Hey everyone! Welcome to Day...
I can't say it. This project has been a labor of love, and I'm very sorry to see it end. This is the 80th day of 80 Days of Toscanini, which means that things must finally come to an end. The support I've gotten from my friends and family has meant a lot to me, and I cannot thank you all enough.
Unfortunately, all good things, as they say, must come to an end. 80 Days of Toscanini has run its course, and I am very proud of the project. Although I will mourn its end, I'm sure the time will come to add Toscanini-related thoughts to this blog as the months and years go by, but it will not be on a daily basis anymore.
Today's listening comprises the last three works that Toscanini approved for release from the final year of his career.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 - February 26th, 27th and 28th, 1954
Toscanini once told B.H. Haggin that he objected to the Italian Symphony because of its saltarello last movement. He evidently felt this tarantella-like music was something of a national slur (though I wonder if Toscanini would have felt the same way had the exact same music been written by a composer born in Milan rather than Hamburg). This did not stop the maestro from programming the symphony four times at NBC, and his conception was actually quite traditional in its orientation. This conception was also extremely compelling. There have been faster, more brilliant performances of the Italian Symphony, but the extraordinary clarity Toscanini gets out of the NBC strings makes the issue unimportant.
Toscanini was always very good at creating the illusion of great speed from the remarkably clear-textured sonorities he elicited. This was not always a good thing (his performances of Brahms and of 20th century music often suffered from too much obsession with clarity), but this approach worked perfectly for Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. Even briskly-paced performances of this work can bog down when the execution is imprecise, and Toscanini avoids this with the the qualities he was both admired and detested for. You just can't please everyone.
Boito: Prologue from Mefistofele - March 14th, 1954
Good lord, this is intense.
Arrigo Boito had a profound effect on the early career of Arturo Toscanini. With Verdi nearing the end of the road, Boito was among the most dominant figures in all of the Italian artistic world at the end of the 19th century. He had composed the hugely popular opera Mefistofele in 1867, and written the librettos to Verdi's final two operas, Otello and Falstaff (as well as the revised edition of Simon Boccanegra). In 1897 Boito became Vice President of the governing board of La Scala, and was the leading voice in appointing the thirty-one year old Arturo Toscanini to be musical director of that organization.
Boito had enthusiastically followed Toscanini's career since attending the conductor's Turin productions of Götterdämmerung and Falstaff in 1895. He also repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to convince Verdi to observe Toscanini's rehearsals at Turin's Teatro Regio. In all likelihood Verdi never saw Toscanini conduct, although they had one very significant musical meeting, as we shall see.
Toscanini was appointed musical director of La Scala in 1898, and the relationship between the maestro and Boito was to remain strong until the latter's death in 1918. Toscanini posthumously returned the favor Boito had done him early in his career by orchestrating and supervising the completion of Nerone, an opera Boito had worked on off and on since 1877.
Boito's only significant musical composition was the opera Mefistofele, which Toscanini conducted a number of times throughout his career. The Prologue, in which Satan and a celestial chorus place a wager on Faust's soul, remains a popular concert piece. Toscanini led three concert presentations of the Prologue, the last of which was this intense 1954 NBC broadcast.
Mortimer H. Frank summarizes this performance as "one of Toscanini's most remarkable achievements of his last years. His fabled control, which seemed to be ebbing in his final season, is fully evident here. The shape, dramatic contrasts, and stunning climax that he produced are astonishing, especially when judged in the context of what must have been the strain of the approaching end of an activity he could not live without. It is as if, for a brief hour, a younger conductor were in charge."
Everything about this description is amazingly true. This performance is almost mind-blowing in its visceral power. It is the musical equivalent of a monumental Renaissance fresco that overwhelms you with its spiritually-charged emotion. That the elderly Toscanini could produce an achievement like this is testament both to the extraordinary depth of his musical powers and to the closeness of a friendship that was personally and artistically enriching to two of the greatest figures in all of Italian art.
Verdi: Te Deum - March 14th, 1954
"I've asked you whether you're religious, whether you believe! I do - I believe - I'm not an atheist like Verdi, but I don't have time to go into the subject. I'll do it some other time."
The Roman Catholic Church was both a source of deep scorn for Arturo Toscanini and the origin of a great deal of his being. He was not a church-goer, and held the Vatican in extreme suspicion for its ties to authoritarian regimes. He reserved special hatred for Pope Pius XI, whom he felt had enabled Benito Mussolini's odious political maneuvering. At the same time, the Church shaped Toscanini as a man in profound ways, and affected his personal relationships for his entire life.
Harvey Sachs has summarized Toscanini's religious beliefs as "intellectually pantheistic but, at a gut level, closely related to the superstitious and image-oriented Roman Catholicism typical of the time, place, and class in which he grew up. He was not, however, a practicing Catholic and is not known to have attended a mass after the age of seventeen or eighteen."
An example of how his religious upbringing affected his adult personality lies in Toscanini's bizarrely Catholic attitude towards marriage. Despite his incredible philandering, Toscanini genuinely took matrimony extremely seriously, and invariably ended friendships with anyone who had been divorced or had even remarried following the death of a spouse. In the case of his own marriage, he seems to have liked his wife well enough, but felt she was personally extremely cold. The surviving correspondence between the two show little in the way of shared affection. By contrast, Toscanini really opened up to a woman named Ada Mainardi, whom he had a long affair with. The letters he sent to Mainardi display his personality in vivid color and detail, and document his views on a wide range of subjects, including religion. The quotation I began with came from one of the letters Toscanini sent to Mainardi.
I cannot be sure about Verdi's religious views, but Toscanini was evidently under the impression that the composer was an atheist. If so, the Four Sacred Pieces that ended Verdi's creative life are particularly curious. These works, of which the Te Deum is one, are among the most sublimely beautiful Verdi ever composed. Their profound feeling appears so deeply felt that it is hard to imagine them not coming from a true believer.
Toscanini performed the Te Deum like a true believer. The unearthly sense of reverence that exists in his 1954 performance is breathtaking in its sustained power. The Robert Shaw Chorale gives one its greatest performances in this music. The spiritual affinity between Toscanini and Verdi's Te Deum can perhaps be explained by an important meeting between the conductor and the grand old man of Italian music.
In 1898 Toscanini conducted the Italian premiere of three of the Four Sacred Pieces in Turin. Toscanini was troubled by the Te Deum's pacing, and felt that the work required some unwritten rallentandos. Having secured an audience with Verdi, Toscanini asked the composer to play the Te Deum on the piano, to which Verdi replied "No, no, you play it." Toscanini sat down and played the music as he felt it, with the tempo modifications he felt were necessary. "Bravo," said Verdi. Toscanini stopped in his tracks and said, "Maestro, if you knew how much this has been bothering me…Why didn't you write the rallentando?" Verdi replied that "If I had written it, a bad musician would have exaggerated it; but if one is a good musician, one feels it and plays it, just as you've done, without the necessity of having it written down."
This meeting deeply affected how Toscanini thought about musical pacing, and was to have a tremendous impact on his finest performances. By the time Toscanini had become the old maestro, his performances had frequently become rigid and unyielding. But not this time, and not in any other work that lay deep within him. I cannot say whether or not Toscanini's religious beliefs shaped how he conducted the Te Deum, but the sublime beauty that he achieved in this music suggests a belief in something higher.
Arturo Toscanini was a very difficult man, and one who did some very bad things over the course of his life. He could be nauseatingly belittling to the musicians that played for him, and the disgusting extent of his infidelities caused terrible pain upon his family. But his greatest performances show that he was a man who understood beauty, and in the end that may be the most important characteristic to a person's soul. Beauty - true beauty - is what separates good from evil, and I believe that what Arturo Toscanini was able to express in his most inspired music-making was the very definition of beauty.
............................................................................................................................................
That's it for 80 Days of Toscanini!
Again, thank you all so much for the support you've given me since last September. I apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently ignored as a result of my involvement in this project! Thanks are also due to the Toscanini scholarship of Harvey Sachs, Mortimer H. Frank, Robert C. Marsh and others that have proven invaluable aids in this project. Some thanks must also go to google, facebook and twitter, which have made this process much more democratic, and allowed a person like me to get his thoughts out to the world.
Thank you all, and Happy Saturday!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Day 79: Boston on the Baltic
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 79!
Wow, the project is almost done. Tomorrow will see the end of what has been an amazing musical journey. But the goodbye tears are for another day (tomorrow). Today is a day for opera.
Verdi: Un ballo in maschera - January 17th and 24th, 1954
Un ballo in maschera was the work that bookended Arturo Toscanini's long association with the world of Italian opera. The conductor's parents took him to see a production of the work at Parma's Teatro Regio in 1871, when he was only four years old. Eighty-three years later, Toscanini conducted Un ballo at NBC, in what was to be his last performance of a complete opera.
Toscanini was well aware that this would be the end of his storied career in operatic theatre. Following the second of the two broadcasts that was to comprise this complete Un ballo, Toscanini said that "This was my last opera performance. I began by hearing a performance of Un ballo in maschera at the age of 4, up in the gallery, and I've finished by conducting it at 87." Opera lovers have been left tantalizingly little in the way of recordings to document Toscanini's way with Italian opera, but that is what makes these few surviving performances so great in importance.
Un ballo in maschera has a curious history. Loosely based on an assassination that took place at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792, the opera went through a wide variety of changes to satisfy government censors wary of the plot's political intrigue. What began as an opera named Gustavo III that was set in Stockholm eventually became, after a three year gestation, Un ballo in maschera, an opera set in colonial Boston. It seems that the Boston setting is pretty much ignored in modern productions, but I still find it amusing to think about an opera set in America that has main characters named Riccardo, Renato and Silvano. I think those were my three best childhood friends.
As the opera was performed in a concert setting for the purposes of this 1954 broadcast, I don't think its setting really matters - though it doesn't sound much like Boston to my ears (or Stockholm, for that matter). What it does sound like is a master conductor having the time of his life in an opera that he had loved dearly since childhood, and which he knew he would be conducting for the last time. During the rehearsals for the performance, Toscanini told the orchestra "I'm an old relic, but I won't let you down." Based on the extraordinarily high level of this performance, I seriously doubt that the old man let the NBC Symphony or his cast down.
Yet there is an interesting remark in Toscanini and the Art of Conducting by Robert C. Marsh, who was in the audience for these broadcasts. Marsh writes that he is "competent to assure the person who listens to the recording that what he hears is superior in a number of ways - particularly balance - to what one heard in the actual performance."
It is certainly true that recordings can cover a multitude of sins, but I have a hard time accepting Marsh's statement. For my taste, everything is a bit too closely miked in the recording. This may marginally raise the level of audible detail, but it also subtracts from maintaining a sense of theatre. This is actually a bit of a blanket criticism I have of all of Toscanini's concert opera performances at NBC. Although these operas were obviously not staged, this makes it all the more important to maintain the illusion of theatricality in the music-making.
All this applies only to the recording, not to the performance itself. Although the general trend in Toscanini's later work is one of diminished control, this performance of Un ballo in maschera is so ebullient in its execution that any flaws are quite unimportant. Arturo Toscanini was one of the greatest opera conductors in history, and this performance was the perfect way to close the career of this old relic.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 79!
Check back tomorrow for the end of the project, which will feature some very spiritual works as well as the greatest Italian work ever written by a German.
Happy Friday!
Wow, the project is almost done. Tomorrow will see the end of what has been an amazing musical journey. But the goodbye tears are for another day (tomorrow). Today is a day for opera.
Verdi: Un ballo in maschera - January 17th and 24th, 1954
Un ballo in maschera was the work that bookended Arturo Toscanini's long association with the world of Italian opera. The conductor's parents took him to see a production of the work at Parma's Teatro Regio in 1871, when he was only four years old. Eighty-three years later, Toscanini conducted Un ballo at NBC, in what was to be his last performance of a complete opera.
Toscanini was well aware that this would be the end of his storied career in operatic theatre. Following the second of the two broadcasts that was to comprise this complete Un ballo, Toscanini said that "This was my last opera performance. I began by hearing a performance of Un ballo in maschera at the age of 4, up in the gallery, and I've finished by conducting it at 87." Opera lovers have been left tantalizingly little in the way of recordings to document Toscanini's way with Italian opera, but that is what makes these few surviving performances so great in importance.
Un ballo in maschera has a curious history. Loosely based on an assassination that took place at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792, the opera went through a wide variety of changes to satisfy government censors wary of the plot's political intrigue. What began as an opera named Gustavo III that was set in Stockholm eventually became, after a three year gestation, Un ballo in maschera, an opera set in colonial Boston. It seems that the Boston setting is pretty much ignored in modern productions, but I still find it amusing to think about an opera set in America that has main characters named Riccardo, Renato and Silvano. I think those were my three best childhood friends.
As the opera was performed in a concert setting for the purposes of this 1954 broadcast, I don't think its setting really matters - though it doesn't sound much like Boston to my ears (or Stockholm, for that matter). What it does sound like is a master conductor having the time of his life in an opera that he had loved dearly since childhood, and which he knew he would be conducting for the last time. During the rehearsals for the performance, Toscanini told the orchestra "I'm an old relic, but I won't let you down." Based on the extraordinarily high level of this performance, I seriously doubt that the old man let the NBC Symphony or his cast down.
Yet there is an interesting remark in Toscanini and the Art of Conducting by Robert C. Marsh, who was in the audience for these broadcasts. Marsh writes that he is "competent to assure the person who listens to the recording that what he hears is superior in a number of ways - particularly balance - to what one heard in the actual performance."
It is certainly true that recordings can cover a multitude of sins, but I have a hard time accepting Marsh's statement. For my taste, everything is a bit too closely miked in the recording. This may marginally raise the level of audible detail, but it also subtracts from maintaining a sense of theatre. This is actually a bit of a blanket criticism I have of all of Toscanini's concert opera performances at NBC. Although these operas were obviously not staged, this makes it all the more important to maintain the illusion of theatricality in the music-making.
All this applies only to the recording, not to the performance itself. Although the general trend in Toscanini's later work is one of diminished control, this performance of Un ballo in maschera is so ebullient in its execution that any flaws are quite unimportant. Arturo Toscanini was one of the greatest opera conductors in history, and this performance was the perfect way to close the career of this old relic.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 79!
Check back tomorrow for the end of the project, which will feature some very spiritual works as well as the greatest Italian work ever written by a German.
Happy Friday!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Day 78: The Fighting Lutherans
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 78!
For today I listened to Toscanini's final Eroica, and a very broad Lutheran canvas.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 - December 6th, 1953
Here we come to the last of Toscanini's many performances of the Eroica. At the dress rehearsal for this broadcast the maestro turned to his orchestra to ask for the Marcia funebre one more time, "just for me." It seems Toscanini had a feeling this would be his last time conducting this music. This is not my favorite Toscanini recording, or even my favorite Toscanini recording of the Eroica. But it is a moving document of a master conductor playing one of his favorite works for the final time.
What made Toscanini such an ideal conductor for the Eroica was his refusal to follow the tradition of "monumental" interpretations of the symphony that transformed it into a weighty utterance of misguided grandeur. I would like to quote Michael Steinberg one last time (as I've done for the other two Toscanini Eroicas), as he puts into words so brilliantly what I have flailingly tried to paraphrase for years now:
"We would do well at this point to remember that we are not likely to find it 'unusual and fantastic' either - which, if so, is very much our loss. When it comes to maintaining a sense of the 'unusual and fantastic' or just of freshness, we are not much helped by conductors, particularly the ones whose attitude of reverence and awe before A Great Classic leads them into 'monumental' tempi at which the length of the work easily becomes 'inordinate', if not 'unendurable'. Of course the rare conductor of genius like Furtwängler or Klemperer can make a convincing case for a 'monumental' Eroica. More valuable by far is the fiery performance - at Beethoven's tempi or something close to them - that can give us an experience like the one the audience in the Theater an der Wien in 1805 must have had, that of an electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution, with a force sufficient to blast doors and windows out of the room. Once in a while that happens, but it is rare. Too rare."
Toscanini's finest Eroica, the broadcast of 1939, is a perfect example of Steinberg's "electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution," and is for me one of the very greatest recordings ever made of any work. His subsequent Eroicas are no slouches, however, and there are still many beauties to be found in this autumnal document in Toscanini's discography. Robert C. Marsh evens calls this 1953 recording "one of the indispensable Toscanini discs." I agree to some extent, although I feel its importance lies primarily in the opportunity it affords to experience Toscanini's conception of the Eroica in high-quality sound.
Although Toscanini's electrifying take on this symphony is still evident, the tempos are now steadier than in his earlier recordings. The maestro admitted to B.H. Haggin that the ebb and flow of older performances was in part a nod to Germanic tradition, and that in his old age he no longer felt the need for that. This would likely account for the more classical proportions of the 1953 Eroica, but it still contains a great deal of charged energy - the old boy still had some life in him.
It is true that the 1939 recording had more rubato than in 1953, but the ebb and flow was never disruptive to the musical line. That is what made Toscanini such a towering giant of musical interpretation when he was at his best: his extraordinary ability to elicit a plastic flexibility to tempo that always maintained the impression of steady momentum. Whether due to sagging powers of control or by choice (as the conductor's admission to B.H. Haggin might indicate), Toscanini had moved on from that style by his last year. The result is still extremely impressive both from an intellectual and visceral standpoint. but this is not Toscanini's best work. For that we must turn to an earlier and more ancient-sounding source.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 - December 13th, 1953
I was raised a Lutheran, and I know Lutheran musical interpretation when I hear it. This is an amazingly Lutheran-sounding performance of the Reformation Symphony from the hands of an Italian Catholic.
Like Death and Transfiguration, the Reformation Symphony is a work many of Toscanini's admirers feel was an unworthy score for the maestro to lavish his attention on. Robert C. Marsh, for example, feels that "the stately thumping-out of chorales and bits of chorales and the less than flamingly inspired material that connects them rather pompous and dull." But Toscanini's interpretation was not the problem. Mortimer H. Frank notes that "Toscanini's unorthodox approach to the Reformation Symphony - characterized by a fiery opening movement, a graceful, lilting second movement, and a uniquely expansive finale in which the perorational "Ein feste Burg" is stunningly dramatic and grand - transformed a potentially second-rate score into a potent masterpiece."
That is certainly an apt description of Toscanini's recording. It is an exceptionally broad performance marked with an expansive sensibility more associated with conductors like Furtwängler. I like it very much, though I doubt that it is how Mendelssohn would have conducted it. The tempo for the last movement is objectively too slow in my view, but there is a monumental grandeur and beauty to Toscanini's interpretation that makes it extremely compelling.
...................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 78!
Check back tomorrow for an evening at a masked ball that may be located in Stockholm or Boston. Please rsvp.
Happy Thursday!
For today I listened to Toscanini's final Eroica, and a very broad Lutheran canvas.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 - December 6th, 1953
Here we come to the last of Toscanini's many performances of the Eroica. At the dress rehearsal for this broadcast the maestro turned to his orchestra to ask for the Marcia funebre one more time, "just for me." It seems Toscanini had a feeling this would be his last time conducting this music. This is not my favorite Toscanini recording, or even my favorite Toscanini recording of the Eroica. But it is a moving document of a master conductor playing one of his favorite works for the final time.
What made Toscanini such an ideal conductor for the Eroica was his refusal to follow the tradition of "monumental" interpretations of the symphony that transformed it into a weighty utterance of misguided grandeur. I would like to quote Michael Steinberg one last time (as I've done for the other two Toscanini Eroicas), as he puts into words so brilliantly what I have flailingly tried to paraphrase for years now:
"We would do well at this point to remember that we are not likely to find it 'unusual and fantastic' either - which, if so, is very much our loss. When it comes to maintaining a sense of the 'unusual and fantastic' or just of freshness, we are not much helped by conductors, particularly the ones whose attitude of reverence and awe before A Great Classic leads them into 'monumental' tempi at which the length of the work easily becomes 'inordinate', if not 'unendurable'. Of course the rare conductor of genius like Furtwängler or Klemperer can make a convincing case for a 'monumental' Eroica. More valuable by far is the fiery performance - at Beethoven's tempi or something close to them - that can give us an experience like the one the audience in the Theater an der Wien in 1805 must have had, that of an electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution, with a force sufficient to blast doors and windows out of the room. Once in a while that happens, but it is rare. Too rare."
Toscanini's finest Eroica, the broadcast of 1939, is a perfect example of Steinberg's "electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution," and is for me one of the very greatest recordings ever made of any work. His subsequent Eroicas are no slouches, however, and there are still many beauties to be found in this autumnal document in Toscanini's discography. Robert C. Marsh evens calls this 1953 recording "one of the indispensable Toscanini discs." I agree to some extent, although I feel its importance lies primarily in the opportunity it affords to experience Toscanini's conception of the Eroica in high-quality sound.
Although Toscanini's electrifying take on this symphony is still evident, the tempos are now steadier than in his earlier recordings. The maestro admitted to B.H. Haggin that the ebb and flow of older performances was in part a nod to Germanic tradition, and that in his old age he no longer felt the need for that. This would likely account for the more classical proportions of the 1953 Eroica, but it still contains a great deal of charged energy - the old boy still had some life in him.
It is true that the 1939 recording had more rubato than in 1953, but the ebb and flow was never disruptive to the musical line. That is what made Toscanini such a towering giant of musical interpretation when he was at his best: his extraordinary ability to elicit a plastic flexibility to tempo that always maintained the impression of steady momentum. Whether due to sagging powers of control or by choice (as the conductor's admission to B.H. Haggin might indicate), Toscanini had moved on from that style by his last year. The result is still extremely impressive both from an intellectual and visceral standpoint. but this is not Toscanini's best work. For that we must turn to an earlier and more ancient-sounding source.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 - December 13th, 1953
I was raised a Lutheran, and I know Lutheran musical interpretation when I hear it. This is an amazingly Lutheran-sounding performance of the Reformation Symphony from the hands of an Italian Catholic.
Like Death and Transfiguration, the Reformation Symphony is a work many of Toscanini's admirers feel was an unworthy score for the maestro to lavish his attention on. Robert C. Marsh, for example, feels that "the stately thumping-out of chorales and bits of chorales and the less than flamingly inspired material that connects them rather pompous and dull." But Toscanini's interpretation was not the problem. Mortimer H. Frank notes that "Toscanini's unorthodox approach to the Reformation Symphony - characterized by a fiery opening movement, a graceful, lilting second movement, and a uniquely expansive finale in which the perorational "Ein feste Burg" is stunningly dramatic and grand - transformed a potentially second-rate score into a potent masterpiece."
That is certainly an apt description of Toscanini's recording. It is an exceptionally broad performance marked with an expansive sensibility more associated with conductors like Furtwängler. I like it very much, though I doubt that it is how Mendelssohn would have conducted it. The tempo for the last movement is objectively too slow in my view, but there is a monumental grandeur and beauty to Toscanini's interpretation that makes it extremely compelling.
...................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 78!
Check back tomorrow for an evening at a masked ball that may be located in Stockholm or Boston. Please rsvp.
Happy Thursday!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Day 77: The Tragically Unhip
Hey everyone welcome to Day 77!
Today's listening comprised the first three recordings to come from the final season of Toscanini's career.
Strauss: Don Quixote - November 21st and 22nd, 1953
I find it interesting that most of Toscanini's biographers feel that there is no doubt that Don Quixote is Strauss's finest tone poem, while Death and Transfiguration is banal and subpar. I don't remotely agree with either view, and in any case I think there is a reason why Death and Transfiguration is performed much more frequently. Yet there must also be a reason why Toscanini's admirers are seemingly unanimous in their somewhat unorthodox opinion.
Although there is certainly drama and tone-painting in this work (muted brass portraying braying sheep, etc.), I don't think it's that much of a reach to say that of Strauss's tone poems Don Quixote is the most concerned with formal structures. The audibility of the program is rather downplayed in comparison with a work like Till Eulenspiegel, and I wonder if that is what appeals to Toscanini's admirers. Perhaps a devotee of Pierre Monteux or Carlos Kleiber would have a different view? Or are any apparent patterns just coincidence?
In any case, Toscanini's performance is certainly a strong, highly competent one. The playing of cellist Frank Miller is especially fine. The main source for the recording is the broadcast of November 22nd, which had to be patched with portions from the preceding day's rehearsal due to a number of technical lapses at the concert. The edits are unobtrusive, and the recording holds together remarkably well.
Brahms: Tragic Overture - November 22nd, 1953
This is a short-form equivalent to the dreadful recording of the Brahms Third from the previous year. The tempo is slow, but there is no weight of sonority. There is only a slack, limp noodle feeling that keeps the phrases from having any rhythmic backbone. The only tragedy here is the lackluster execution.
Berlioz: Harold in Italy - November 28th and 29th, 1953
Toscanini took "correctness" very seriously with this work, and this performance is successful enough that I don't think any negative connotations can come with that.
Harold in Italy was still a novelty in 1939 when Toscanini first asked his then-principal violist William Primrose to learn the work for an NBC broadcast. Several years later (after leaving the NBC Symphony) Primrose recorded the work commercially with Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony. Upon hearing that recording, Toscanini became quite agitated and was heard to say "Poor Primrose! Next year he come to play this piece with me again, and he must play correct! This is not correct!"
The problem seemed to be Koussevitsky's nonchalant attitude towards the metronome markings, which in some cases considerably altered Berlioz's tempo relationships. Toscanini took those relationships extremely seriously, and produced in this work a very different kind of effect from that of Koussevitsky. B.H. Haggin was a fervent admirer of Toscanini's conception of Harold in Italy, and noted that the maestro "produced tempos which integrated not only the section of a movement (notably the third) but the movements within the entire work - making the recurring viola melody, for example, move at the same pace in each movement."
True enough. A great deal of expression is contained in tempo relationships, and I think that is an undervalued aspect of taking metronome markings seriously. That is a big part of the wonderful success of this performance.
This 1953 recording was made not with Primrose but with Carlton Cooley, who became principal violist of the NBC Symphony upon Primrose's departure. Cooley was a less polished performer than Primrose, but his understated playing is still quite effective. Harold in Italy is not really a soloist's piece, and the manner of Cooley's performance is suggestive more of an orchestral obligato than as a solo line. Although the work was commissioned to be a concerto (Paganini wanted to show off his viola chops), I think the obligato conception was really more of what Berlioz had in mind. The effect works brilliantly in this performance.
.......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 77!
Check back tomorrow for some heroic Lutheranism.
Happy Wednesday!
Today's listening comprised the first three recordings to come from the final season of Toscanini's career.
Strauss: Don Quixote - November 21st and 22nd, 1953
I find it interesting that most of Toscanini's biographers feel that there is no doubt that Don Quixote is Strauss's finest tone poem, while Death and Transfiguration is banal and subpar. I don't remotely agree with either view, and in any case I think there is a reason why Death and Transfiguration is performed much more frequently. Yet there must also be a reason why Toscanini's admirers are seemingly unanimous in their somewhat unorthodox opinion.
Although there is certainly drama and tone-painting in this work (muted brass portraying braying sheep, etc.), I don't think it's that much of a reach to say that of Strauss's tone poems Don Quixote is the most concerned with formal structures. The audibility of the program is rather downplayed in comparison with a work like Till Eulenspiegel, and I wonder if that is what appeals to Toscanini's admirers. Perhaps a devotee of Pierre Monteux or Carlos Kleiber would have a different view? Or are any apparent patterns just coincidence?
In any case, Toscanini's performance is certainly a strong, highly competent one. The playing of cellist Frank Miller is especially fine. The main source for the recording is the broadcast of November 22nd, which had to be patched with portions from the preceding day's rehearsal due to a number of technical lapses at the concert. The edits are unobtrusive, and the recording holds together remarkably well.
Brahms: Tragic Overture - November 22nd, 1953
This is a short-form equivalent to the dreadful recording of the Brahms Third from the previous year. The tempo is slow, but there is no weight of sonority. There is only a slack, limp noodle feeling that keeps the phrases from having any rhythmic backbone. The only tragedy here is the lackluster execution.
Berlioz: Harold in Italy - November 28th and 29th, 1953
Toscanini took "correctness" very seriously with this work, and this performance is successful enough that I don't think any negative connotations can come with that.
Harold in Italy was still a novelty in 1939 when Toscanini first asked his then-principal violist William Primrose to learn the work for an NBC broadcast. Several years later (after leaving the NBC Symphony) Primrose recorded the work commercially with Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony. Upon hearing that recording, Toscanini became quite agitated and was heard to say "Poor Primrose! Next year he come to play this piece with me again, and he must play correct! This is not correct!"
The problem seemed to be Koussevitsky's nonchalant attitude towards the metronome markings, which in some cases considerably altered Berlioz's tempo relationships. Toscanini took those relationships extremely seriously, and produced in this work a very different kind of effect from that of Koussevitsky. B.H. Haggin was a fervent admirer of Toscanini's conception of Harold in Italy, and noted that the maestro "produced tempos which integrated not only the section of a movement (notably the third) but the movements within the entire work - making the recurring viola melody, for example, move at the same pace in each movement."
True enough. A great deal of expression is contained in tempo relationships, and I think that is an undervalued aspect of taking metronome markings seriously. That is a big part of the wonderful success of this performance.
This 1953 recording was made not with Primrose but with Carlton Cooley, who became principal violist of the NBC Symphony upon Primrose's departure. Cooley was a less polished performer than Primrose, but his understated playing is still quite effective. Harold in Italy is not really a soloist's piece, and the manner of Cooley's performance is suggestive more of an orchestral obligato than as a solo line. Although the work was commissioned to be a concerto (Paganini wanted to show off his viola chops), I think the obligato conception was really more of what Berlioz had in mind. The effect works brilliantly in this performance.
.......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 77!
Check back tomorrow for some heroic Lutheranism.
Happy Wednesday!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Day 76: Historical Anacreonisms
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 76!
With today's listening we reach the end of Toscanini's penultimate season at NBC, and the beginning of the end of this project. It's been a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot in process. It will also be a bit of a relief to not have to base my daily activities around the blog, at least for a while. Sooner or later I will miss the daily writing, and I'm sure there will be more I can add to this blog as the months and years go by.
It is, however, a little too soon to shed the goodbye tears. There are still five days to go, and many wonderful pieces to listen to. Today's listening featured one wonderful piece, and another that was once thought to be wonderful (though not by me).
Cherubini: Anacréon Overture - March 21st, 1953
Amazingly, this overture was once a fairly standard part of the orchestral repertoire. Many of the leading conductors of the first half of the twentieth century (Furtwängler, for example) recorded it, and I still don't really know why. I find there to very little to like in the way of melodic interest or formal shape. Whatever the reason for its earlier success, Toscanini performed the work four times with the NBC Symphony. This recording is taken from the last of those four broadcasts. This is a competent enough performance, but if there is more to like in this overture than meets the ear I didn't get it from this recording.
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis - March 30th and 31st, 1953
Toscanini conducted the Missa Solemnis for the first time in 1934, when he was sixty-six years old - this studio recording came nineteen years later. If you believe Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs, a considerable transformation in the maestro's interpretation occurred during that time. Sachs compares three of the surviving Toscanini performances of the Missa Solemnis: a New York Philharmonic broadcast from 1935, an NBC broadcast from 1940, and this 1953 studio recording.
Sachs notes of the earliest of these performances that "most of his tempi are the slowest I have ever heard in any performance of this work…There is great flexibility in the handling of every section, and the total effect is uniquely gripping and moving." Of the 1940 NBC version, Sachs believes that "the general conception has become less massive, more dramatic." And finally, of the studio recording, that "the tempi become faster, but the modifications within those tempi have been reduced to the barest minimum: everything is done with the greatest simplicity."
Comparing these three recordings that took place over the course of eighteen years can be taken as a microcosm of the orthodox view of the evolution of Toscanini's interpretations: that they became faster and tighter over the years. Sachs himself cautions against reading this as a generality of all of Toscanini's work because it happens to be true of the Missa Solemnis, and the more recent biography by Mortimer H. Frank is particularly vociferous about there being no hard and fast patterns in this regard. I would agree with them to some extent, but aging is most certainly a pattern, and it is a fact that certain views and manners are going to evolve with age. Preference for one view or another notwithstanding, there is no shame in one performing a piece differently at age eighty than one did at forty. This may be a result of degenerating physical or mental capacities, or it may simply be a matter of seeing things differently. Either way, some degree of change is inevitable.
I have not heard either of the earlier two recordings Sachs compares to this studio recording, but I can easily believe that things have become tighter by 1953. This is certainly not a spacious take on the Missa Solemnis, and that has its strengths and weaknesses. I would definitely not wish for a tempo any slower than Toscanini takes for the radiantly exuberant Gloria, and the military sounds that accompany the Dona Nobis Pacem have a shattering irony to them that I have heard in no other performance. Yet the overall effect is one of breathless and very much earthbound momentum. This defeats the timeless expression of eternity that resonates within Beethoven's creation. For music like this, temporal considerations should be unimportant to anyone but the union representative.
That is my view of this recording at the age of thirty-one. I'm sure I will view it differently at sixty-one. Got a problem with that?
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 76!
Check back tomorrow for a tragic look at the life of a wannabe knight, and also a trip to Italy.
Happy Tuesday!
With today's listening we reach the end of Toscanini's penultimate season at NBC, and the beginning of the end of this project. It's been a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot in process. It will also be a bit of a relief to not have to base my daily activities around the blog, at least for a while. Sooner or later I will miss the daily writing, and I'm sure there will be more I can add to this blog as the months and years go by.
It is, however, a little too soon to shed the goodbye tears. There are still five days to go, and many wonderful pieces to listen to. Today's listening featured one wonderful piece, and another that was once thought to be wonderful (though not by me).
Cherubini: Anacréon Overture - March 21st, 1953
Amazingly, this overture was once a fairly standard part of the orchestral repertoire. Many of the leading conductors of the first half of the twentieth century (Furtwängler, for example) recorded it, and I still don't really know why. I find there to very little to like in the way of melodic interest or formal shape. Whatever the reason for its earlier success, Toscanini performed the work four times with the NBC Symphony. This recording is taken from the last of those four broadcasts. This is a competent enough performance, but if there is more to like in this overture than meets the ear I didn't get it from this recording.
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis - March 30th and 31st, 1953
Toscanini conducted the Missa Solemnis for the first time in 1934, when he was sixty-six years old - this studio recording came nineteen years later. If you believe Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs, a considerable transformation in the maestro's interpretation occurred during that time. Sachs compares three of the surviving Toscanini performances of the Missa Solemnis: a New York Philharmonic broadcast from 1935, an NBC broadcast from 1940, and this 1953 studio recording.
Sachs notes of the earliest of these performances that "most of his tempi are the slowest I have ever heard in any performance of this work…There is great flexibility in the handling of every section, and the total effect is uniquely gripping and moving." Of the 1940 NBC version, Sachs believes that "the general conception has become less massive, more dramatic." And finally, of the studio recording, that "the tempi become faster, but the modifications within those tempi have been reduced to the barest minimum: everything is done with the greatest simplicity."
Comparing these three recordings that took place over the course of eighteen years can be taken as a microcosm of the orthodox view of the evolution of Toscanini's interpretations: that they became faster and tighter over the years. Sachs himself cautions against reading this as a generality of all of Toscanini's work because it happens to be true of the Missa Solemnis, and the more recent biography by Mortimer H. Frank is particularly vociferous about there being no hard and fast patterns in this regard. I would agree with them to some extent, but aging is most certainly a pattern, and it is a fact that certain views and manners are going to evolve with age. Preference for one view or another notwithstanding, there is no shame in one performing a piece differently at age eighty than one did at forty. This may be a result of degenerating physical or mental capacities, or it may simply be a matter of seeing things differently. Either way, some degree of change is inevitable.
I have not heard either of the earlier two recordings Sachs compares to this studio recording, but I can easily believe that things have become tighter by 1953. This is certainly not a spacious take on the Missa Solemnis, and that has its strengths and weaknesses. I would definitely not wish for a tempo any slower than Toscanini takes for the radiantly exuberant Gloria, and the military sounds that accompany the Dona Nobis Pacem have a shattering irony to them that I have heard in no other performance. Yet the overall effect is one of breathless and very much earthbound momentum. This defeats the timeless expression of eternity that resonates within Beethoven's creation. For music like this, temporal considerations should be unimportant to anyone but the union representative.
That is my view of this recording at the age of thirty-one. I'm sure I will view it differently at sixty-one. Got a problem with that?
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 76!
Check back tomorrow for a tragic look at the life of a wannabe knight, and also a trip to Italy.
Happy Tuesday!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Day 75: Hungarian Glances
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 75!
It's getting late, so I'll get right to it.
Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun - February 13th and 14th, 1953
This is the ultimate music of otherworldly sensuality, but Toscanini treats Faun with a rather earthbound intensity. This has its own kind of beauty, but it lacks that quietly sublime sonority that makes this music so unspeakably beautiful.
Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 17, 20 and 21 - February 17th, 1953
There is a lot of sparkle to these performances, but not much gypsy feeling. I get the impression from listening to these dances that there was a bit of an interpretive war going on between Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. The orchestra seems to be trying to pull things back and to play these dances with traditional tempo give and take, while Toscanini relentlessly pushes things forward. In an odd way, you actually kind of get the best of both worlds with these performances.
No one alive in 2011 can be absolutely certain what Brahms wanted in terms of tempo consistency (there is a recording dating from 1889 of Brahms playing the first Hungarian Dance, but the sound quality is too poor to infer much about his performance), but the surviving recordings of the dances played Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim at least suggest that the tradition of generous rubato in this music is nothing new. Gypsy violinists still play that way today, and fine performers such as Roby Lakatos and Sándor Járóka keep alive a remarkable musical tradition that has likely existed for a very long time. Brahms took the tunes for his Hungarian Dances from the gypsy tradition, and I see no reason to think that he didn't want them performed as a gypsy would have played them.
At the same time, it is easy to carry this too far, and to unthinkingly apply extreme tempo modifications to this music simply because they seem "authentic." Some continuity of time is required for these pieces to have a danceable character. Toscanini certainly does provide that consistency - too much so, in my view. But the attempts of the NBC Symphony to pull the dances back into line with tradition are audible, and in fact almost give the impression of rubato in places where there is none. Between the will of the conductor and that of the ensemble, an ideal middle ground is paradoxically reached.
Toscanini did not perform in the Hungarian Dances in an "authentic" way, but he had a very compelling way with them that became something wonderful when carried out by the right orchestra. At least on this occasion, the NBC Symphony was the right orchestra.
Schubert: Symphony No. 5 - March 17th, 1953
This symphony was the last work to enter Toscanini's repertory. The eighty-five year old conductor programmed it for the first and only time on March 14th, 1953. This recording comes from a studio session held three days after that broadcast.
This performance has a very trim and focused sonority that looks forward to the more stylistically aware days of a later era. Yet there is warmth to accompany the precision, and Toscanini never allows the rhythmic momentum to overflow the musical line.
Respighi: Pines of Rome - March 17th, 1953
My parents owned a copy of the old RCA LP of this recording, and I remember being very disappointed by it when I was younger. The NBC Symphony was simply not as polished an ensemble as most of the orchestras that have recorded Pines of Rome over the last twenty years or so, and I had a hard time looking past that.
It is still not entirely easy for me to listen to this recording without wincing at some of grittier moments (the brass intonation is spotty throughout, and there is a dreadfully exposed oboe splat in the third movement), but this time around I was able to concentrate on Toscanini's remarkable pacing. His performance of the final movement in particular perfectly realizes the extraordinary transition from darkness to blinding light that makes this work so iconic as an example of the sheer splendor of symphonic sonority.
......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 75!
Check back tomorrow for something solemn, and something anacreonistic.
Happy Monday!
It's getting late, so I'll get right to it.
Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun - February 13th and 14th, 1953
This is the ultimate music of otherworldly sensuality, but Toscanini treats Faun with a rather earthbound intensity. This has its own kind of beauty, but it lacks that quietly sublime sonority that makes this music so unspeakably beautiful.
Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 17, 20 and 21 - February 17th, 1953
There is a lot of sparkle to these performances, but not much gypsy feeling. I get the impression from listening to these dances that there was a bit of an interpretive war going on between Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. The orchestra seems to be trying to pull things back and to play these dances with traditional tempo give and take, while Toscanini relentlessly pushes things forward. In an odd way, you actually kind of get the best of both worlds with these performances.
No one alive in 2011 can be absolutely certain what Brahms wanted in terms of tempo consistency (there is a recording dating from 1889 of Brahms playing the first Hungarian Dance, but the sound quality is too poor to infer much about his performance), but the surviving recordings of the dances played Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim at least suggest that the tradition of generous rubato in this music is nothing new. Gypsy violinists still play that way today, and fine performers such as Roby Lakatos and Sándor Járóka keep alive a remarkable musical tradition that has likely existed for a very long time. Brahms took the tunes for his Hungarian Dances from the gypsy tradition, and I see no reason to think that he didn't want them performed as a gypsy would have played them.
At the same time, it is easy to carry this too far, and to unthinkingly apply extreme tempo modifications to this music simply because they seem "authentic." Some continuity of time is required for these pieces to have a danceable character. Toscanini certainly does provide that consistency - too much so, in my view. But the attempts of the NBC Symphony to pull the dances back into line with tradition are audible, and in fact almost give the impression of rubato in places where there is none. Between the will of the conductor and that of the ensemble, an ideal middle ground is paradoxically reached.
Toscanini did not perform in the Hungarian Dances in an "authentic" way, but he had a very compelling way with them that became something wonderful when carried out by the right orchestra. At least on this occasion, the NBC Symphony was the right orchestra.
Schubert: Symphony No. 5 - March 17th, 1953
This symphony was the last work to enter Toscanini's repertory. The eighty-five year old conductor programmed it for the first and only time on March 14th, 1953. This recording comes from a studio session held three days after that broadcast.
This performance has a very trim and focused sonority that looks forward to the more stylistically aware days of a later era. Yet there is warmth to accompany the precision, and Toscanini never allows the rhythmic momentum to overflow the musical line.
Respighi: Pines of Rome - March 17th, 1953
My parents owned a copy of the old RCA LP of this recording, and I remember being very disappointed by it when I was younger. The NBC Symphony was simply not as polished an ensemble as most of the orchestras that have recorded Pines of Rome over the last twenty years or so, and I had a hard time looking past that.
It is still not entirely easy for me to listen to this recording without wincing at some of grittier moments (the brass intonation is spotty throughout, and there is a dreadfully exposed oboe splat in the third movement), but this time around I was able to concentrate on Toscanini's remarkable pacing. His performance of the final movement in particular perfectly realizes the extraordinary transition from darkness to blinding light that makes this work so iconic as an example of the sheer splendor of symphonic sonority.
......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 75!
Check back tomorrow for something solemn, and something anacreonistic.
Happy Monday!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Day 74: The Killer Flutes
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 74!
For today I listened to a New World of Great symphonies, and I also took a swim down Memory Lane.
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 - February 2nd, 1953
Toscanini first conducted the New World Symphony in 1897, when the score was only five years old. He led the work intermittently throughout his career, culminating in four NBC broadcasts and this studio recording. It is appropriate that Toscanini led the symphony intermittently, as his performances of it were only intermittently compelling (rimshot).
There are certainly beauties to be found in this 1953 recording, but as a whole it is quite inconsistent. The symphony's introduction is particularly stiff and cold in its execution, and has some strange moments of rhythmic unsteadiness. The long rest that precedes the first fortissimo outburst is cut almost in half, and dotted figures are frequently tripletized. That is the worst of it. What follows is in many ways a perfectly respectable rendition of the New World Symphony, but the energy level is rather low, and the phrases feel limp. Only with the last movement do things really come to life. This Allegro con fuoco is taken at a powerfully fuoco pace, and at last the symphony becomes consistently engaging.
As this recording was made in the very hall where the New World Symphony was premiered sixty years earlier, it is tempting to view it as possessing a certain authenticity of timbre. But I don't find that to be a compelling reason to read any more into this performance than there is to read. This is, overall, a perfectly acceptable account of a classic of the orchestral repertory, but not an extraordinary one.
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 - February 9th, 1953
This is the third and last of Toscanini's official recordings of Schubert's Ninth. It also serves as documentation of the last time in the maestro's life that he ever led this score, which he had been conducting regularly since his first symphony concert in 1896.
This is the broadest and smoothest of Toscanini's three studio Schubert Ninths. There are some lovely moments in this performance, but I actually miss the grit of his earlier versions. The extra expanse in this recording amplifies the beauty of some sections (notably the introduction to the first movement, the middle of the slow movement, and the trio of the scherzo), but also drains energy and purpose from others (by which I mean pretty much the rest of the piece).
Since this is the third time I've talked about Schubert Nine I'm starting to run out of things to say about it. So I thought I'd finish up with an amusing story that has nothing whatsoever to do with Schubert.
During my twenties I was fortunate enough to attend the Lucerne Festival Academy four times. The Academy is a fabulous opportunity to work on contemporary repertoire with Pierre Boulez in the Swiss Alps, and remains among the most artistically satisfying musical activities I am ever likely to encounter. I also met my wife there in 2004, and that's got to count for something as well (we had both been living in Chicago two years before we finally met, so naturally we first met in Switzerland).
Musicians of the Academy are put up with townspeople of Lucerne, which can occasionally result in some interesting pairings. One year I was staying with an interesting couple that had a rather New Age philosophy and very strict standards for bathroom cleanliness (I had never known you were supposed to wipe down the bathtub after taking a shower). They also had an interesting take on English. I was once warned to not leave my clothes sitting out in the building's laundry room due to the danger of their being stolen by "mugglers and tieves."
That summer Central Europe faced historic flooding, when it basically did not stop raining throughout the month of August. Water flowed freely through the streets closest to the river, and getting around town could be quite a challenge. I will never forget the image the members of the visiting Russian National Orchestra trudging through the streets with their pants rolled up and instruments held over their heads, while Gidon Kremer was standing nearby with a look of shock on his face.
On the first day of these floods I was woken up at 5:00 in the morning by my host mother, who looked at me with frightening seriousness and said "Stephen, there are flutes all over Switzerland." Feeling very groggy, I was mentally scratching my head over that information: "Flutes?" Then she looked at me very closely and stared quite intently into my eyes and said: "Five people have DIED already." I immediately thought "WHAT???" She spent a good ten minutes telling me about how dangerous the flutes were before I finally woke up enough to realize she meant "floods." I wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved. I've encountered some dangerous flutes before.
Anyway, things eventually returned to normal and no flutes ended up killing me that summer. That story doesn't really have anything to do with Schubert's Ninth, but I bet the flutes in that symphony would kill you if they got the chance.
.....................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 74!
Check back tomorrow, when I'll be pining for Hungary and more Schubert.
Happy Sunday!
For today I listened to a New World of Great symphonies, and I also took a swim down Memory Lane.
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 - February 2nd, 1953
Toscanini first conducted the New World Symphony in 1897, when the score was only five years old. He led the work intermittently throughout his career, culminating in four NBC broadcasts and this studio recording. It is appropriate that Toscanini led the symphony intermittently, as his performances of it were only intermittently compelling (rimshot).
There are certainly beauties to be found in this 1953 recording, but as a whole it is quite inconsistent. The symphony's introduction is particularly stiff and cold in its execution, and has some strange moments of rhythmic unsteadiness. The long rest that precedes the first fortissimo outburst is cut almost in half, and dotted figures are frequently tripletized. That is the worst of it. What follows is in many ways a perfectly respectable rendition of the New World Symphony, but the energy level is rather low, and the phrases feel limp. Only with the last movement do things really come to life. This Allegro con fuoco is taken at a powerfully fuoco pace, and at last the symphony becomes consistently engaging.
As this recording was made in the very hall where the New World Symphony was premiered sixty years earlier, it is tempting to view it as possessing a certain authenticity of timbre. But I don't find that to be a compelling reason to read any more into this performance than there is to read. This is, overall, a perfectly acceptable account of a classic of the orchestral repertory, but not an extraordinary one.
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 - February 9th, 1953
This is the third and last of Toscanini's official recordings of Schubert's Ninth. It also serves as documentation of the last time in the maestro's life that he ever led this score, which he had been conducting regularly since his first symphony concert in 1896.
This is the broadest and smoothest of Toscanini's three studio Schubert Ninths. There are some lovely moments in this performance, but I actually miss the grit of his earlier versions. The extra expanse in this recording amplifies the beauty of some sections (notably the introduction to the first movement, the middle of the slow movement, and the trio of the scherzo), but also drains energy and purpose from others (by which I mean pretty much the rest of the piece).
Since this is the third time I've talked about Schubert Nine I'm starting to run out of things to say about it. So I thought I'd finish up with an amusing story that has nothing whatsoever to do with Schubert.
During my twenties I was fortunate enough to attend the Lucerne Festival Academy four times. The Academy is a fabulous opportunity to work on contemporary repertoire with Pierre Boulez in the Swiss Alps, and remains among the most artistically satisfying musical activities I am ever likely to encounter. I also met my wife there in 2004, and that's got to count for something as well (we had both been living in Chicago two years before we finally met, so naturally we first met in Switzerland).
Musicians of the Academy are put up with townspeople of Lucerne, which can occasionally result in some interesting pairings. One year I was staying with an interesting couple that had a rather New Age philosophy and very strict standards for bathroom cleanliness (I had never known you were supposed to wipe down the bathtub after taking a shower). They also had an interesting take on English. I was once warned to not leave my clothes sitting out in the building's laundry room due to the danger of their being stolen by "mugglers and tieves."
That summer Central Europe faced historic flooding, when it basically did not stop raining throughout the month of August. Water flowed freely through the streets closest to the river, and getting around town could be quite a challenge. I will never forget the image the members of the visiting Russian National Orchestra trudging through the streets with their pants rolled up and instruments held over their heads, while Gidon Kremer was standing nearby with a look of shock on his face.
On the first day of these floods I was woken up at 5:00 in the morning by my host mother, who looked at me with frightening seriousness and said "Stephen, there are flutes all over Switzerland." Feeling very groggy, I was mentally scratching my head over that information: "Flutes?" Then she looked at me very closely and stared quite intently into my eyes and said: "Five people have DIED already." I immediately thought "WHAT???" She spent a good ten minutes telling me about how dangerous the flutes were before I finally woke up enough to realize she meant "floods." I wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved. I've encountered some dangerous flutes before.
Anyway, things eventually returned to normal and no flutes ended up killing me that summer. That story doesn't really have anything to do with Schubert's Ninth, but I bet the flutes in that symphony would kill you if they got the chance.
.....................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 74!
Check back tomorrow, when I'll be pining for Hungary and more Schubert.
Happy Sunday!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Day 73: PIctures Of An Exhibitionist
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 73!
Today's listening brought two overtures, a surprising symphony, and some titillating pictures.
Beethoven: Egmont Overture - January 19th, 1953
The best performances of this overture are characterized by a carefully modulated transition from darkness to light that never lose a sense of inevitability. Toscanini's tight-fisted approach to this work prevents such a realization, and instead make it sound coldly clinical. I doubt Beethoven would have approved.
Rossini: William Tell Overture - January 19th, 1953
This is an excellent performance, but what struck me most was the extraordinary quality of the recorded sound. RCA really stepped up to the plate for this one, and produced a recording that beautifully recreates every nuance of the Toscanini sound. The pictorial aspects of the overture are played with powerfully vivid colors by the NBC Symphony, and immaculately reproduced in this top-notch CD release.
Haydn: Symphony No. 94 - January 26th, 1953
This Surprise Symphony is no surprise, really. All in all this is one of Toscanini's most satisfying and energetic recordings of an 18 century symphony, but it lacks the element of surprise that gives the work its name. A shame really, because in many ways this performance is so right in its focused drive, yet falls short right where it needs the theatrical element Toscanini should have been the perfect man to provide. What should have left me surprised ended up leaving me slightly queasy.
Mussorgsky/Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition - January 26th, 1953
I don't agree with everything Toscanini does to this score, but there is no denying its visceral power. The maestro often called the Ravel version of this work history's greatest treatise on orchestration, but this did not stop him from altering significant portions of that orchestration. The Great Gate of Kiev, for example, has numerous details changed, including brass lines reassigned to the strings and numerous additions being made to the timpani part. The result is undeniably impressive in its resultant sonority, though I think Ravel's original is more precisely calculated in its range of effects. In short, as impressive a piece of work as this recording is, it should not be considered a fully successful statement of Ravel's intentions as orchestrator.
....................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 73!
Check back tomorrow for a whole new world of great symphonies.
Happy Saturday!
Today's listening brought two overtures, a surprising symphony, and some titillating pictures.
Beethoven: Egmont Overture - January 19th, 1953
The best performances of this overture are characterized by a carefully modulated transition from darkness to light that never lose a sense of inevitability. Toscanini's tight-fisted approach to this work prevents such a realization, and instead make it sound coldly clinical. I doubt Beethoven would have approved.
Rossini: William Tell Overture - January 19th, 1953
This is an excellent performance, but what struck me most was the extraordinary quality of the recorded sound. RCA really stepped up to the plate for this one, and produced a recording that beautifully recreates every nuance of the Toscanini sound. The pictorial aspects of the overture are played with powerfully vivid colors by the NBC Symphony, and immaculately reproduced in this top-notch CD release.
Haydn: Symphony No. 94 - January 26th, 1953
This Surprise Symphony is no surprise, really. All in all this is one of Toscanini's most satisfying and energetic recordings of an 18 century symphony, but it lacks the element of surprise that gives the work its name. A shame really, because in many ways this performance is so right in its focused drive, yet falls short right where it needs the theatrical element Toscanini should have been the perfect man to provide. What should have left me surprised ended up leaving me slightly queasy.
Mussorgsky/Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition - January 26th, 1953
I don't agree with everything Toscanini does to this score, but there is no denying its visceral power. The maestro often called the Ravel version of this work history's greatest treatise on orchestration, but this did not stop him from altering significant portions of that orchestration. The Great Gate of Kiev, for example, has numerous details changed, including brass lines reassigned to the strings and numerous additions being made to the timpani part. The result is undeniably impressive in its resultant sonority, though I think Ravel's original is more precisely calculated in its range of effects. In short, as impressive a piece of work as this recording is, it should not be considered a fully successful statement of Ravel's intentions as orchestrator.
....................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 73!
Check back tomorrow for a whole new world of great symphonies.
Happy Saturday!
Friday, November 11, 2011
Day 72: Heaven's Gait
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 72!
For today I listened to two operatic excerpts and an overture that was based on music from an opera. I also watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Today was a good day.
Gluck: Overture from Iphigenia in Aulis - November 22nd, 1952
Fail.
I take a very protective attitude towards this overture, as the middle school orchestra version of it I played in 6th grade was what first attracted me to the music of Gluck. I read obsessively about the composer and badgered my parents to buy me recordings of all of his mature operas. I may have been an unusual kid, but darn it I had an appreciation for late 18th century operatic reforms! I tried to play that card on the playground, but somehow I kept getting beaten up. Moving right along...
Toscanini uses the Wagner arrangement of this overture, which in itself is no great sin (though a moderate one), except that he also interprets it in a massive, bloated Wagnerian manner that prevents the musical line from making any sense. This is music of extraordinary, sublime beauty, but you wouldn't know it from this recording. I shouldn't take it personally, but then this music mean a lot to me personally.
Gluck: Act II from Orfeo ed Euridice - November 22nd, 1952
Orfeo was the oldest opera Toscanini ever conducted. The only other 18th century operas the maestro ever conducted were Armide, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. I don't know if that's necessarily indicative of a general lack of interest in the music of that century (though I think it is). But it does suggest that Toscanini did not lead this music with enough frequency to really have a fluent way with it, and this Gluck recording puts that on uncomfortable display.
Rather like the Iphigenia overture (taken from the same broadcast), Orfeo is afflicted by a bloated, slow-moving pulse that prevents any continuity of line and (more importantly) completely ruins the work's dramatic impact. The sleeve note writer for the RCA CD somehow makes a virtue of this, but noting that Toscanini's "expansiveness made the music seem less trivial and more terrifying." To this I say "uh, what?" I hear no terror in these Furies; only a lumbering, bored gait.
Perhaps this is appropriate. This being the story of Orpheus in the underworld, I guess you might say he had reached the Gaits of Heaven.
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture - January 19th, 1953
Much better.
Toscanini was an outstanding Berlioz conductor at a time when little of that composer's music was being performed. Here he leads this fabulous overture with brilliantly flowing line and extraordinary vitality. Why couldn't Toscanini achieve the same thing with the Gluck?
........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 72!
Check back tomorrow for two overtures, a Haydn symphony, and pictures from an exhibitionist.
Happy Friday!
For today I listened to two operatic excerpts and an overture that was based on music from an opera. I also watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Today was a good day.
Gluck: Overture from Iphigenia in Aulis - November 22nd, 1952
Fail.
I take a very protective attitude towards this overture, as the middle school orchestra version of it I played in 6th grade was what first attracted me to the music of Gluck. I read obsessively about the composer and badgered my parents to buy me recordings of all of his mature operas. I may have been an unusual kid, but darn it I had an appreciation for late 18th century operatic reforms! I tried to play that card on the playground, but somehow I kept getting beaten up. Moving right along...
Toscanini uses the Wagner arrangement of this overture, which in itself is no great sin (though a moderate one), except that he also interprets it in a massive, bloated Wagnerian manner that prevents the musical line from making any sense. This is music of extraordinary, sublime beauty, but you wouldn't know it from this recording. I shouldn't take it personally, but then this music mean a lot to me personally.
Gluck: Act II from Orfeo ed Euridice - November 22nd, 1952
Orfeo was the oldest opera Toscanini ever conducted. The only other 18th century operas the maestro ever conducted were Armide, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. I don't know if that's necessarily indicative of a general lack of interest in the music of that century (though I think it is). But it does suggest that Toscanini did not lead this music with enough frequency to really have a fluent way with it, and this Gluck recording puts that on uncomfortable display.
Rather like the Iphigenia overture (taken from the same broadcast), Orfeo is afflicted by a bloated, slow-moving pulse that prevents any continuity of line and (more importantly) completely ruins the work's dramatic impact. The sleeve note writer for the RCA CD somehow makes a virtue of this, but noting that Toscanini's "expansiveness made the music seem less trivial and more terrifying." To this I say "uh, what?" I hear no terror in these Furies; only a lumbering, bored gait.
Perhaps this is appropriate. This being the story of Orpheus in the underworld, I guess you might say he had reached the Gaits of Heaven.
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture - January 19th, 1953
Much better.
Toscanini was an outstanding Berlioz conductor at a time when little of that composer's music was being performed. Here he leads this fabulous overture with brilliantly flowing line and extraordinary vitality. Why couldn't Toscanini achieve the same thing with the Gluck?
........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 72!
Check back tomorrow for two overtures, a Haydn symphony, and pictures from an exhibitionist.
Happy Friday!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Day 71: Splendor in the Brass
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 71!
Today's listening took me through symphonies from France and Germany, and an opera overture from Italy. I also had Indian food for lunch, making today as international as I could manage.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 - November 10th, 1952
I probably shouldn't admit this, but my plan when I began listening today was to just skim through this recording of the Beethoven Eighth, as I have heard it a number of times already. Then I pressed play, and found there was no way I could turn it off; it's just too compelling. From start to finish the energy level is almost exhausting in its intensity, and leaves you with the inescapable feeling that you have just listened to (gasp!) a Beethoven symphony.
The odd-numbered Beethoven symphonies are so monumental in their unprecedented size and originality that the more bucolic pastures of the even-numbered works are almost inevitably going to be at least an initial disappointment. The Pastoral excepted, these symphonies have not entered the popular imagination as have the others, with their heroic rhythms, fate motifs, dance apotheoses, and odes to joy. The even-numbered symphonies stand no chance against this when they are played in an unfailingly elegant and classical manner. Lost in this is that even the even-numbered Beethoven symphonies just happen to be Beethoven symphonies.
Toscanini never lost sight of the fact that the Eighth is a Beethoven symphony, and consistently performed it with the same incisive vitality he gave the Eroica or the Fifth. It is almost surprising how well this approach works for the Eighth, as it is so infrequently heard in this manner. Unlike those misguidedly elegant versions, performances like Toscanini's really stick with you, and make it hard to move away from them. Even when you try.
Verdi: La forza del destino Overture - November 10th, 1952
Considering that this was recorded on the same day as the fabulous Beethoven recording discussed above, I'd say that this Verdi overture is a disappointment. It is certainly a competent piece of work, but radiates none of the fire of the Beethoven Eighth or, for that matter, Toscanini's 1945 recording of the La forza del destino overture. There is precision in this performance, but little theatre, and Verdi's superbly timed drama is lost in lackluster execution.
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 - November 14th and 15th, 1952
The Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony practically serves as a metaphor for symphonic grandeur, and Toscanini does not disappointment with this unusually broad and spacious performance. The maestro first conducted this work in 1898, and subsequently led it ten times during his decade with the New York Philharmonic. But this 1952 broadcast (patched with rehearsal material from the previous day) is his only surviving account of the symphony.
There is plenty about this recording that is wonderful. The sostenuto line of the slow movement is breathtakingly phrased, the scherzo is replete with powerfully incisive attacks from the strings, and the concluding section is given genuine grandeur and splendor of sonority. But the peculiarities still have me scratching my head. Most bizarre is that Toscanini inexplicably seems to have beefed up the orchestration by adding winds to the famous organ chords that open the symphony's final section. The result is that these chords actually feel scrawnier and less monumental than when played with organ alone. I also find Toscanini's deliberate pace for the ending to be quite anticlimactic and lacking in purpose.
Nonetheless, what is right about this performance is brilliantly right. There are moments in this symphony that are reminiscent of Wagner, and other that look forward to Messiaen, and Toscanini beautifully plays up these connections without losing sight of the French romanticism that is at the work's core. This recording is not perfect, but it is wonderful.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 71!
Check back tomorrow for some Gluck, and some French music from Rome.
Happy Thursday!
Today's listening took me through symphonies from France and Germany, and an opera overture from Italy. I also had Indian food for lunch, making today as international as I could manage.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 - November 10th, 1952
I probably shouldn't admit this, but my plan when I began listening today was to just skim through this recording of the Beethoven Eighth, as I have heard it a number of times already. Then I pressed play, and found there was no way I could turn it off; it's just too compelling. From start to finish the energy level is almost exhausting in its intensity, and leaves you with the inescapable feeling that you have just listened to (gasp!) a Beethoven symphony.
The odd-numbered Beethoven symphonies are so monumental in their unprecedented size and originality that the more bucolic pastures of the even-numbered works are almost inevitably going to be at least an initial disappointment. The Pastoral excepted, these symphonies have not entered the popular imagination as have the others, with their heroic rhythms, fate motifs, dance apotheoses, and odes to joy. The even-numbered symphonies stand no chance against this when they are played in an unfailingly elegant and classical manner. Lost in this is that even the even-numbered Beethoven symphonies just happen to be Beethoven symphonies.
Toscanini never lost sight of the fact that the Eighth is a Beethoven symphony, and consistently performed it with the same incisive vitality he gave the Eroica or the Fifth. It is almost surprising how well this approach works for the Eighth, as it is so infrequently heard in this manner. Unlike those misguidedly elegant versions, performances like Toscanini's really stick with you, and make it hard to move away from them. Even when you try.
Verdi: La forza del destino Overture - November 10th, 1952
Considering that this was recorded on the same day as the fabulous Beethoven recording discussed above, I'd say that this Verdi overture is a disappointment. It is certainly a competent piece of work, but radiates none of the fire of the Beethoven Eighth or, for that matter, Toscanini's 1945 recording of the La forza del destino overture. There is precision in this performance, but little theatre, and Verdi's superbly timed drama is lost in lackluster execution.
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 - November 14th and 15th, 1952
The Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony practically serves as a metaphor for symphonic grandeur, and Toscanini does not disappointment with this unusually broad and spacious performance. The maestro first conducted this work in 1898, and subsequently led it ten times during his decade with the New York Philharmonic. But this 1952 broadcast (patched with rehearsal material from the previous day) is his only surviving account of the symphony.
There is plenty about this recording that is wonderful. The sostenuto line of the slow movement is breathtakingly phrased, the scherzo is replete with powerfully incisive attacks from the strings, and the concluding section is given genuine grandeur and splendor of sonority. But the peculiarities still have me scratching my head. Most bizarre is that Toscanini inexplicably seems to have beefed up the orchestration by adding winds to the famous organ chords that open the symphony's final section. The result is that these chords actually feel scrawnier and less monumental than when played with organ alone. I also find Toscanini's deliberate pace for the ending to be quite anticlimactic and lacking in purpose.
Nonetheless, what is right about this performance is brilliantly right. There are moments in this symphony that are reminiscent of Wagner, and other that look forward to Messiaen, and Toscanini beautifully plays up these connections without losing sight of the French romanticism that is at the work's core. This recording is not perfect, but it is wonderful.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 71!
Check back tomorrow for some Gluck, and some French music from Rome.
Happy Thursday!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Day 70: This Totally Tannhaused Me
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 70!
Today I listened to the first three recordings of Toscanini's sixteenth and penultimate season with NBC. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks, two out of these three recordings are excellent, and that ain't bad.
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 - November 4th, 1952
Oh dear. Oh…oh dear. Every now and then an absolutely inexplicable dud comes up in this project, and this unspeakably dreadful recording is one of them.
Toscanini was frequently an edgy conductor when it came to his basic conception of tempo (although not to the over-simplified extent bizarrely leveled at him by admirers and detractors alike). But when he did interpret a score in a slow, weighty manner, the work often attained monumental grandeur and supple flexibility. Not so in this off-the-charts awful Brahms recording, a performance that makes you say "but…wha…why??" The tempos throughout are crawlingly slow, but do not elicit any sense of breadth. Rather, the result is a limp, lifeless wet noodle that never comes to life.
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks - November 4th, 1952
Toscanini always called himself a man of the theatre, and his long experience in that area made him a particularly ideal conductor of programmatic music. This recording of Till Eulenspiegel is an apt example of this, featuring a remarkable attention to dramatic content that is free of gratuitous sentimentality. The impish characteristics of the merry prankster are perfectly conveyed without degenerating into clownish caricature.
Since tempo is such an annoyingly ubiquitous topic with Toscanini discussions, I thought I would note for the record that this 1952 account of Till Eulenspiegel clocks in at fifteen minutes, thirteen seconds, which is precisely one second faster than the timing of the composer's own 1944 recording. I thought you might want to know.
Wagner: Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser - November 8th, 1952
The news coming out of Penn State this week is making it frighteningly evident how easy it is for a career to end in shame, rather than in the blaze of glory that might have been. Arturo Toscanini was never plagued by the kind of scandal afflicting Joe Paterno right now, but I have no doubt that he considered the manner of his exit from the podium to be of the profoundest possible humiliation.
Toscanini's final NBC broadcast in April of 1954 marked the one time he ever entirely lost control of a performance. During that all-Wagner broadcast the maestro was overcome by what was likely a combination of emotion and loss of memory, and stopped conducting for a number of bars. The ensemble came close to falling apart, but cellist Frank Miller managed to hold things together by giving cues with his bow. NBC immediately yanked the broadcast from the air, and substituted it with a Brahms recording that had been held in reserve in case something like this were to happen. Toscanini resigned from NBC the next day, and did not conduct publicly again.
The reason I tell this story now is that the work that Toscanini was conducting when he lost control was the Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser. This 1952 recording shows what Toscanini could do with this music when he was entirely lucid, and serves as a revealing gloss on what was to end up causing him so much trouble.
Only a year and a half before he lost it entirely, Toscanini was conducting this music with brilliant power and sweep. The moving dignity of the overture gives way to a bacchanal of furious intensity that in turn ebbs away into sublime silence. Toscanini led this opera at Bayreuth in 1930, and was intimately familiar with the work's dramatic content. The maestro led the Overture and Bacchanal in the concert hall throughout his career, and the theatrical element of the score was always a profound element of these presentations.
One moment of losing control did not destroy Toscanini's legacy, just as a disastrous action in 2002 cannot undo what Joe Paterno achieved at Penn State. But every person who achieves great things wants the story to end happily, and entirely on their own terms. Toscanini's extraordinary longevity prevented that from happening, but the many fine recordings he made over the course of his career will last more deeply in our collective consciousness than the pain of his final broadcast. This wonderful Wagner recording is a perfect example.
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 70!
Check back tomorrow for an even-numbered and even-tempered Beethoven symphony, an overture that shoves destiny down your throat with great force, and an organ recital that hides itself behind a large symphony orchestra.
Happy Wednesday!
Today I listened to the first three recordings of Toscanini's sixteenth and penultimate season with NBC. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks, two out of these three recordings are excellent, and that ain't bad.
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 - November 4th, 1952
Oh dear. Oh…oh dear. Every now and then an absolutely inexplicable dud comes up in this project, and this unspeakably dreadful recording is one of them.
Toscanini was frequently an edgy conductor when it came to his basic conception of tempo (although not to the over-simplified extent bizarrely leveled at him by admirers and detractors alike). But when he did interpret a score in a slow, weighty manner, the work often attained monumental grandeur and supple flexibility. Not so in this off-the-charts awful Brahms recording, a performance that makes you say "but…wha…why??" The tempos throughout are crawlingly slow, but do not elicit any sense of breadth. Rather, the result is a limp, lifeless wet noodle that never comes to life.
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks - November 4th, 1952
Toscanini always called himself a man of the theatre, and his long experience in that area made him a particularly ideal conductor of programmatic music. This recording of Till Eulenspiegel is an apt example of this, featuring a remarkable attention to dramatic content that is free of gratuitous sentimentality. The impish characteristics of the merry prankster are perfectly conveyed without degenerating into clownish caricature.
Since tempo is such an annoyingly ubiquitous topic with Toscanini discussions, I thought I would note for the record that this 1952 account of Till Eulenspiegel clocks in at fifteen minutes, thirteen seconds, which is precisely one second faster than the timing of the composer's own 1944 recording. I thought you might want to know.
Wagner: Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser - November 8th, 1952
The news coming out of Penn State this week is making it frighteningly evident how easy it is for a career to end in shame, rather than in the blaze of glory that might have been. Arturo Toscanini was never plagued by the kind of scandal afflicting Joe Paterno right now, but I have no doubt that he considered the manner of his exit from the podium to be of the profoundest possible humiliation.
Toscanini's final NBC broadcast in April of 1954 marked the one time he ever entirely lost control of a performance. During that all-Wagner broadcast the maestro was overcome by what was likely a combination of emotion and loss of memory, and stopped conducting for a number of bars. The ensemble came close to falling apart, but cellist Frank Miller managed to hold things together by giving cues with his bow. NBC immediately yanked the broadcast from the air, and substituted it with a Brahms recording that had been held in reserve in case something like this were to happen. Toscanini resigned from NBC the next day, and did not conduct publicly again.
The reason I tell this story now is that the work that Toscanini was conducting when he lost control was the Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser. This 1952 recording shows what Toscanini could do with this music when he was entirely lucid, and serves as a revealing gloss on what was to end up causing him so much trouble.
Only a year and a half before he lost it entirely, Toscanini was conducting this music with brilliant power and sweep. The moving dignity of the overture gives way to a bacchanal of furious intensity that in turn ebbs away into sublime silence. Toscanini led this opera at Bayreuth in 1930, and was intimately familiar with the work's dramatic content. The maestro led the Overture and Bacchanal in the concert hall throughout his career, and the theatrical element of the score was always a profound element of these presentations.
One moment of losing control did not destroy Toscanini's legacy, just as a disastrous action in 2002 cannot undo what Joe Paterno achieved at Penn State. But every person who achieves great things wants the story to end happily, and entirely on their own terms. Toscanini's extraordinary longevity prevented that from happening, but the many fine recordings he made over the course of his career will last more deeply in our collective consciousness than the pain of his final broadcast. This wonderful Wagner recording is a perfect example.
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 70!
Check back tomorrow for an even-numbered and even-tempered Beethoven symphony, an overture that shoves destiny down your throat with great force, and an organ recital that hides itself behind a large symphony orchestra.
Happy Wednesday!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Day 69: Real Musicians Don't Let Tornados Stop The Concert
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 69!
For today I listened to seven works that Toscanini recorded on the same day in 1952. I initially felt dubious about doing all of these in one day's entry, but I figured that if Toscanini could record them in one day, I could write about them in one day.
These performances mark the final series of studio recordings Toscanini made during his prolific fifteenth season with NBC. More of his official discography comes from this year during any other of his long career. These performances are for the most part consistently satisfying, and lay at the core of his surviving legacy. These seven pieces discussed today come from the end of that productive season, and are all lighter works, suggesting that Toscanini was ready to have some fun. I had fun, too.
Bizet: Carmen Suite - August 5th, 1952
This is more or less the standard Carmen Suite No. 1, but Toscanini departs from it in a number of respects: the order of movements is switched around, there is an added harp cadenza (composed by Toscanini), and the Toreador music is taken from its appearance in the final act, rather than from the Prelude.
This is a wonderfully energetic performance that perfectly captures the spirit of Bizet's drama. Not every NBC woodwind soloist is absolutely, 100% immaculate, but the overall effect is one of strength and beautiful exoticism.
Catalani: Dance of the Water Nymphs from Loreley - August 5th, 1952
Arturo Toscanini was in many respects a far from admirable person, but whatever he may have been, he was always unfailingly loyal to his friends. Alfredo Catalani was a successful composer of traditional (in other words: not verismo) Italian opera, and a close friend of Toscanini who died much too young. The maestro conducted a number of Catalani's operas throughout his career in the theatre, and occasionally performed two excerpts from those works in the concert hall.
Though I admit I have little to go on, Catalani's music strikes as a sort of poor man's Puccini. They share a similar melodic sweep and dramatic intensity, but the latter composer is consistently more compelling in his use of those materials. Toscanini's performance of this dance is certainly a lovely one, but it does not really draw one into the dramatic content of the opera (not that I know what that content is, but this performance should at least suggest it).
Catalani: Prelude to Act IV from La Wally - August 5th, 1952
Toscanini always performed this Prelude as part of a set with the dance discussed above. The conductor obviously felt a great affinity for this opera: he named his eldest daughter Wally, after the lead heroine of the Catalani opera. My feeling for this excerpt is a bit like the Loreley dance. I find it to be a bit bland and characterless, and Toscanini's performance just doesn't draw me in any closer.
Hérold: Zampa Overture - August 5th, 1952
The Zampa overture is another one of those works that I will always associate with a cartoon. In this case, the cartoon was the amazing 1935 Disney short The Band Concert. This is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that centeres around a band that overcomes pretty remarkable adversity (including playing through a tornado) to perform music such as the Zampa and William Tell overtures. Interestingly enough, Toscanini was himself evidently a big fan of this cartoon, and it's probably not that much of a stretch to think that The Band Concert may have inspired him to perform Zampa himself. This 1952 recording is wonderfully fresh and exciting, and immaculately played by the NBC Symphony.
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel Prelude - August 5th, 1952
It has become a bit of a cliché to describe this opera as "children's Wagner," but from how Toscanini performs this overture I think it's an apt way to put it. There is a serious depth of of sonority in this recording, but it possesses a fresher, more innocent feel than Toscanini's Wagner performances.
Sibelius: Finlandia - August 5th, 1952
Wow, this is fabulous. Toscanini grew up hearing tales of his father serving in Garibaldi's army towards the cause of Italian statehood, and carried with him that zeal for national independence for the rest of his life. Finlandia was the ultimate expression of Finnish nationalism, and I'm sure that it tremendously appealed to Toscanini's sensibilities. The maestro could be very uneven in his Sibelius interpretations (his recording of the Symphony No. 2 was utterly dreadful, while Pohjola's Daughter was breathtakingly beautiful), but he gave Finlandia an unfailingly dignified and moving grandeur.
Weber: Oberon Overture - August 5th, 1952
This is certainly breathlessly paced, but very exciting. This overture is usually taken at a more deliberate speed than Toscanini takes it, but this opera is, of course, about fairies. It makes little sense to approach this music with a weighty gait, and Toscanini gives it all the fairyland atmosphere one could hope for.
........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 69!
Check back tomorrow for three solid German works, only one of which ends with someone being hanged.
Happy Tuesday!
For today I listened to seven works that Toscanini recorded on the same day in 1952. I initially felt dubious about doing all of these in one day's entry, but I figured that if Toscanini could record them in one day, I could write about them in one day.
These performances mark the final series of studio recordings Toscanini made during his prolific fifteenth season with NBC. More of his official discography comes from this year during any other of his long career. These performances are for the most part consistently satisfying, and lay at the core of his surviving legacy. These seven pieces discussed today come from the end of that productive season, and are all lighter works, suggesting that Toscanini was ready to have some fun. I had fun, too.
Bizet: Carmen Suite - August 5th, 1952
This is more or less the standard Carmen Suite No. 1, but Toscanini departs from it in a number of respects: the order of movements is switched around, there is an added harp cadenza (composed by Toscanini), and the Toreador music is taken from its appearance in the final act, rather than from the Prelude.
This is a wonderfully energetic performance that perfectly captures the spirit of Bizet's drama. Not every NBC woodwind soloist is absolutely, 100% immaculate, but the overall effect is one of strength and beautiful exoticism.
Catalani: Dance of the Water Nymphs from Loreley - August 5th, 1952
Arturo Toscanini was in many respects a far from admirable person, but whatever he may have been, he was always unfailingly loyal to his friends. Alfredo Catalani was a successful composer of traditional (in other words: not verismo) Italian opera, and a close friend of Toscanini who died much too young. The maestro conducted a number of Catalani's operas throughout his career in the theatre, and occasionally performed two excerpts from those works in the concert hall.
Though I admit I have little to go on, Catalani's music strikes as a sort of poor man's Puccini. They share a similar melodic sweep and dramatic intensity, but the latter composer is consistently more compelling in his use of those materials. Toscanini's performance of this dance is certainly a lovely one, but it does not really draw one into the dramatic content of the opera (not that I know what that content is, but this performance should at least suggest it).
Catalani: Prelude to Act IV from La Wally - August 5th, 1952
Toscanini always performed this Prelude as part of a set with the dance discussed above. The conductor obviously felt a great affinity for this opera: he named his eldest daughter Wally, after the lead heroine of the Catalani opera. My feeling for this excerpt is a bit like the Loreley dance. I find it to be a bit bland and characterless, and Toscanini's performance just doesn't draw me in any closer.
Hérold: Zampa Overture - August 5th, 1952
The Zampa overture is another one of those works that I will always associate with a cartoon. In this case, the cartoon was the amazing 1935 Disney short The Band Concert. This is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that centeres around a band that overcomes pretty remarkable adversity (including playing through a tornado) to perform music such as the Zampa and William Tell overtures. Interestingly enough, Toscanini was himself evidently a big fan of this cartoon, and it's probably not that much of a stretch to think that The Band Concert may have inspired him to perform Zampa himself. This 1952 recording is wonderfully fresh and exciting, and immaculately played by the NBC Symphony.
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel Prelude - August 5th, 1952
It has become a bit of a cliché to describe this opera as "children's Wagner," but from how Toscanini performs this overture I think it's an apt way to put it. There is a serious depth of of sonority in this recording, but it possesses a fresher, more innocent feel than Toscanini's Wagner performances.
Sibelius: Finlandia - August 5th, 1952
Wow, this is fabulous. Toscanini grew up hearing tales of his father serving in Garibaldi's army towards the cause of Italian statehood, and carried with him that zeal for national independence for the rest of his life. Finlandia was the ultimate expression of Finnish nationalism, and I'm sure that it tremendously appealed to Toscanini's sensibilities. The maestro could be very uneven in his Sibelius interpretations (his recording of the Symphony No. 2 was utterly dreadful, while Pohjola's Daughter was breathtakingly beautiful), but he gave Finlandia an unfailingly dignified and moving grandeur.
Weber: Oberon Overture - August 5th, 1952
This is certainly breathlessly paced, but very exciting. This overture is usually taken at a more deliberate speed than Toscanini takes it, but this opera is, of course, about fairies. It makes little sense to approach this music with a weighty gait, and Toscanini gives it all the fairyland atmosphere one could hope for.
........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 69!
Check back tomorrow for three solid German works, only one of which ends with someone being hanged.
Happy Tuesday!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Day 68: It's Best To Not Look Behind The Stove
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 68!
Today's listening took me to four works recorded on the same day in 1952.
Liadov: Kikimora - July 29th, 1952
When I set out to listen to this score of Anatoly Liadov I had a very strong and immediate reaction: "What the hell is a Kikimora?"
My scholarly researches led me to a wikipedia article that explains that "Kikimora is a legendary creature, a female house spirit in Slavic Mythology, sometimes said to be married to the Domovoi. She usually lives behind the stove or in the cellar of the house she haunts." I think that explains why I can never get my soup hot enough.
This is a curious piece, sort of a mix of The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Baba Yaga. I have nothing to judge Toscanini's recording against, but it is an effective performance. The low strings are particularly full-sounding in the introduction, and the woodwind solos have a sparkling clarity to them.
Now if only we can do something about that soup.
Thomas: Mignon Overture - July 29th, 1952
There is nothing in the slightest bit stereotypically Toscanini about this recording. I don't know for sure if that's a good thing, but it makes for extremely compelling listening.
From the beginning, this performance is marked by an extraordinary breadth and flexibility of tempo more reminiscent of conductors like Leonard Bernstein. That Toscanini was quite capable of conducting like this is certainly not surprising when you have listened to a significant sampling of his work, but it is far from the image of the tight-fisted, metronomically rigid conductor that has become all too common.
This is all very mundane, however. The more pertinent point is whether or not this approach is appropriate to the music.
The schmaltzy manner with which Toscanini treats the first half of this overture is more akin to Viennese waltzes than to French overtures. I cannot say whether it is right or wrong to interpret the music in this way, but it is very beautiful. It even made me think of some of the gushier moments of the James Bond scores composed by John Barry. This conception doesn't sound very French to my ears, but it is all too easy to get bogged down with national boundaries in interpretation. I strongly doubt that most composers think of their own music in nationalist terms, and Ambroise Thomas probably felt it was more important for his music to be beautiful than to be idiomatically French, Viennese, Cambodian, Klingon or anything else.
Of course, there are many ways you can define beauty, and it is entirely possible that a more stereotypically Toscanini performance would have been exactly what the composer wanted. In the absence of any proof in that regard, I am happy to accept what sounds right to me, and I like this very much.
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda - July 29th, 1952
Most people (and by "most people," I mean "me") who have seen Fantasia have a hard time listening to this music without thinking of those dancing hippos in their tutus. But it turns out that there is an entire opera attached to these dances, and Toscanini's association with the work goes back to his very first run as a conductor in 1886, at the age of nineteen. Toscanini continued to lead the opera throughout his career in the theatre, and his expert way with the famous Dance of the Hours likely has to do with his immaculate understanding of the context that surrounds the interlude. That's a guess, of course, since I don't know anything about the opera, but it seems logical. All I know is that Toscanini's recording is fabulous.
Wager: Siegfried Idyll - July 29th, 1952
This is the last of the three official recordings Toscanini made of this work, and it is by far the broadest and warmest of them. This 1952 recording is about a minute and a half longer than the 1936 and 1946 accounts, and this extra expanse is used to canvas out a a reading that is deeply passionate and transcendently delicate.
Incidentally, Robert C. Marsh writes of this recording that "Students of concert life in New York should note that this ends with a fanfare of automobile horns." I listened very closely to the ending and could detect nothing of blaring car horns. Either modern remastering has gotten rid of the offending sounds, or perhaps the cars driven in New York in the 50s were quite Wagnerian in tone quality.
.............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 68!
Check back tomorrow for a lengthy list of short pieces I don't even want to think about right now. Just like my shopping list.
Happy Monday!
Today's listening took me to four works recorded on the same day in 1952.
Liadov: Kikimora - July 29th, 1952
When I set out to listen to this score of Anatoly Liadov I had a very strong and immediate reaction: "What the hell is a Kikimora?"
My scholarly researches led me to a wikipedia article that explains that "Kikimora is a legendary creature, a female house spirit in Slavic Mythology, sometimes said to be married to the Domovoi. She usually lives behind the stove or in the cellar of the house she haunts." I think that explains why I can never get my soup hot enough.
This is a curious piece, sort of a mix of The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Baba Yaga. I have nothing to judge Toscanini's recording against, but it is an effective performance. The low strings are particularly full-sounding in the introduction, and the woodwind solos have a sparkling clarity to them.
Now if only we can do something about that soup.
Thomas: Mignon Overture - July 29th, 1952
There is nothing in the slightest bit stereotypically Toscanini about this recording. I don't know for sure if that's a good thing, but it makes for extremely compelling listening.
From the beginning, this performance is marked by an extraordinary breadth and flexibility of tempo more reminiscent of conductors like Leonard Bernstein. That Toscanini was quite capable of conducting like this is certainly not surprising when you have listened to a significant sampling of his work, but it is far from the image of the tight-fisted, metronomically rigid conductor that has become all too common.
This is all very mundane, however. The more pertinent point is whether or not this approach is appropriate to the music.
The schmaltzy manner with which Toscanini treats the first half of this overture is more akin to Viennese waltzes than to French overtures. I cannot say whether it is right or wrong to interpret the music in this way, but it is very beautiful. It even made me think of some of the gushier moments of the James Bond scores composed by John Barry. This conception doesn't sound very French to my ears, but it is all too easy to get bogged down with national boundaries in interpretation. I strongly doubt that most composers think of their own music in nationalist terms, and Ambroise Thomas probably felt it was more important for his music to be beautiful than to be idiomatically French, Viennese, Cambodian, Klingon or anything else.
Of course, there are many ways you can define beauty, and it is entirely possible that a more stereotypically Toscanini performance would have been exactly what the composer wanted. In the absence of any proof in that regard, I am happy to accept what sounds right to me, and I like this very much.
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda - July 29th, 1952
Most people (and by "most people," I mean "me") who have seen Fantasia have a hard time listening to this music without thinking of those dancing hippos in their tutus. But it turns out that there is an entire opera attached to these dances, and Toscanini's association with the work goes back to his very first run as a conductor in 1886, at the age of nineteen. Toscanini continued to lead the opera throughout his career in the theatre, and his expert way with the famous Dance of the Hours likely has to do with his immaculate understanding of the context that surrounds the interlude. That's a guess, of course, since I don't know anything about the opera, but it seems logical. All I know is that Toscanini's recording is fabulous.
Wager: Siegfried Idyll - July 29th, 1952
This is the last of the three official recordings Toscanini made of this work, and it is by far the broadest and warmest of them. This 1952 recording is about a minute and a half longer than the 1936 and 1946 accounts, and this extra expanse is used to canvas out a a reading that is deeply passionate and transcendently delicate.
Incidentally, Robert C. Marsh writes of this recording that "Students of concert life in New York should note that this ends with a fanfare of automobile horns." I listened very closely to the ending and could detect nothing of blaring car horns. Either modern remastering has gotten rid of the offending sounds, or perhaps the cars driven in New York in the 50s were quite Wagnerian in tone quality.
.............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 68!
Check back tomorrow for a lengthy list of short pieces I don't even want to think about right now. Just like my shopping list.
Happy Monday!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Day 67: My Symphonies To You At This Difficult Time
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 67!
For today I listened to two minor-keyed Beethoven symphonies. How odd that they are such major works.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 - March 22nd, 1952
Popularity has been more destructive to this symphony than to just about any another work in the standard orchestral repertoire. Over-familiarity has dulled its shock value, and given charlatan conductors leeway to misrepresent the work however they see fit in the name of having an "imaginative" interpretation.
The good news about this Toscanini recording is that it largely avoids these destructive mannerisms. The bad news is that the performance just isn't very good.
The problem from the very first measures is a general rhythmic unsteadiness. Although Toscanini's finest recordings from this period demonstrate that he was still capable of maintaining strict discipline from the podium, there can be no doubt that the general trend is one of diminishing control. This Beethoven recording never exactly falls apart, but it is wayward enough that momentum is rarely sufficiently maintained to produce successful climaxes. The line frequently meanders and loses focus.
Throughout all of this, Toscanini displays the same interpretive brilliance of his earlier and superior recordings of this symphony. The perfection of his tempos is a big factor in this. The extent to which Beethoven's metronome markings should be taken seriously is a touchy issue with the Fifth, but Toscanini's finest recordings of the work show how effective they can be when the indications are (more or less) adhered to. The scherzo is a perfect example of this, as it is frequently interpreted in a ponderous manner that transforms it into something slower that is most certainly not a scherzo. Toscanini hits Beethoven's tempo pretty much on the nose and elicits a performance of stunning vitality that erupts with passion and precision (or at least that would be the case in a better version of the same interpretation).
Considering the best and worst of this recording leaves me a little uncertain as to how much I like it. Toscanini's 1939 recording of the Fifth is vastly superior as a performance and displays the same interpretive brilliance, yet survives in much duller sound. This may be an instance where a listener has to take all of the available evidence and just use his or her imagination to supply the rest. Not a ringing endorsement, I suppose, but can you think of a better use for the imagination?
Don't answer that.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 - March 31st and April 1st, 1952
Toscanini's 1952 recording of Beethoven's Ninth is one of the most famous and influential of the many versions of the work. It has been used in a wide variety of NBC programs over the last fifty years (most recently in remixed form on Countdown with Keith Obermann), and can still be readily found in the few remaining record stores.
Yet Toscanini himself was a bit uncertain of his interpretive command of the symphony. During these recording sessions he was heard to say "I still don't understand that music." That statement has frequently been cited as an example of the conductor's humility, but some Toscanini biographers feel it was grounded in truth. Mortimer H. Frank, for example, notes that "Among all of Beethoven's orchestral works, the first movement of the Ninth Symphony may be the one whose mysteries he never satisfactorily penetrated." Actually, I think that sentiment could be applied to the whole symphony, at least to some extent.
In many respects I like this recording very much. It has power, intensity, and great beauty of line. But it is also lacking in harmonic drive and structural unity, and frequently meanders in its forward motion. The great Adagio, for example, is as beautifully phrased as I have ever heard, but is so lacking in harmonic weight that it loses all sense of structure. Much of the recording is like this, and as much as I would like to call this a great performance, there is just too much that is unsatisfactory.
............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 67!
Check back tomorrow for four little pieces from four medium to large-sized countries.
Happy Sunday!
For today I listened to two minor-keyed Beethoven symphonies. How odd that they are such major works.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 - March 22nd, 1952
Popularity has been more destructive to this symphony than to just about any another work in the standard orchestral repertoire. Over-familiarity has dulled its shock value, and given charlatan conductors leeway to misrepresent the work however they see fit in the name of having an "imaginative" interpretation.
The good news about this Toscanini recording is that it largely avoids these destructive mannerisms. The bad news is that the performance just isn't very good.
The problem from the very first measures is a general rhythmic unsteadiness. Although Toscanini's finest recordings from this period demonstrate that he was still capable of maintaining strict discipline from the podium, there can be no doubt that the general trend is one of diminishing control. This Beethoven recording never exactly falls apart, but it is wayward enough that momentum is rarely sufficiently maintained to produce successful climaxes. The line frequently meanders and loses focus.
Throughout all of this, Toscanini displays the same interpretive brilliance of his earlier and superior recordings of this symphony. The perfection of his tempos is a big factor in this. The extent to which Beethoven's metronome markings should be taken seriously is a touchy issue with the Fifth, but Toscanini's finest recordings of the work show how effective they can be when the indications are (more or less) adhered to. The scherzo is a perfect example of this, as it is frequently interpreted in a ponderous manner that transforms it into something slower that is most certainly not a scherzo. Toscanini hits Beethoven's tempo pretty much on the nose and elicits a performance of stunning vitality that erupts with passion and precision (or at least that would be the case in a better version of the same interpretation).
Considering the best and worst of this recording leaves me a little uncertain as to how much I like it. Toscanini's 1939 recording of the Fifth is vastly superior as a performance and displays the same interpretive brilliance, yet survives in much duller sound. This may be an instance where a listener has to take all of the available evidence and just use his or her imagination to supply the rest. Not a ringing endorsement, I suppose, but can you think of a better use for the imagination?
Don't answer that.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 - March 31st and April 1st, 1952
Toscanini's 1952 recording of Beethoven's Ninth is one of the most famous and influential of the many versions of the work. It has been used in a wide variety of NBC programs over the last fifty years (most recently in remixed form on Countdown with Keith Obermann), and can still be readily found in the few remaining record stores.
Yet Toscanini himself was a bit uncertain of his interpretive command of the symphony. During these recording sessions he was heard to say "I still don't understand that music." That statement has frequently been cited as an example of the conductor's humility, but some Toscanini biographers feel it was grounded in truth. Mortimer H. Frank, for example, notes that "Among all of Beethoven's orchestral works, the first movement of the Ninth Symphony may be the one whose mysteries he never satisfactorily penetrated." Actually, I think that sentiment could be applied to the whole symphony, at least to some extent.
In many respects I like this recording very much. It has power, intensity, and great beauty of line. But it is also lacking in harmonic drive and structural unity, and frequently meanders in its forward motion. The great Adagio, for example, is as beautifully phrased as I have ever heard, but is so lacking in harmonic weight that it loses all sense of structure. Much of the recording is like this, and as much as I would like to call this a great performance, there is just too much that is unsatisfactory.
............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 67!
Check back tomorrow for four little pieces from four medium to large-sized countries.
Happy Sunday!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Day 66: Transfigured Nocturne
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 66!
Today's listening featured a tone poem about death, a justly ignored symphony, and an impressionist depiction of nocturnal activities.
Strauss: Death and Transfiguration - March 8th and 10th, 1952
This recording is a magnificent document of a score Arturo Toscanini loved dearly - not that many of the conductor's biographers feel the same way about the piece. Robert C. Marsh, for example, feels that "Death and Transfiguration is dangerously close to banality in its simplest form, and its treatment is frequently obvious and pretentious." He then broadly insults those who do enjoy this piece by stating that "the person who is fond of this score presumably admires some of its defects and, if record sales are any guide, enjoys a broad, rhetorical performance in which the melodrama is played for all it's worth."
Well, Toscanini was obviously quite "fond of this score," and yet does not (in this recording, or in any of his live performances) play the melodrama for all it's worth. He gave this work all the same honesty and respect he gave all the music he loved. It was not like Toscanini to admire any work strictly for its emotional extravagance, and the conductor uses the structural elements of this score on their own merits to create a performance of towering beauty.
Cherubini: Symphony in D - March 10th, 1952
I always enjoy encountering forgotten masterpieces that deserve to be performed more often, but this piece ain't one of them. Some works are forgotten for a very good reason, and this Cherubini symphony ought to find a nice music library to hole itself up in and never be seen again.
Toscanini still gives his all to this dud, and there are moments that are actually compelling in this recording. The conductor leads the work with a charm that suggests an enormous, easy-going Rossini overture, and there are even moments of thrilling sweep to be found. The Minuet is played with a ferocious energy that belies its prosaic components, and the Finale sparkles with edgy momentum. The symphony doesn't deserve this treatment, but if I have to listen to it, I want to listen to it played like this.
Debussy: Nuages and Fêtes from Nocturnes - March 27th, 1948 and March 15th, 1952
Oh dear, dear, dear. I'd rather not comment on this rigid, lifeless waste of a performance, but I suppose that if you've taken the time to click on this blog I should write something about it.
Both movements released by RCA were taken from live broadcasts (Toscanini never conducted the Sirènes movement), recorded nearly four years apart. Fêtes was the first to be recorded, and is the slightly more acceptable of the two; there is genuine, if misplaced, drive and energy to this music. The utterly dreadful Nuages is a different matter, moving forward steely with an iron fist and with no regard for the work's inherent atmosphere.
I know these pieces are nocturnes, but in Toscanini's hands they become nightmares.
.......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 66!
Check back tomorrow for two Beethoven symphonies, neither of which are in a major key. See if you can figure out which ones they'll be, by process of elimination.
Happy Saturday!
Today's listening featured a tone poem about death, a justly ignored symphony, and an impressionist depiction of nocturnal activities.
Strauss: Death and Transfiguration - March 8th and 10th, 1952
This recording is a magnificent document of a score Arturo Toscanini loved dearly - not that many of the conductor's biographers feel the same way about the piece. Robert C. Marsh, for example, feels that "Death and Transfiguration is dangerously close to banality in its simplest form, and its treatment is frequently obvious and pretentious." He then broadly insults those who do enjoy this piece by stating that "the person who is fond of this score presumably admires some of its defects and, if record sales are any guide, enjoys a broad, rhetorical performance in which the melodrama is played for all it's worth."
Well, Toscanini was obviously quite "fond of this score," and yet does not (in this recording, or in any of his live performances) play the melodrama for all it's worth. He gave this work all the same honesty and respect he gave all the music he loved. It was not like Toscanini to admire any work strictly for its emotional extravagance, and the conductor uses the structural elements of this score on their own merits to create a performance of towering beauty.
Cherubini: Symphony in D - March 10th, 1952
I always enjoy encountering forgotten masterpieces that deserve to be performed more often, but this piece ain't one of them. Some works are forgotten for a very good reason, and this Cherubini symphony ought to find a nice music library to hole itself up in and never be seen again.
Toscanini still gives his all to this dud, and there are moments that are actually compelling in this recording. The conductor leads the work with a charm that suggests an enormous, easy-going Rossini overture, and there are even moments of thrilling sweep to be found. The Minuet is played with a ferocious energy that belies its prosaic components, and the Finale sparkles with edgy momentum. The symphony doesn't deserve this treatment, but if I have to listen to it, I want to listen to it played like this.
Debussy: Nuages and Fêtes from Nocturnes - March 27th, 1948 and March 15th, 1952
Oh dear, dear, dear. I'd rather not comment on this rigid, lifeless waste of a performance, but I suppose that if you've taken the time to click on this blog I should write something about it.
Both movements released by RCA were taken from live broadcasts (Toscanini never conducted the Sirènes movement), recorded nearly four years apart. Fêtes was the first to be recorded, and is the slightly more acceptable of the two; there is genuine, if misplaced, drive and energy to this music. The utterly dreadful Nuages is a different matter, moving forward steely with an iron fist and with no regard for the work's inherent atmosphere.
I know these pieces are nocturnes, but in Toscanini's hands they become nightmares.
.......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 66!
Check back tomorrow for two Beethoven symphonies, neither of which are in a major key. See if you can figure out which ones they'll be, by process of elimination.
Happy Saturday!
Friday, November 4, 2011
Day 65: Hidin' Variations
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 65!
It's getting late, so I'll get right to it without the usual pontificating.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 - January 12th, 1952
It has been suggested that the Pastoral was Toscanini's favorite Beethoven symphony, and that could well be true, based both on how frequently it was programmed (eight times at NBC alone) and the conductor's unusually gentle way with the score. I was expecting something very different the first time I listened to this recording, and was pleasantly surprised by Toscanini's supple, caressing manner.
This symphony had last been recorded in the studio by Toscanini fifteen years earlier, with the BBC Symphony. The British orchestra was in most respects a superior ensemble to the NBC Symphony, but they did not respond nearly as well as their American counterparts to Toscanini's unique way with the Pastoral. At once intensely lyrical and pliably benign, the maestro's conception of this work successfully blends the descriptively atmospheric with an emphasis on structural integrity. Most performances force the listener to choose one or the other.
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn - February 4th, 1952
Although the theme Brahms used for this piece was not written by Haydn, something tells me the piece is never going to be re-titled Variations on a Theme of Dittersdorf. There's just no ring to it.
Toscanini conducted these variations at least forty times over the course of his career, and this 1952 recording was his second studio account of the work. The earlier recording was one of the most outstanding of Toscanini's New York Philharmonic documents, filled with superb rhythmic strength and powerful sonorities. This NBC recording is almost as good - its only stain is some poor woodwind intonation in the first variation.
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 - February 11th, 1952
This is not an ideal Brahms Second. An ideal Brahms Second would have more depth of sonority and structural power. But this recording is still very good, and exhibits many of the best characteristics of Toscanini's work. But not all.
The good news is that this performance has great rhythmic strength to it, and this is a quality that is tragically under-utilized in many readings of this work. For this symphony to work, it is critical that the hemiolas have rhythmic bite and forward momentum. The unique sound of Brahms hinges on this basic principle, and Toscanini succeeds spectacularly in this regard. The climax of the first movement's development section has astonishing power in this recording, and this is largely due to the stunning clarity of the cross-rhythms.
Tempo is another aspect in which I feel Toscanini excels. Brahms left no metronome markings for this symphony (the composer left such indications for only eight of his works), but his Italian tempo indications seem perfectly clear. Yet these are frequently ignored in favor of a behind-the-beat weightiness that hinders the hemiolas from their inherent (and oh so Brahmsian) effect.
This may be useless trivia, but I find it very interesting that Toscanini's overall tempos are very close to those of the very early recording of this symphony conducted by Max Fiedler, a close associate of Brahms. Although the extent to which Fiedler was really at one with Brahms in artistic temperament has been called into question, the historical connection between the two (Fiedler heard Brahms conduct the Symphony No. 2 in 1878, and the composer invited Fiedler to conduct his works from time to time) makes this early recording a fascinating glimpse into performance practice. Although Fiedler conducts with a good deal more rubato than Toscanini, their overall timings for all movements except the Adagio are within twenty seconds of each other. This of course tells nothing of the finer interpretive characteristics of the two, but I don't think overall tempo is a matter that can be entirely overlooked.
The bad news is that there is plenty wrong with Toscanini's recording (shockingly insightful, yes?). The structural turning points are frequently glossed over, and the phrases tend to meander a bit. But what is more bizarre are the balances of this performance. There are many weird moments (for example, the beautiful horn solo that comes right before the first movement's coda is virtually inaudible), but the overall emphasis is so treble-heavy that Brahms's sonorities are egregiously lacking in bloom. I cannot say whether it was rehearsed this way by Toscanini or if it was the result of incompetent engineering by RCA. Whatever the case, a great deal of the Brahmsian power of this music is lost through this bass deficiency.
.........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 65!
Check back tomorrow for some night music, some death music, and a little-known symphony by a little composer.
Happy Friday!
It's getting late, so I'll get right to it without the usual pontificating.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 - January 12th, 1952
It has been suggested that the Pastoral was Toscanini's favorite Beethoven symphony, and that could well be true, based both on how frequently it was programmed (eight times at NBC alone) and the conductor's unusually gentle way with the score. I was expecting something very different the first time I listened to this recording, and was pleasantly surprised by Toscanini's supple, caressing manner.
This symphony had last been recorded in the studio by Toscanini fifteen years earlier, with the BBC Symphony. The British orchestra was in most respects a superior ensemble to the NBC Symphony, but they did not respond nearly as well as their American counterparts to Toscanini's unique way with the Pastoral. At once intensely lyrical and pliably benign, the maestro's conception of this work successfully blends the descriptively atmospheric with an emphasis on structural integrity. Most performances force the listener to choose one or the other.
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn - February 4th, 1952
Although the theme Brahms used for this piece was not written by Haydn, something tells me the piece is never going to be re-titled Variations on a Theme of Dittersdorf. There's just no ring to it.
Toscanini conducted these variations at least forty times over the course of his career, and this 1952 recording was his second studio account of the work. The earlier recording was one of the most outstanding of Toscanini's New York Philharmonic documents, filled with superb rhythmic strength and powerful sonorities. This NBC recording is almost as good - its only stain is some poor woodwind intonation in the first variation.
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 - February 11th, 1952
This is not an ideal Brahms Second. An ideal Brahms Second would have more depth of sonority and structural power. But this recording is still very good, and exhibits many of the best characteristics of Toscanini's work. But not all.
The good news is that this performance has great rhythmic strength to it, and this is a quality that is tragically under-utilized in many readings of this work. For this symphony to work, it is critical that the hemiolas have rhythmic bite and forward momentum. The unique sound of Brahms hinges on this basic principle, and Toscanini succeeds spectacularly in this regard. The climax of the first movement's development section has astonishing power in this recording, and this is largely due to the stunning clarity of the cross-rhythms.
Tempo is another aspect in which I feel Toscanini excels. Brahms left no metronome markings for this symphony (the composer left such indications for only eight of his works), but his Italian tempo indications seem perfectly clear. Yet these are frequently ignored in favor of a behind-the-beat weightiness that hinders the hemiolas from their inherent (and oh so Brahmsian) effect.
This may be useless trivia, but I find it very interesting that Toscanini's overall tempos are very close to those of the very early recording of this symphony conducted by Max Fiedler, a close associate of Brahms. Although the extent to which Fiedler was really at one with Brahms in artistic temperament has been called into question, the historical connection between the two (Fiedler heard Brahms conduct the Symphony No. 2 in 1878, and the composer invited Fiedler to conduct his works from time to time) makes this early recording a fascinating glimpse into performance practice. Although Fiedler conducts with a good deal more rubato than Toscanini, their overall timings for all movements except the Adagio are within twenty seconds of each other. This of course tells nothing of the finer interpretive characteristics of the two, but I don't think overall tempo is a matter that can be entirely overlooked.
The bad news is that there is plenty wrong with Toscanini's recording (shockingly insightful, yes?). The structural turning points are frequently glossed over, and the phrases tend to meander a bit. But what is more bizarre are the balances of this performance. There are many weird moments (for example, the beautiful horn solo that comes right before the first movement's coda is virtually inaudible), but the overall emphasis is so treble-heavy that Brahms's sonorities are egregiously lacking in bloom. I cannot say whether it was rehearsed this way by Toscanini or if it was the result of incompetent engineering by RCA. Whatever the case, a great deal of the Brahmsian power of this music is lost through this bass deficiency.
.........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 65!
Check back tomorrow for some night music, some death music, and a little-known symphony by a little composer.
Happy Friday!
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Day 64: Riding the Magic Bullet Train
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 64!
Today's listening featured two love stories and a tale of supernatural bullets. I'm not going there.
Weber: Der Freischütz Overture - January 3rd, 1952
Those magic bullets rarely sound as magical as they do in this ferociously energetic recording from 1952. Toscanini's 1945 recording of the Der Freischütz overture was very good from an interpretive point of view, but it had bizarre balances resulting from incompetent engineering. Seven years later RCA seems to have figured out how to produce good-sounding recordings with more consistency. The important horn chorale from the slow introduction was virtually inaudible in the 1945 recording - this time it is clear and distinct, with quality of performance to match.
My only quibble with the 1952 recording is in the length of the grand pauses. These pauses should sound tensely dramatic, but Toscanini slams through them before any tension has a chance to build up. A pity, as there can be just as much drama in silence as there is in sound.
Franck: Psyche and Eros - January 7th, 1952
I was not familiar with this particular myth before listening to this Franck recording. But I'm glad to have read about it, if only to discover what a heartless bitch Venus could be. Not that I'm surprised at all.
If it's possible for harmony to be erotic (and I certainly think it is), this work has it all. Toscanini does not exactly luxuriate in these voluptuous progressions, but his typically muscular approach does not seem out of place either. It is a notably clear-headed approach that contrasts considerably with Kurt Masur's description of this piece as being "like taking drugs." I can see the beauty to both points of view with this music.
I'm not ready to call Psyche and Eros a masterpiece, but it is brilliant (and yes, maybe just a bit mind-blowing in its chromaticism) music, and it should be performed more often than it is. Toscanini did not have the only correct view for how to perform it, but his conception is both powerful and compelling.
Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde - January 7th, 1952
Toscanini recorded the Liebestod in 1942, and good lord was that performance monumentally, off-the-charts, egregiously awful. Considering that Toscanini's 1901 production of Tristan at La Scala had been enthusiastically received by the composer's son, Siegfried Wagner, that is no mean feat. There is just no indication from that dreadful 1942 recording of what could possibly have been compelling enough in Toscanini's direction to elicit the kudos of the Wagner family. This later and vastly improved 1952 recording begins to make things more clear.
What this reading has that the 1942 one did not is a sense of direction and purpose. The earlier recording was rigid and lifeless, and ten years later these negative qualities had vanished. This later recording possesses grand, spacious sonorities that Toscanini never allows to slacken into stagnation. The line never breaks, and the harmonies are never pressed.
I would be willing to bet that the Toscanini of 1901 probably conducted this music with more sensual vitality, and this quality was probably beyond the elder statesman maestro of 1952. But what is audible in this performance is great intelligence and exquisite interpretive detail. We will never know what Toscanini was really capable of producing in his prime, but his finest recordings of the LP age give us a tantalizing taste.
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 64!
Check back tomorrow for some pastoral relaxation, and maybe even a few variations.
Happy Thursday!
Today's listening featured two love stories and a tale of supernatural bullets. I'm not going there.
Weber: Der Freischütz Overture - January 3rd, 1952
Those magic bullets rarely sound as magical as they do in this ferociously energetic recording from 1952. Toscanini's 1945 recording of the Der Freischütz overture was very good from an interpretive point of view, but it had bizarre balances resulting from incompetent engineering. Seven years later RCA seems to have figured out how to produce good-sounding recordings with more consistency. The important horn chorale from the slow introduction was virtually inaudible in the 1945 recording - this time it is clear and distinct, with quality of performance to match.
My only quibble with the 1952 recording is in the length of the grand pauses. These pauses should sound tensely dramatic, but Toscanini slams through them before any tension has a chance to build up. A pity, as there can be just as much drama in silence as there is in sound.
Franck: Psyche and Eros - January 7th, 1952
I was not familiar with this particular myth before listening to this Franck recording. But I'm glad to have read about it, if only to discover what a heartless bitch Venus could be. Not that I'm surprised at all.
If it's possible for harmony to be erotic (and I certainly think it is), this work has it all. Toscanini does not exactly luxuriate in these voluptuous progressions, but his typically muscular approach does not seem out of place either. It is a notably clear-headed approach that contrasts considerably with Kurt Masur's description of this piece as being "like taking drugs." I can see the beauty to both points of view with this music.
I'm not ready to call Psyche and Eros a masterpiece, but it is brilliant (and yes, maybe just a bit mind-blowing in its chromaticism) music, and it should be performed more often than it is. Toscanini did not have the only correct view for how to perform it, but his conception is both powerful and compelling.
Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde - January 7th, 1952
Toscanini recorded the Liebestod in 1942, and good lord was that performance monumentally, off-the-charts, egregiously awful. Considering that Toscanini's 1901 production of Tristan at La Scala had been enthusiastically received by the composer's son, Siegfried Wagner, that is no mean feat. There is just no indication from that dreadful 1942 recording of what could possibly have been compelling enough in Toscanini's direction to elicit the kudos of the Wagner family. This later and vastly improved 1952 recording begins to make things more clear.
What this reading has that the 1942 one did not is a sense of direction and purpose. The earlier recording was rigid and lifeless, and ten years later these negative qualities had vanished. This later recording possesses grand, spacious sonorities that Toscanini never allows to slacken into stagnation. The line never breaks, and the harmonies are never pressed.
I would be willing to bet that the Toscanini of 1901 probably conducted this music with more sensual vitality, and this quality was probably beyond the elder statesman maestro of 1952. But what is audible in this performance is great intelligence and exquisite interpretive detail. We will never know what Toscanini was really capable of producing in his prime, but his finest recordings of the LP age give us a tantalizing taste.
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 64!
Check back tomorrow for some pastoral relaxation, and maybe even a few variations.
Happy Thursday!
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Day 63: Riding to the Funeral in a Symphony Limo
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 63!
Today I listened to the recording that started it all, plus two Wagner excerpts. I also watched some television. I don't see why I can't do both.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 - December 21st, 1951
In a way, this recording was the one that started this project.
About a year ago, in keeping with my habit of coming up with borderline OCD pastimes, I had the idea to listen to the nine Beethoven symphonies over the course of nine days, and comparing the Toscanini and Furtwängler recordings of each of them back to back. The two conductors were bitter rivals in their own time, and continue to inspire legions of cultish supporters who view the other's work with suspicion. I thought it would be interesting to compare their respective Beethoven interpretations, although this was originally meant entirely for the edification of my wife and I. Some months later I decided to turn this into a blog, but with the expanded focus of listening to the entire recorded legacy of one of the two conductors. Some day I hope to complete the project with a corresponding blog on Wilhelm Furtwängler, but for now I'm perfectly content with just writing about Toscanini.
The original listening project started out with this fabulous recording of Beethoven's First Symphony. I had long had a basic familiarity with Toscanini's work, but the explosive energy of this recording had me hooked, and determined to hear as much as I could. Re-listening to it today, I was no less struck by its visceral power, but it is all the more impressive in the context of the conductor's chronology. Many of Toscanini's recordings from this period began to exhibit sagging energy and loss of control, but not this time. Beethoven's first symphony may be close to the 18th century in its thematic orientation, but it is still Beethoven, and full-blooded readings like Toscanini's are much more effective than the more delicate interpretations that try to turn this work into "super-Mozart."
The opposite extreme can be found in recordings like those of Furtwängler, who gave the work an unnatural weight more appropriate for Bruckner than Beethoven. In its own way, I actually find this to be very compelling listening, but I don't feel it is an accurate portrayal of Beethoven's intentions (does it have to be?).
Not all of Toscanini's Beethoven recordings are equal successful, but this is one of his most effective, combining biting energy with superb precision and control. I found it to be inspiring one year ago, and still do.
Wagner: Siegfried's Funeral Music from Götterdämmerung - January 3rd, 1952
This is some of the most heart-rending and tragic music in Wagner's massive Ring cycle, and Toscanini did not shy away from the emotionalism inherent in it. The conductor led this excerpt (in his own concert arrangement) seven times at NBC, and every one of these is a gem. This one, his penultimate, is my favorite of them all. It exhibits a stunning blend of orchestral sonorities that create a unified block of sound that envelops the listener with a palette of drama in music, just as Wagner intended. This recording is only marred by poor woodwind intonation in the opening bars, as Siegfried cries out for Brünnhilde with his dying breaths. I want to be moved by this music, but I'd prefer to not have my face moved into cringing position.
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries - January 3rd, 1952
In its overall sonority this is the better of Toscanini's two recordings of the Ride of the Valkyries. The earlier recording had a whirling, impetuous energy to it, but was lacking in nobility. This 1952 performance has it all: a youthful vigor in its depiction of the Valkyries that still acknowledges that they are immortals. There is, however, one peculiarity. The trombone section almost entirely drops the sixteenth notes from the main tune, taking away some of the rhythmic punch of the music. The effect is almost as if the brass were trying to literally emulate the syllables of Elmer Fudd singing "Kill the Wabbit!"
......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 63!
Check back tomorrow for music of mythological love and magic bullets.
Happy Wednesday!
Today I listened to the recording that started it all, plus two Wagner excerpts. I also watched some television. I don't see why I can't do both.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 - December 21st, 1951
In a way, this recording was the one that started this project.
About a year ago, in keeping with my habit of coming up with borderline OCD pastimes, I had the idea to listen to the nine Beethoven symphonies over the course of nine days, and comparing the Toscanini and Furtwängler recordings of each of them back to back. The two conductors were bitter rivals in their own time, and continue to inspire legions of cultish supporters who view the other's work with suspicion. I thought it would be interesting to compare their respective Beethoven interpretations, although this was originally meant entirely for the edification of my wife and I. Some months later I decided to turn this into a blog, but with the expanded focus of listening to the entire recorded legacy of one of the two conductors. Some day I hope to complete the project with a corresponding blog on Wilhelm Furtwängler, but for now I'm perfectly content with just writing about Toscanini.
The original listening project started out with this fabulous recording of Beethoven's First Symphony. I had long had a basic familiarity with Toscanini's work, but the explosive energy of this recording had me hooked, and determined to hear as much as I could. Re-listening to it today, I was no less struck by its visceral power, but it is all the more impressive in the context of the conductor's chronology. Many of Toscanini's recordings from this period began to exhibit sagging energy and loss of control, but not this time. Beethoven's first symphony may be close to the 18th century in its thematic orientation, but it is still Beethoven, and full-blooded readings like Toscanini's are much more effective than the more delicate interpretations that try to turn this work into "super-Mozart."
The opposite extreme can be found in recordings like those of Furtwängler, who gave the work an unnatural weight more appropriate for Bruckner than Beethoven. In its own way, I actually find this to be very compelling listening, but I don't feel it is an accurate portrayal of Beethoven's intentions (does it have to be?).
Not all of Toscanini's Beethoven recordings are equal successful, but this is one of his most effective, combining biting energy with superb precision and control. I found it to be inspiring one year ago, and still do.
Wagner: Siegfried's Funeral Music from Götterdämmerung - January 3rd, 1952
This is some of the most heart-rending and tragic music in Wagner's massive Ring cycle, and Toscanini did not shy away from the emotionalism inherent in it. The conductor led this excerpt (in his own concert arrangement) seven times at NBC, and every one of these is a gem. This one, his penultimate, is my favorite of them all. It exhibits a stunning blend of orchestral sonorities that create a unified block of sound that envelops the listener with a palette of drama in music, just as Wagner intended. This recording is only marred by poor woodwind intonation in the opening bars, as Siegfried cries out for Brünnhilde with his dying breaths. I want to be moved by this music, but I'd prefer to not have my face moved into cringing position.
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries - January 3rd, 1952
In its overall sonority this is the better of Toscanini's two recordings of the Ride of the Valkyries. The earlier recording had a whirling, impetuous energy to it, but was lacking in nobility. This 1952 performance has it all: a youthful vigor in its depiction of the Valkyries that still acknowledges that they are immortals. There is, however, one peculiarity. The trombone section almost entirely drops the sixteenth notes from the main tune, taking away some of the rhythmic punch of the music. The effect is almost as if the brass were trying to literally emulate the syllables of Elmer Fudd singing "Kill the Wabbit!"
......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 63!
Check back tomorrow for music of mythological love and magic bullets.
Happy Wednesday!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Day 62: The Brahms of Life
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 62!
Today's listening session was a particular pleasure. By this late time in Toscanini's life, the overall energy level of his performances was beginning to sag, and the control coming from the podium was becoming less secure. All three recordings I listened to today are completely different: filled with fire and intelligence, they represent musicianship of powerful brilliance.
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 - December 3rd, 1951
I told you yesterday that today would feature a recording that has a direct connection with Brad Pitt, and that was no joke. This very recording of the Brahms E Minor was used in director Terrence Malick's sublime film The Tree of Life, in a scene in which Pitt (playing a frustrated musician) waves the album cover towards his children while conducting to the last movement of the symphony with wild gesticulations.
The Tree of Life is a film of indescribable beauty, meditating with quiet contemplation on the life cycle and the mysteries of the universe and God. Toscanini is mentioned twice during the film; first in the scene cited above, and later when Pitt tells his children about a time when Toscanini recorded sixty-two takes of a piece, and then said "It could be better." I have been trying to find the origin of that story, and have yet to find it. I cannot therefore be sure if this story is true or an invention of the film, but this is certainly the kind of thing Toscanini would have said, or at least felt.
There is so much I could say about this beautiful film. But I would be moving pretty far off-topic, and a film such as this deserves a full blog of its own. I should, however, note one quibble I have with The Tree of Life, and this does relate directly to this blog.
In the scene in which Brad Pitt is playing the Brahms recording while conducting to it, the album cover he is waving is indeed that of the Toscanini recording (in its 1950s LP incarnation), but the actual recording playing over the soundtrack was conducted by (wait for it…) Herbert von Karajan! I am baffled at this decision. If there was no remaining source for the Toscanini recording that existed in listenable sound, I could begin to understand. But sixty years later the sound quality of this recording is still fabulous. I would be thrilled to some day get the chance to have a drink with Mr. Malick and discuss his work, but as an avid student of Toscanini I would have to get an explanation for this switch.
There is further irony to this, as Toscanini consistently led excellent performances of Brahms's Symphony No. 4 (considerably superior to Karajan's, in my view). There are live recordings that are a bit more vivid than this 1951 studio account, but in its interpretive details this is an excellent example of the maestro's powerful way with this score.
Toscanini keeps the tempo steadier than most (especially in the last movement), and a superficial listening might lead one to think that there is no ebb and flow to his interpretation. Listen more closely, and you'll hear subtle stretchings and pressings that lovingly accentuate the contours of Brahms's phrase structures without pulling them apart. By keeping the tempo of the last movement passacaglia at a more-or-less consistent tempo, Toscanini allows the complex architecture of the ground bass to take shape.
This Brahms recording represents musicianship of the very highest level, and is one of the finest of Toscanini's surviving performances. This recording is too good for the auditory sense alone, and would work beautifully in a film someday. If only someone would think to do that...
Elgar: Enigma Variations - December 10th, 1951
Aside from one NBC performance of the Introduction and Allegro for Strings, the Enigma Variations was the only Elgar work that Toscanini ever conducted, and he did so relatively frequently. The maestro led the Enigma Variations on tour in England with the New York Philharmonic, with the BBC Symphony in 1935, and five times with the NBC Symphony.
Some London critics complained about Toscanini's conception as being "un-English," which I find to be an odd description. For one thing, by any measure the official recording is utterly outstanding. It is filled with powerful drama and lovingly rendered in rich detail. It is also very close in interpretation to both recordings conducted by the composer, with similar tempos and details of balance. The difference lies in the overall control coming from the podium. Elgar may have been the composer, but he was not a conductor of genius. British conductor Sir Landon Ronald once noted that Elgar's "idiom was obviously no secret for Toscanini. Some of the best performances I have heard were from the composer himself, but Toscanini excelled because he has a genius for conducting Elgar has not." True enough.
Toscanini may not have been the slightest bit British in temperament, but the Enigma Variations is too good to belong to only one nation. The work belongs to the world, and Toscanini was a musician who knew no national boundaries when it came to music.
Respighi: Fountains of Rome - December 17th, 1951
I'm a big fan of the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons, which is set in Rome and includes a scene in which a murder takes place at the Fountain of the Four Rivers. I'm sure you can understand why I was so upset at this scene. There was a murder scene at a fountain in Rome, and Dan Brown didn't have the decency to set it at one of the fountains Respighi depicted in Fountains of Rome? The intransigence of that one! Just imagine how much fun it would be to listen to Respighi's tone poem while imagining murder!
Okay, maybe not. For the sake of civility let's just say it's for the best that Respighi's fountains stay safe. Moving right along…
Arturo Toscanini led the first successful performance of Fountains of Rome in 1918, one year after the catastrophic premiere conducted by Antonio Guarnieri. The acclaim given the score in Toscanini's hands has never abated, and the work has proven to be an enduring classic thanks in large part to the conductor's rescue. One wonders how many more unjustly forgotten scores there are that are lying in the dustbin because they did not receive the right kind of performance.
Thirty-one years after his first performance of the work, Toscanini still conducted Fountains of Rome with brilliant pictorial spark. I have never been to Rome, but a fine performance of this work makes my feel as though I have. Toscanini's recording succeeds brilliantly in this regard. The conductor was known as a man of the theatre for the majority of his career, and that experience clearly carried over into the finest of his work in the concert hall. When all the pieces were correctly set, no other musician could produce such drama.
......................................................................................................................................
Thats's it for Day 62!
Check back tomorrow for a ride, a funeral, and a symphony.
Happy Tuesday!
Today's listening session was a particular pleasure. By this late time in Toscanini's life, the overall energy level of his performances was beginning to sag, and the control coming from the podium was becoming less secure. All three recordings I listened to today are completely different: filled with fire and intelligence, they represent musicianship of powerful brilliance.
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 - December 3rd, 1951
I told you yesterday that today would feature a recording that has a direct connection with Brad Pitt, and that was no joke. This very recording of the Brahms E Minor was used in director Terrence Malick's sublime film The Tree of Life, in a scene in which Pitt (playing a frustrated musician) waves the album cover towards his children while conducting to the last movement of the symphony with wild gesticulations.
The Tree of Life is a film of indescribable beauty, meditating with quiet contemplation on the life cycle and the mysteries of the universe and God. Toscanini is mentioned twice during the film; first in the scene cited above, and later when Pitt tells his children about a time when Toscanini recorded sixty-two takes of a piece, and then said "It could be better." I have been trying to find the origin of that story, and have yet to find it. I cannot therefore be sure if this story is true or an invention of the film, but this is certainly the kind of thing Toscanini would have said, or at least felt.
There is so much I could say about this beautiful film. But I would be moving pretty far off-topic, and a film such as this deserves a full blog of its own. I should, however, note one quibble I have with The Tree of Life, and this does relate directly to this blog.
In the scene in which Brad Pitt is playing the Brahms recording while conducting to it, the album cover he is waving is indeed that of the Toscanini recording (in its 1950s LP incarnation), but the actual recording playing over the soundtrack was conducted by (wait for it…) Herbert von Karajan! I am baffled at this decision. If there was no remaining source for the Toscanini recording that existed in listenable sound, I could begin to understand. But sixty years later the sound quality of this recording is still fabulous. I would be thrilled to some day get the chance to have a drink with Mr. Malick and discuss his work, but as an avid student of Toscanini I would have to get an explanation for this switch.
There is further irony to this, as Toscanini consistently led excellent performances of Brahms's Symphony No. 4 (considerably superior to Karajan's, in my view). There are live recordings that are a bit more vivid than this 1951 studio account, but in its interpretive details this is an excellent example of the maestro's powerful way with this score.
Toscanini keeps the tempo steadier than most (especially in the last movement), and a superficial listening might lead one to think that there is no ebb and flow to his interpretation. Listen more closely, and you'll hear subtle stretchings and pressings that lovingly accentuate the contours of Brahms's phrase structures without pulling them apart. By keeping the tempo of the last movement passacaglia at a more-or-less consistent tempo, Toscanini allows the complex architecture of the ground bass to take shape.
This Brahms recording represents musicianship of the very highest level, and is one of the finest of Toscanini's surviving performances. This recording is too good for the auditory sense alone, and would work beautifully in a film someday. If only someone would think to do that...
Elgar: Enigma Variations - December 10th, 1951
Aside from one NBC performance of the Introduction and Allegro for Strings, the Enigma Variations was the only Elgar work that Toscanini ever conducted, and he did so relatively frequently. The maestro led the Enigma Variations on tour in England with the New York Philharmonic, with the BBC Symphony in 1935, and five times with the NBC Symphony.
Some London critics complained about Toscanini's conception as being "un-English," which I find to be an odd description. For one thing, by any measure the official recording is utterly outstanding. It is filled with powerful drama and lovingly rendered in rich detail. It is also very close in interpretation to both recordings conducted by the composer, with similar tempos and details of balance. The difference lies in the overall control coming from the podium. Elgar may have been the composer, but he was not a conductor of genius. British conductor Sir Landon Ronald once noted that Elgar's "idiom was obviously no secret for Toscanini. Some of the best performances I have heard were from the composer himself, but Toscanini excelled because he has a genius for conducting Elgar has not." True enough.
Toscanini may not have been the slightest bit British in temperament, but the Enigma Variations is too good to belong to only one nation. The work belongs to the world, and Toscanini was a musician who knew no national boundaries when it came to music.
Respighi: Fountains of Rome - December 17th, 1951
I'm a big fan of the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons, which is set in Rome and includes a scene in which a murder takes place at the Fountain of the Four Rivers. I'm sure you can understand why I was so upset at this scene. There was a murder scene at a fountain in Rome, and Dan Brown didn't have the decency to set it at one of the fountains Respighi depicted in Fountains of Rome? The intransigence of that one! Just imagine how much fun it would be to listen to Respighi's tone poem while imagining murder!
Okay, maybe not. For the sake of civility let's just say it's for the best that Respighi's fountains stay safe. Moving right along…
Arturo Toscanini led the first successful performance of Fountains of Rome in 1918, one year after the catastrophic premiere conducted by Antonio Guarnieri. The acclaim given the score in Toscanini's hands has never abated, and the work has proven to be an enduring classic thanks in large part to the conductor's rescue. One wonders how many more unjustly forgotten scores there are that are lying in the dustbin because they did not receive the right kind of performance.
Thirty-one years after his first performance of the work, Toscanini still conducted Fountains of Rome with brilliant pictorial spark. I have never been to Rome, but a fine performance of this work makes my feel as though I have. Toscanini's recording succeeds brilliantly in this regard. The conductor was known as a man of the theatre for the majority of his career, and that experience clearly carried over into the finest of his work in the concert hall. When all the pieces were correctly set, no other musician could produce such drama.
......................................................................................................................................
Thats's it for Day 62!
Check back tomorrow for a ride, a funeral, and a symphony.
Happy Tuesday!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)