PIU FORTE

July 7, 2017 9:13 PM

The Toscanini Wars

For many years, Arturo Toscanini was the pinnacle of musical excitement for classical-music lovers in this country—and also for many casual listeners, who enjoyed the sensation of having their pulse rate raised. He was at the center of an American experiment in art and commerce that now scarcely seems credible: late in the Depression, in 1937, RCA, which owned two NBC radio networks, created a virtuoso orchestra especially for him, and kept it going until 1954. The NBC Symphony gave concerts in New York that were broadcast on national radio, and then, starting in 1948, on national television.

Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the William Tell Overture, 1952

Toscanini's Greatest Recorded Performances:

Beethoven: Seventh Symphony; New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, 1936.
Brahms: Haydn Variations, New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, 1936.
Debussy: “La Mer,” Philadelphia Orchestra, Academy of Music, 1941.
Rossini: Overtures to “L’Italiana in Algeri” and “Semiramide,” New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, 1936.
Schubert: Ninth Symphony (“The Great”), Philadelphia Orchestra, Academy of Music, 1942.
Strauss: “Death and Transfiguration,” NBC Symphony, Carnegie Hall, 1952.
Verdi: “Otello,” with Ramón Vinay, Herva Nelli, Giuseppe Valdengo, NBC Symphony and Chorus, Studio 8-H, 1947.
Verdi: “Falstaff,” with Giuseppe Valdengo, Nan Merriman, Herva Nelli, Frank Guarrera, NBC Symphony, and Robert Shaw Chorale, Studio 8-H, 1950. (Act 3, Scene 2, Tutto nel mondo è burla)
Verdi: “Rigoletto,” Act IV, sometimes known as Act III (at any rate, the last act), with Leonard Warren, Jan Peerce, Zinka Milanov, Nan Merriman, NBC Symphony, and New York Philharmonic combined, and the All City High School Chorus and Glee Club, Madison Square Garden, 1944. ("Quartet")
Wagner: Excerpts from the operas, the New York Philharmonic, NBC Symphony. “Siegfried’s Death and Funeral March” from “Götterdämmerung,” recorded at Carnegie Hall in 1952; extended excerpts sung by Lauritz Melchior and Helen Traubel from “Die Walküre” and “Götterdämmerung,” recorded in Carnegie Hall in 1941
Beethoven: “Missa Solemnis,” Jussi Bjorling, Zinka Milanov, Bruno Castagna, Alexander Kipnis, Westminster Choir, NBC Symphony, Carnegie Hall, 1940. (Improved: Kyrie, Gloria 1/2, Gloria 2/2, Credo 1/2, Credo 2/2, Sanctus, Agnus Dei 1/2, Agnus Dei 2/2, Benedictus
Beethoven: Third Symphony (“Eroica”), NBC Symphony, Studio 8-H, 1939. 1949, 1953, NBC Symphony, Carnegie Hall
Beethoven: Eighth Symphony, NBC Symphony; Carnegie Hall, 1952. (1939)
Beethoven: Ninth Symphony, Jan Peerce, Eileen Farrell, Nan Merriman, Norman Scott, Robert Shaw Chorale, NBC Symphony, Carnegie Hall, 1952.
Brahms: Fourth Symphony, NBC Symphony, Carnegie Hall, 1951.
Verdi: “Requiem,” Herva Nelli, Fedora Barbieri, Giuseppe di Stefano, Cesare Siepi, NBC Symphony, Robert Shaw Chorus, Carnegie Hall, 1951. (1938)
Wagner: “Parsifal,” the Prelude and “Good Friday Spell,” NBC Symphony, Carnegie Hall, 1949.
Berlioz: “Romeo and Juliet” (complete), Gladys Swarthout, John Garris, Nicola Moscona, NBC Symphony and Chorus, Studio 8-H, 1947. (Overture)

15 fascinating moments from the maestro's life
Toscanini conducted the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in 1936-37

Toscanini Encore, 1932

Arturo Toscanini is buried in Milan

and if you have, uh, fond memories of maestro chewing you out...

posted by the man of twists and turns (11 comments total)

kinda explains why there was so much classical music in looney tunes...
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:16 PM on July 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

That is one fast last movement of Beethoven's Ninth, running much faster in portions than some modern comparisons I tried.

(There's reason to believe Beethoven's metronome was broken and a lot of question today about how fast to play his music.)
posted by zachlipton at 11:06 PM on July 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

In that '15 fascinating moments' article, the last (the incident in his final live performance) is described as a "memory lapse" but it may well have been more substantial than that. Neurologist Harold Klawans, in the title essay of his book Toscanini's Fumble, considers on the basis of accounts of Toscanini's behaviour that he probably experienced a transient ischemic attack - a brief and self-correcting 'mini-stroke' that would be quite plausible in an 87-year-old man vigorously waving his arms whilst standing for a lengthy period. In any event, Toscanini never performed live again, although the account I link to asserts that he had been pressured to continue performing by NBC and had already confirmed his retirement.
posted by Major Clanger at 2:31 AM on July 8, 2017

Gosh, what a treat. Thank you!
posted by james33 at 4:19 AM on July 8, 2017

SOMEBODY wants that best post award!
posted by wittgenstein at 5:19 AM on July 8, 2017

Thanks for this! When I was in college and discovering classical music (beyond the few warhorses my parents had records of), I couldn't really understand the greatness of Beethoven's symphonies until I heard Toscanini's recordings—my God, it was like a light went off in my ears and head. I have twenty CDs of his music (I'm listening to the 1940 Beethoven Missa Solemnis now) and am looking forward to exploring your links. That David Denby piece (your first link; name the authors, people!) is excellent; another good review of the Sachs book, by Robert Gottlieb, is the cover feature in last Sunday's NY Times book review section, and I commend it to anyone intrigued by this post ("For the remaining six weeks of the tour, Harvey Sachs tells us [...], the maestro led the orchestra in 26 performances of 12 operas, all from memory. No one offered him a raise, and it didn’t occur to him to ask for one").

Toscanini could be an asshole (like most of us), but if you ask me, his behavior at a crucial time in history makes up for a great many sins:

In the nineteen-thirties and during the war period, admiration for him went well beyond music. Opera, always central to the culture of Europe, became at that time a matter of nationalist bluster and political maneuvering. After 1931, Toscanini refused to conduct in Italy, resisting Mussolini, who dangled honors and official posts; he was thereafter reviled in the Fascist press. Hitler pleaded with him to honor holy German art and preside over the Wagner rites at the Bayreuth Festival. When Toscanini turned him down, his recordings and broadcasts were banned in Nazi Germany. Instead of going to Bayreuth, he worked in 1936 and 1937 with the newly formed Palestine Orchestra (later the Israel Philharmonic), an ensemble largely composed of Jewish refugees. Toscanini did not make speeches; he stuck to business. But his sentiments were widely known, and he became a lodestar for anti-Fascists. After the war, Isaiah Berlin pronounced him “the most morally dignified and inspiring hero of our time—more than Einstein (to me), more than even the superhuman Winston.”

And this gets my blood boiling:

Both Adorno and Horowitz indulged in scathing contempt for radio listeners in the Toscanini era. It incensed them that classical music—for a brief period—became part of mass culture.

Fuck elitists in general and Adorno in particular.

Minor point, but as languagehat I am contractually required to make it: in the final link, that impressive chewing-out of the bass section (I'd like to hear a curse-off between him and Buddy Rich), "testa d'asino" is not "mule's head" but "ass's head" (or, if you prefer, "donkey head"). Corpo di dio!
posted by languagehat at 8:22 AM on July 8, 2017 [7 favorites]

Forgot to add: I wish he'd been better at Mozart and more accepting of modern music, but you can't have everything.
posted by languagehat at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm a Furtwangler man myself, but I'd hardly turn my nose up at an offering like this. Well done, sir!
posted by uosuaq at 5:32 PM on July 8, 2017

uosuaq, my father had the boxed Toscanini 9 symphonies and the Furtwangler 3,5,7 set. We preferred Furtwangler, and it amuses me to remember that he once stormed out of a Toscanini performance muttering "Bloody time beater"! That said, however, it's hard to overestimate his influence on American taste. And I look forward to reading this new biography.
posted by acrasis at 6:03 PM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

(There's reason to believe Beethoven's metronome was broken and a lot of question today about how fast to play his music.)

Despite that detailed analysis, contemporary consensus among performing musicians is that Beethoven's tempo markings are mostly accurate (here's a thoughtful, non-technical article about it, I also find that the most immediate tempo concerns are venue-related these days). Certainly recordings of the symphonies from the past 20-25 years are, on balance, right around the tempos that he indicated.

Two of my primary complaints about 'golden age' conductors are 1) wow, how can you stand some of those ploddingly slow tempos when it says allegro con brio on the page?? (though not always Toscanini, exhibits a and b to compare and, for context, a more current exhibit c); and 2) how are you so careless with thematic unity, connection, development, and proportion? In so many symphonies--Beethoven for sure but most especially music like Brahms'--melodies, motives, ideas of all kinds are very commonly derived from first or primary versions; you know, developed. Conductors have to find all of those connections, understand them, and present them consistently and in proportion to one another, many times across multiple movements, to help listeners follow large-scale form and the particular processes of musical development that are in play in a given piece of music. So many of our most-recorded first generation of conductors just disregarded interpretive approaches even partially based upon analysis, and that their recordings continue to be the most-listened-to is irksome to me. (Like, we actually mostly play this music so much better now! And holy shit, the players are FANTASTIC!)
posted by LooseFilter at 6:20 PM on July 8, 2017

Thank you, thank you, the man of twists and turns, for this post: MetaFilter at its absolute best (which is really saying something!).
posted by On the Corner at 2:59 AM on July 12, 2017