with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich was Solti's first recording as a conductor and is far less widely known. The Egmont has all the power and passion of his classic Chicago performance, if somewhat less polish and precision. The other rarity offered here is the 1997 performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, also with the Swiss orchestra. Solti's last live recording (perhaps there's a bookend theme going here...) lacks the strength and soulfulness of his earlier readings with the Chicago Symphony, but it does show that Solti was still the same fanatically driven and immensely ardent conductor who helped put Mahler on the musical map in the '60s and '70s. Those who have never heard Solti's recordings before are urged to try his Chicago Beethoven and Mahler symphony cycles, but those who already love Solti's conducting should hear at least the first and last works here." (AllMusic)