Some Stats

When you look at the discography of Arturo Toscanini two things leap out at you. A) The list is very long. B) The list is very familiar.

Toscanini was widely criticized for sticking to familiar repertoire to the detriment of modern music. This charge is both fair and unfair. The list of world premieres that he gave in the first half of his career is quite impressive, including such staples of the Italian opera repertory as La bohème and Pagliacci. Toscanini also championed many composers who were still considered daring in his youth, such as Claude Debussy and Richard Strauss. Composers like Brahms and Wagner were still very much active during Toscanini's youth, and it should perhaps be noted that the first symphony of Brahms was premiered when Toscanini was already nine years old.

At the same time, as he got older Toscanini became increasingly conservative in his programming to the extent that his concerts became a bit repetitive. In his excellent Toscanini and the Art of Conducting, music critic Charles C. Marsh lists sixteen works that Toscanini programmed thirty times or more in the last 29 years of his life. Marsh lists a further twenty-six works that Toscanini programmed between twenty and twenty-nine times during the same period. All the works on both lists are very much standard to the symphonic repertory. Of the modern music he did play in the second half of his career it is quite striking how low the overall quality is. Pieces such as Kent Kenman's Night Soliloquy and Vittorio Rieti's Symphony No. 4 aren't exactly considered required reading in musical analysis classes. The few modern pieces of high artistic worth that Toscanini performed in his latter years were generally quite conservative, the most important example being the 1938 world premiere of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.

Given Toscanini's age it is tempting to forgive him this indifference to the less accessible works of the modern repertory, but it should be remembered that other long-lived conductors have performed challenging and unfamiliar music for the duration of their careers. Leopold Stokowski was an outstanding example of this, while the 86-year-old Pierre Boulez still shows the same devotion to contemporary music he did as a young firebrand in the 1950s.

While this lack of interest in modernity on Toscanini's part was lamentable, on the bright side we are left with a treasure trove of performances of the great standard repertoire that document the evolving views of a master musician. He left a total of six official recordings of the Scherzo movement of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream (more than for any other work), and three recordings each for nine others. Forty-two pieces were given twice. Through these performances we can trace the ever-changing views of Toscanini towards the music he performed most.

This is the complete list of the pieces he recorded multiple times, accompanied by the year each recording was made. For the purposes of this list I am separating individual movements where applicable. Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, for example, was recorded in its entirety twice, but the last movement was also recorded separately in 1920. That movement is therefore listed as having been recorded three times.

6 times

• Mendelssohn: Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream (1921, 1926, 1929, 1942, 1946, 1947)

3 times

• Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3 (1939, 1944, 1945)
• Beethoven: Movement 4 from Symphony No.1 (1921, 1937, 1951)
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (1939, 1949, 1953)
• Beethoven: Movement 4 from Symphony No. 5 (1920, 1939, 1952)
• Mendelssohn: Nocturne from A Midsummer Night's Dream (1926, 1942, 1947)
• Mendelssohn: Wedding March from A Midsummer Night's Dream (1921, 1942, 1947)
• Schubert: Symphony No. 9 (1941, 1947, 1953)
• Wagner: Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Götterdämmerung (1936, 1941, 1949)
• Wagner: Prelude to Act I from Lohengrin (1936, 1941, 1951)
• Wagner: Siegfried Idyll (1936, 1946, 1952)

2 times

• Beethoven: Egmont Overture (1939, 1953)
• Beethoven: Movements 1-3 from Symphony No. 1 (1937, 1951)
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 (1939, 1951)
• Beethoven: Movements 1-3 from Symphony No. 5 (1939, 1952)
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 (1937, 1952)
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (1936, 1951)
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 (1939, 1952)
• Berlioz: Rákóczi March from The Damnation of Faust (1920, 1945)
• Berlioz: Queen Mab Scherzo from Romeo and Juliet (1942, 1951)
• Bizet: Aragonaise from Carmen (1921, 1952)
• Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (1941, 1951)
• Brahms: Tragic Overture (1937, 1953)
• Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn (1936, 1952)
• Debussy: Iberia (1941, 1950)
• Debussy: La Mer (1942, 1950)
• Donizetti: Overture from Don Pasquale (1921, 1951)
• Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1929, 1950)
• Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Euridice (1929, 1946)
• Haydn: Symphony No. 101 (1929, 1946/1947)
• Mendelssohn: Overture, Intermezzo and Finale from A Midsummer Night's Dream (1942, 1947)
• Mozart: Overture from The Magic Flute (1938, 1949)
• Mozart: Symphony No. 35 (1929, 1946)
• Mozart: Movements 3-4 from Symphony No. 39 (1920, 1948)
• Mozart: Symphony No. 40 (1938/1939, 1950)
• Respighi: Roman Festivals (1941, 1949)
• Rossini: Overture from The Barber of Seville (1929, 1945)
• Rossini: Overture from L'Italiana in Algeri (1936, 1950)
• Rossini: Overture from Semiramide (1936, 1951)
• Rossini: Overture from William Tell (1939, 1953)
• Strauss: Death and Transfiguration (1942, 1952)
• Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (1941, 1943)
• Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (1942, 1947)
• Thomas: Overture from Mignon (1942, 1952)
• Verdi: Overture from La Forza del destino (1945, 1952)
• Verdi: Prelude to Act I from La traviata (1929, 1941)
• Verdi: Prelude to Act III from La traviata (1929, 1941)
• Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walküre (1946, 1952)
• Wagner: Siegfried's Death and Funeral Music from Götterdämmerung (1941, 1952)
• Wagner: Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin (1936, 1951)
• Wagner: Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde (1942, 1952)
• Weber: Overture from Der Freischütz (1945, 1952)
• Weber/Berlioz: Invitation to the Dance (1938, 1951)

We're now just a little over a week from the official beginning of the project. Stay tuned for more over the next few days.