Welcome to Day 11 of the Toscanini Project.
Today marks an important anniversary, and I wanted to take a moment to remember September 11th, 2001, a date that will live in infamy and forever in memory.
As the academic year of 2001 began I was entering my senior year at the University of North Texas and living in my first apartment. I was to have conducting class at 10:00 that morning, and I woke up and showered as though this would be any other school day. I ate breakfast over trash television (Ricki Lake) as was my wont at that time. Before heading out for class I thought I would flip the channels a bit, and noticed that Telemundo had a reporter standing in front of a smoke-filled New York skyline. I couldn't understand him, but it seemed like something big was happening. I changed over to ABC just as the North Tower of the World Trade Center was collapsing.
After an hour or so of watching the events unfold on television I decided I'd better be getting to school. Classes were obviously going to be canceled for some time, and I wanted to make sure I got my bass home before the music building was locked up. As I was walking towards campus I cut through a field where I heard the chatter of many thousands of insects. Still numb from the events of the day, it seemed strange to be listening to so much life all around me on a day in which so much life had been snuffed out.
There is no way to change those things that are unspeakably painful once they have taken place, and the horrors of September 11th will remain horrors no matter what happens next. What's important moving forward is how we deal with that pain. Music has served as the antidote to the horrors of the world for all of history. Toscanini was in many ways far from admirable as a human being, but he understood the healing power of music in profound ways. As World War II was raging Toscanini made beautiful music that touched all who could listen to the radio. It is in that spirit that I listened to his recorded performances on this most contemplative of days, September 11th, 2011.
Beethoven: Violin Concerto - March 11th, 1940
First the good news: in this recording we get to hear the most famous violinist of the 20th century accompanied by the most famous conductor of the 20th century in what is arguably the greatest concerto ever written in any century. Now the bad news: I utterly despise this performance.
Jascha Heifitz plays Beethoven's great concerto with a glibness that borders on smug. At no point is there the remotest sense of line to the phrase, and notes go tumbling by as though they serve no musical purpose beyond saying "I'm Heifitz, bitch!"(apparently in his mind Heifitz spoke just like Dave Chappelle)
Toscanini evidently never really enjoyed programming concertos. His own will was so strong that he found it difficult to collaborate with other strong-willed artists. There are moments in the orchestral tuttis of this concerto that are the equal of Toscanini's finest Beethoven recordings, but overall I see this recording as a catastrophic failure. The second movement of this concerto is to me a stunningly evocative depiction of Heaven, and Heifitz seems to turn this music into a maudlin exercise in violinistic sonority. I can't help but feel a bit insulted.
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 - May 9th, 1940
This recording is much, much better than the Beethoven. This may have something to do with the fact that Toscanini's soloist, the great Vladimir Horowitz, was also his son-in-law. Toscanini may well have felt there was no choice but to work out a finely molded, collaborative interpretation for the sake of family unity.
The tempos in this performance are a bit on the brisk side of what is considered traditional, but at least in the case of the first movement still short of the composer's marking. Brahms left metronome marks for only eight works (this concerto included), and begrudgingly allowed these marks to be published with those pieces. He never thought much of the metronome, and spoke about its uselessness in light of the fact that in most performances the tempo will have already changed by the second measure. Nonetheless he did allow his friends to pressure him into providing metronome marks for this Bb Major Piano Concerto that were evidently based on tempos he had taken himself in performance.
The first movement marking of one quarter note equaling 126 is pretty much universally ignored in favor of a weighty gait that almost gives the music a "new age" feel that to my ears is far removed from Brahms. The composer was obviously correct that performances cannot be expected to remain at one tempo from start to finish (and even if this were possible it would be quite undesirable), but using his markings as a guidepost can help to produce performances of great power that avoid exaggerative distortion. Toscanini spoke about tempo in similar terms: "The tempo must change, weaving in and out - but always close and always returning."
Although Toscanini and Horowitz do not quite meet the metronome indication, this performance is about as close as I have yet heard, and still unfolds with power without seeming rushed. Horowitz's playing is very sensitive and nuanced throughout, without any of the bangy qualities he had in his lesser moments. The overall sonority is still a little lighter than I would like in an ideal performance of this piece, but the NBC Symphony accompanies the soloist with a grand expressiveness that perfectly suits the performance.
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That's it for Day 11 and for the recordings Toscanini made during his third NBC season. Tomorrow will be a Sibelius day, featuring the Symphony No. 2 and Pojhola's Daughter. Please have a safe and reflective evening.
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