Season with Solti: a year in the life of the Chicago Symphony

A symphony orchestra is not only beautiful music but "the fears, doubts, angers, and vaulting ambitions" of the people who make it up. William Barry Furlong spent a year with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Here in "Season with Solti", he reveals the personal drama, the professional conflicts, and the musical secrets of the musicians who, on the stage, all look very much the same. Here is an intimate portrait of Maestro Solti, who has been called "the screaming skull", as he mellows and tames "the loudest orchestra in the world". Solti is the authority - always firm, sometimes furious - but never without the vitality and presence that have become his hallmarks.