Performance · Other credits

George Szell

conductor, pianist, composer

Hungary • 1897-06-07 – 1970-07-30

George Szell is credited on 3,805 releases across 526 albums tracked on Gatefold, active 1950–2025 — the collector-built map of who actually made the music.

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3,805

Pressings credited

526

Albums

Decades active

In collections

Biography

George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Széll, or Georg Szell, was an Austro-Hungarian-born American conductor, composer, and pianist. Considered one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors, he was music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and recorded much of the standard classical repertoire in Cleveland and with other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over its respected if undersized orchestra, which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into "what many critics regarded as the world's keenest symphonic instrument." Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. While on tour with the orchestra in the late 1980s, then-music director Christoph von Dohnányi remarked, "We give a great concert, and George Szell gets a great review."

Bio from Wikipedia