Welcome to Day 10! This will be the shortest day yet due to an endless amount of things to do today, but I wanted to uphold my promise of posting every day.
These three overtures come from Toscanini's famous six-week Beethoven cycle during his third season at NBC in 1939. Many observers felt this was the crowning achievement of his time at NBC (yesterday's recording of the Eroica also came from this cycle). His later Beethoven performances have all the continuity and intelligence you would expect from a master musician, but Toscanini never fully recaptured the fire and beauty of phrasing from these 1939 broadcasts. Here is my obscenely long-winded take on these performances:
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3 - November 4th, 1939
This is a very good performance, full of fire and precision.
Beethoven: Egmont Overture - November 18th, 1939
This is also is very good - at turns energetic and stately.
Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 2 - November 25th, 1939
This performance is pretty good. I don't care for the piece so much.
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And that's that!
Tomorrow brings two concertos: the Brahms Bb Piano Concerto with Vladimir Horowitz, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Jascha Heifitz.
Have a great weekend and I'll see you tomorrow!
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