page_title: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
section_title: Recordings
hierarchical_section_title: Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Recordings
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir Georg Solti
context_page_description: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure in 2010. The CSO is one of five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".
context_section_description: The Chicago Symphony has amassed an extensive discography. Recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. These include several Classical Album of the Year awards, awards in Best Classical Performance in vocal soloist, choral, instrumental, engineering and orchestral categories.
  On May 1, 1916, Frederick Stock and the orchestra recorded the Wedding March from Felix Mendelssohn's music to A Midsummer Night's Dream for Columbia Records. Stock and the CSO made numerous recordings for Columbia and the Victor Talking Machine Company/RCA Victor.  The Chicago Symphony's first electrical recordings were made for Victor in December 1925, including a performance of Karl Goldmark's In Springtime overture.  These early electrical recordings were made in Victor's Chicago studios; within a couple of years Victor began recording the CSO in Orchestra Hall. Stock continued recording for Columbia and RCA Victor until his death in 1942.
  In 1951, Rafael Kubelík made the first modern high fidelity recordings with the orchestra, in Orchestra Hall, for Mercury.  Like the very first electrical recordings, these performances were made with a single microphone.  Philips has reissued these performances on compact disc with the original Mercury label and liner notes.
  In March 1954, Fritz Reiner made the first stereophonic recordings with the CSO, again in Orchestra Hall, for RCA Victor, including  performances of two symphonic poems by Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben and Also sprach Zarathustra.  Reiner and the orchestra continued to record for RCA Victor through 1963.  These were mostly recorded in RCA Victor's triple-channel "Living Stereo" process.  RCA has digitally remastered the recordings and released them on CD and SACD.  Jean Martinon also recorded with the CSO for RCA Victor during the 1960s, producing performances that have been reissued on CD.
  Sir Georg Solti recorded with the CSO primarily for Decca Records. These Solti recordings were issued in the U.S. on the London label and include a highly acclaimed Mahler series, recorded, in part, in the historic Medinah Temple—some installments were recorded in the Krannert Center in the University of Illinois (Urbana, IL), as well as in the Sofiensaal in Vienna, Austria.  Many of the recordings with Daniel Barenboim were released on Teldec.
  In 2007, the Chicago Symphony formed its own recording label, CSO Resound©. After an agreement was reached with the Orchestra's musicians, arrangements were made for new recordings to be released digitally at online outlets and on compact disc. The first CSO Resound CD, a recording of Haitink's rendition of Mahler's Third Symphony, was released in the spring of 2007. Releases that followed included Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, and Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony (Grammy winner), all conducted by Haitink; Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony led by Myung-Whun Chung; "Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago" with the Orchestra's Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Yo-Yo Ma (Grammy winner); and recordings of Verdi's Requiem (Grammy winner) and Otello, under the direction of Muti.
  The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have recorded the music for two movies: Fantasia 2000 conducted by James Levine and Lincoln (2012 film) conducted by John Williams. Selections from the Orchestra and Chorus's recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion, conducted by Sir Georg Solti, were used in the movie Casino.
caption: Sir Georg Solti
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4611", "Image ImageLength": "6052", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "3200", "Image YResolution": "3200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:11:10 18:01:26", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "382", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3728", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4132", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "5610"}