Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 22!
For today I listened to the first few pieces Toscanini recorded during his sixth season with NBC, beginning in 1942. Earlier that year the musicians union had imposed a ban on all studio recordings in the United States, so all of the recordings Toscanini made from this point until 1944 were taken from live radio broadcasts.
Having been successfully lured back to NBC, Toscanini was now sharing the stage with Leopold Stokowski (who was still in the middle of a three-year contract with the network). Each conductor had his own unique way with programming, and having these two very different Maestros on the podium made for refreshing variety. Toscanini (as he did all too often in this stage of his career) concentrated on familiar repertoire, while Stokowski programmed a number of splashy modern compositions that Toscanini never touched, like Holst's The Planets and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky.
In general I would say that these recordings are a significant improvement over the very uneven work of the previous year. Now that Toscanini was officially back at work at NBC the orchestra was at least partially "his" again, and the sonority was now much more unified than during the previous season. The NBC Symphony, however, still radiated little of the sharply contoured fire of their most successful recordings of earlier seasons. While the recordings from the 1942-1943 season were certainly more successful than those of the preceding one, it is clear that orchestra and conductor had not yet fully recaptured the bond they had displayed in their finest moments from earlier years.
Brahms: Serenade No. 2 - December 27th, 1942
Toscanini obviously loved this piece dearly - he can quite audibly be heard singing along with the phrases that moved him - though I admit I don't fully understand where his affection came from. Written while Brahms was still in his 20s, this Serenade was one of his very earliest orchestral efforts. Its relative lack of popularity these days can't be blamed entirely on immaturity - it was written one year after the Piano Concerto No. 1 - but there is no denying that it lacks the fluid sonority of his later music.
I suspect what drew Toscanini to this piece may have been the work's easy-going yet spirited youthfulness. There is a certain charm to this music, and Toscanini clearly gave it the same importance he gave the Brahms symphonies. The clarity of detail in this performance is actually quite extraordinary, and not at all like the thick Brahms we hear more frequently. Mortimer H. Frank believes that this performance lacks some of the beauty and grace of Toscanini's earlier live performance of this piece in 1938. I have not heard that broadcast, but I certainly hear no lack of beauty and grace to this 1942 recording.
Verdi: "Va, pensiero" from Nabucco - January 31st, 1943
This music had great meaning to Toscanini, as it did to all of the Italian people. Also known as the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, this extract from Verdi's first successful opera deeply resonated with the cause of Italian nationalism during the mid-19th century. Toscanini's father was quite caught up in this cause, and there can be no doubt this fervor also affected young Arturo, born only six years after Italian unification. Toscanini led this very chorus at Verdi's 1901 public funeral in Milan, an occasion attended by many thousands of the city's grieving citizens. The favor was returned upon the death of Toscanini fifty-six years later, with Victor De Sabata leading the La Scala orchestra and chorus in the same music, as the famous conductor was lowered into his final resting place.
Toscanini's 1943 recording is appropriately reflective and very beautiful. Although there is spirit to this performance, there is also a weight and solemnity that suggests that Toscanini's thoughts were on his homeland. It was still another nine months before Mussolini was to be deposed, and the possibility that Italy might be permanently under fascist control was still frighteningly real. There is pain to this Verdi performance, but also hope - hope for a better future.
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 - April 25th, 1943
This performance was given during a war bond concert Toscanini gave with soloist and son-in-law Vladimir Horowitz at Carnegie Hall. Toscanini and Horowitz each provided their services without fee, and more than $11,000,000 was raised for the war effort through this concert. Robert C. Marsh writes of this Tchaikovsky Concerto reading that "the effect was a performance of a sort that should have made all subsequent attempts at the work anti-climactic." High praise certainly, but well-deserved.
If I earlier indicated that this piece is not a favorite of mine I should note that, although my view has not changed, I took great pleasure listening to this Toscanini/Horowitz recording. There is an infectious, palpable excitement to this performance that is absent from the studio recording I listened to last week. Toscanini's recordings from the war years are oftentimes tight and rigid, but he really understood the importance of occasion. This brilliant Tchaikovsky performance was imbued with that important sense of occasion from the very first powerful notes to come from the horn section. Horowitz's playing, if occasionally a bit heavy-handed, is wondrously engrossing.
Incidentally, if you haven't yet seen this, I would strongly recommend checking out on youtube the hilarious Muppets sketch of Victor Borge playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto - it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
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That's it for Day 22!
For tomorrow we'll have some Viennese music that is clearly promoting class warfare, and some Verdi excerpts that are clearly promoting assisted suicide. So join me tomorrow for some politically charged discourse!
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