Decca Celebrates Sir Georg Solti's Centenary With 9 Major Releases

Sir Georg Solti was an exclusive Decca artist for 50 years. In 1947 he signed his first contract with Decca as a pianist and that same year he made his first record as a conductor (with the Zürich Tonhalle in Beethoven's Egmont Overture). His last public concerts, also with the Zürich Tonhalle, took place just a few weeks before his death in 1997.

A musician with extraordinarily wide musical interests and sympathies, Solti was without doubt one of the most important conductors of the second half of the twentieth century. His legacy of recordings is dominated by opera and his recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen – the first ever complete studio recording – has been voted as "the greatest recording of all time" by BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone Magazine.

Decca's comprehensive suite of products celebrates his remarkable life and diverse creative output with no fewer than 9 different products.

Two special concerts will take place in honor of Solti's centenary. On October 19, Valery Gergiev will lead the World Orchestra for Peace in a concert at Carnegie Hall in tribute to Solti. They will then travel to Chicago for another concert on October 21.