George Szell（乔治·塞尔）的热门作品

 

George Szell（乔治·塞尔）的艺人档案

地区： United States of America 美国

George Szell，1897年6月7日匈牙利布达佩斯出生的美国指挥家和作曲家。

17岁时George Szell加盟柏林爱乐乐团，身兼3职，指挥、作曲和钢琴演奏，曾指挥演出自作的《主题变奏曲》，初露锋芒，受到作曲家理查·施特劳斯的欣赏。在理查·施特劳斯推荐下，20岁的塞尔接替著名指挥家克伦佩勒出任法国斯特拉斯堡市剧院的首席指挥。

在第二次世界大战之前，George Szell主要活跃于欧洲乐坛，先后任职于柏林国家歌剧院、柏林广播局乐团、柏林音乐学院、布拉格德国歌剧院、捷克爱乐乐团、苏格兰乐团等。

由于二战爆发，他被迫滞留在美国。起初他在洛杉矶爱乐乐团，又在曼内斯音乐学院任教，后来得到托斯卡尼尼的赏识，首次指挥NBC交响乐团、纽约爱乐交响乐团。

在George Szell一生最重要时期是他被聘为克利夫兰乐团音乐总监兼指挥直到逝世为止(1946-1970年)。George Szell在职24年，带领乐团到世界各地进行巡回演出。其间，他在萨尔茨堡音乐节任专职指挥，指挥过利贝曼(R.Liebermann)的半正歌剧(Opera Semi-Seria)《佩内洛普》(Penelope)(1954年)和埃克(W.Efk)的歌剧《爱尔兰的传奇》(lrich Legend)(1955年 )的首演。1970年7月29日，塞尔逝世，终年73岁。

1961年，Szell为Decca公司，在Kingsway大厅里和伦敦交响乐团录下了43分钟的亨得尔的管弦乐作品录音，包含：《水上音乐组曲》、《皇家烟火音乐组曲》、《忠实的牧羊人》《薛西斯之广板》共四首作品。重头戏当然是《水上音乐组曲》和《皇家烟火音乐组曲》。此录音当年LP一面世，乐评界一片惊讶，因为在这之前没有任何人听到过如此热烈辉煌的《水上音乐组曲》和《皇家焰火音乐组曲》。

Szell采用的是适宜于现代大型管弦乐团的Harty版乐谱。但是极度罕见的是，Szell在这里驱策着伦敦交响乐团，不单让满编制的弦乐团奏出了整齐划一的声音，并且还让它们发挥出了极其惊艳的音色，感情极度宣泄。由于平时Szell的指挥是不属于“华美”那一类风格的，所以这个录音立刻就形成了强烈的反差。特别是在《皇家焰火》里，有的评论说Szell甚至把“艳丽色彩放射出来”。

这个录音不单只对于Szell是一个创新，甚至它还改变了听众对亨得尔的这两首着名作品一贯的旧看法。可能有人喜欢仿古乐器、小编制乐团演奏的版本，但是不可否认听过这款录音的许多人最终都喜欢上Szell这个版本了——因为现代管弦乐器的表现力实在太优胜了，并且试想谁能抵挡得了伦敦交响乐团六七十人的弦乐组所拉开的一幅宽广的“水帘”呢？值得一提的是，伦敦交响乐团的管乐部与弦乐部配合得相当好，只要听一听这里提供试听的乐段的结尾部就清楚了。

从电脑音箱里大家可能已经会发觉了这款录音的音效相当不俗。这个录音的工程师就是大名鼎鼎的威尔金森。前些时候威尔金森逝世时，我曾见网上有的LP迷以此录音来纪念威尔金森。此录音音效之好，数年前Classic Record曾经试图把其列入所发行的24K金CD系列里，但是不知何种原因最后竟然取消出版，使得想听CD版本的乐迷只能够去寻找Decca在80年代推出的Weekend系列版（其实在2000年的时候环球曾经再版过廉价的Belart系列，不过没有在中国大陆出售而已）。大家千万不要小看了这个Weekend版，由于这个录音当初的原始母带完成度高，所以这个Weekend版制作的时候完全没有经过数码混音，而是直接采取AAD方式制作成CD的，其最终效果便是声音极度饱满、弦乐高频延伸“够尽”，声音异常甜美，动态真实。

Part of the wave of great Hungarian conductors who took over American musical life just before and after World War II — the others included Fritz Reiner, Antal Dorati, and Eugene Ormandy — George Szell quickly transformed a middling Midwestern orchestra into one of the nation's Big Five. His cultivation of the Cleveland Orchestra set an example of discipline and hard work that gradually helped raise the standards of orchestras across America.

Although born in Hungary, Szell was raised in Vienna where he studied composition with Eusebius Mandyczewski, and piano with Richard Robert; he also studied composition in Prague with J.B. Foerster. Szell was a wunderkind, playing a Mozart piano concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra when he was ten, and composing a number of solid chamber and orchestral works in a lush, late Romantic style as a child and teenager. He was 17 when he conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a program that included one of his own compositions.

Despite these early successes, Szell rose through the conducting ranks in the traditional way of the period, with a series of opera positions: Royal Opera of Berlin (1915-1917), Strasbourg (1917-1918), Prague (1919-1921), Darmstadt (1921-1922), and Düsseldorf (1922-1924). Szell's first prestigious post came to him in 1924, when he was named first conductor of the Berlin State Opera; he simultaneously served as a professor at Berlin's Hochschule für Musik. In 1929, he moved on to become general music director of the German Opera and Philharmonic in Prague, where he remained until 1937.

Szell began focusing more on orchestral repertory in the 1930s; he made his U.S. debut as guest conductor of the St. Louis Symphony in 1930, and in 1937 he was appointed conductor of the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow, while maintaining a steady relationship with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. Szell was in America in 1939 when war broke out in Europe; he remained in the U.S. through the war, first depending on guest engagements and then, in 1942, becoming a regular conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, where he was especially praised for his Wagner performances. In 1946 Szell took American citizenship and became music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, a post he held for 24 years. He was also the New York Philharmonic's music advisor and senior guest conductor during the last two years of his life.

Although Szell made a recordings in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s for Decca, and in Cleveland at the end of his life for EMI, the bulk of his substantial discography was the result of his long collaboration with Columbia Records in Cleveland. There, Szell had inherited an able but ordinary orchestra and, through sheer determination, molded it into one of America's finest. A Szell performance was remarkable for its textural clarity, chamber-like balances, and precision of attack and release. He drilled his orchestra mercilessly, even in works it had performed with him not long before. Szell was particularly admired for his performances of Austro-Germanic classics from Haydn to Richard Strauss, his sharp renderings of works by a select group of twentieth century composers including Bartók, Prokofiev, Janácek, and Walton), and his idiomatic way with Dvorák. Indeed, some collectors maintain that Szell's monaural, early 1950s recording of Dvorák's Eighth Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra has never been equaled. His treatment of French composers, on the other hand, was criticized for its lack of atmosphere, and detractors maintained that he achieved precision at the expense of emotional expression. To those who demanded a warmer approach to his beloved Mozart, however, Szell is said to have retorted, "One does not pour chocolate sauce over asparagus."