Welcome to Day 13! Today brings us a big-boned French symphony, an under-nourished Russian folk dance, and a muscular Russian ballet score. Let's get started!
Franck: Symphony in D Minor - December 14th, 1940 and March 24th, 1946
I must admit I do not like the Franck D Minor. Actually to be more accurate I find it extremely frustrating. It is filled with wonderful ideas that just don't go anywhere and lead to a climax that is beautiful and triumphant without having earned its ending. I have heard one recording of this symphony that is so exquisitely paced that I almost enjoy it, and that is Pierre Monteux's stunning 1961 performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Monteux has such a beautiful approach to phrasing and linking lines together that his take on the Franck symphony has a dignity of purpose that I have literally heard nowhere else. Toscanini does a relatively good job with this symphony, but I wished for him to be a little more Toscanini.
With the exception of the second movement Toscanini actually takes this symphony at significantly broader tempos than are traditional. Places where you would expect typically Toscanini incisive accents and sharp clarity are instead smoothed over and given a weight that is typically associated with Germanic conductors. This is all well and good with the right music, but the Franck Symphony needs sharper contours to allow it to fully bloom structurally.
You may have noticed that the two dates for this recording were separated by more than five years, and that is because when RCA suggested releasing the 1946 NBC broadcast of the symphony Toscanini rejected the second and third movements due to some lapses in precision. He was satisfied with how those movements went in his 1940 broadcast, and so the recording ended up taking the form it has, with the first movement having been recorded more than five years after movements two and three. Despite this long gap I don't sense any disconnect of affect in this recording, and that probably says as much about the bond Toscanini had with the NBC Symphony as it does about the consistency of his view towards Franck.
Ultimately this recording is one of the best that has been made of the Franck - it has all the strength and continuity of the finest Toscanini performances. It also lacks that certain something that makes this music great.
Glinka: Kamarinskaya - December 21st, 1940
I know what you're thinking: Glinka wrote more than just the Russlan and Ludmilla overture? Not only is the answer to that question a most definitive yes, but Toscanini even programmed two Glinka works that are not Russlan and Ludmilla: Kamarinskaya and a piece he wrote in Spain called Jota Aragonesa (on top of this, Toscanini never did perform the Russlan overture). I had not heard of Kamarinskaya before discovering the Toscanini recording, but my extensive and scholarly researches led me to a wikipedia page that explains that a Kamarinskaya is a traditional Russian folk dance "which is mostly known today as the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka's magnum opus." Huh, I never would have guessed.
What exactly attracted Toscanini to this piece I have no idea. There is certainly nothing offensive about it, but it just kind of sits there for its six minute duration, with bouncy figurations that never seem to lead to an actual dance (just like some dates I went on in high school). The performance is effective enough, but the work never really seems to get off the ground. I suppose Toscanini was doing his best with it, but there's only so much you can do with a piece like this. I can only assume Toscanini liked it very much, but I can't say I'm persuaded.
Stravinsky: Tableaux I and IV from Petrushka - December 21st, 1940
There is such spark and vitality to this performance that it actually makes me a bit angry that Toscanini wouldn't broaden his repertory into more works like this. I'm sure he would have led a fabulous Rite of Spring, and could probably have even been a superb interpreter of Varèse (a composer he despised and had a much-publicized public argument with). All we can do is imagine the kind of performances Toscanini would have given to these works, but fortunately we do have this recording of Petrushka, albeit without the ballet's two middle tableaux. At first the NBC Symphony seems a little uncomfortable with this music (I can't imagine they had played much like it yet under Toscanini) but settle down into a performance that brims with energy and bustle. Toscanini uses the monstrously anticlimactic concert ending, which is very unfortunate, but doesn't detract from what is otherwise one of the finest and most surprising performances I have heard of this Stravinsky masterpiece.
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That's it for Day 13! Have a great rest of your day and I'll be back tomorrow with three great Wagner recordings and a few toys on top.
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