Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 - April 9th and 10th, 1936
This is certainly the most famous recording from Toscanini's years with the New York Philharmonic, and one of the most famous recordings ever made of the Beethoven Seventh. Gunther Schuller calls it "an absolute triumph of a performance," while Robert C. Marsh calls it "breathtaking from beginning to end." On the other hand, in Understanding Toscanini Joseph Horowitz calls it "undeniably plain" and goes on to compare Toscanini's conception with that of Wilhelm Furtwängler: "The chords with which the symphony begins are a case in point: Furtwängler, with his notoriously 'indecisive' downbeats, makes them well up from a depth, not descend from a height like guillotine chops. Later in the movement, by eschewing an overt allargando just before the recapitulation, Toscanini ensures forward continuity, but forfeits articulating the cumulative strain of the development's harmonic migrations." This is probably a good time to compare Toscanini's aesthetic with that of his great German rival.
Wilhelm Furtwängler was one of the greatest conductors the world has ever known. He conducted the Berlin Philharmonic for many years and produced many of the very greatest recordings in the early history of classical recording. Furtwängler served as a great inspiration for many of the finest conductors of our own time, such as Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim. His conducting was very different from Toscanini, but every bit as deeply felt. As different as Toscanini was from Furtwängler in temperament and in the nature of his interpretations, there was a certain grudging respect between the two. Their musical differences did however occasionally flare into the absurd.
In one of his notebooks Furtwängler wrote about his impressions of Toscanini, stating that "until an advanced age, he was never anything but an Italian Kapellmeister who always thinks in the forms of Italian operatic music, for which the tutti on the one hand and the purely homophonic aria on the other remain the basic musical concepts. We must recall that Italian music has produced only one composer of absolute musical form since Scarlatti, and that incomprehension in the face of the essence and meaning of the sonata - which in all its major examples is a German creation - is almost its chief characteristic. How can one demand that the Italian opera conductor should deny his own self?"
I have great respect for the work of Furtwängler, and although much of the way he performed music is not to my taste, there can be no denying the great power with which his finest recordings are imbued. Statements like the above however, are a monumental load of crap. So lacking in logic, it is hard to read this as anything but a teutonic elitism that is much beneath the art of a musician like Furtwängler. First of all, one wonders just which Italian composer he believes is the only one since Scarlatti to write in absolute musical form. Who is he talking about? Tartini? Salieri? Boccherini? Cherubini? Second, to call the sonata in any respect a German creation is madness when you realize the language from which the very word "sonata" originates. Toscanini was also very opinionated about the work of other conductors, and occasionally made ill-chosen or dubious remarks about them, but I have uncovered nothing he said or wrote about any colleague that matches the unbelievable claptrap Furtwängler spouted above.
Returning to the Beethoven Seventh, it is interesting to compare the 1936 Toscanini recording with the New York Philharmonic with one Furtwängler made in Berlin seven years later as World War II was raging. Contrary to Horowitz's comment about the opening chords descending "from a height like guillotine chops" I find that the New York Philharmonic plays them with a great cantabile fullness, but that they are very much in keeping with the staccato dots with which Beethoven marks them. This seems to me the more accurate reproduction of Beethoven's intentions. What Furtwängler performs is very beautiful, but it is hard for me to imagine how he thinks it fits with what Beethoven was going after. I think Beethoven intended for these chords to produce a punchy opening to the legato melody that unfolds first in the oboe, then later in the clarinet. When the performance becomes too much about these chords (as Furtwängler's does, to my ears) the line loses importance and depth.
Moving on to the second movement, Toscanini's tempo was considered controversial for some time. Horowitz complains about Toscanini taking Beethoven's metronome markings at face value and really making the second movement an allegretto, with the quarter-note equal to seventy-six beats. First of all this is not true. As there are no ritards or fermatas or any other type of rubato marking in this movement that imply a modulation of tempo, in theory one should be able to determine the exact length of time it requires to perform. A math geek friend of mine once helped me figure out exactly how long the second movement should take, and it comes to roughly seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds. This is more than one minute faster than Toscanini's tempo (one of the most famous of all recordings of the Seventh is the Vienna Philharmonic recording conducted by Carlos Kleiber, and his second movement does take almost exactly seven minutes, twenty-nine seconds without seeming overly fast). Secondly, if one does not want to take Beethoven's metronome marking at face value that is one thing, but why would you not take his tempo indication of allegretto at face value? This makes no sense to me.
Perhaps the biggest controversy of all involves Toscanini's tempo for the trio section of the third movement. Beethoven's indication of eight-four beats to the dotted half note has very rarely been adhered to, but here it is more of a debatable question since he does mark it assai meno presto, or very much less fast. One conductor who is still active that does not believe metronome marks should be adhered to is Daniel Barenboim. When I was a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago I remember him telling us that while metronome marks should never be considered an accurate indication of the tempo they can tell us a great deal about tempo relationships. The example he cited was the third movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he believes is marked too quickly, but that the respective markings indicate how one should relate the tempo of the opening Adagio molto to the Andante moderato that follows.
You could easily apply this process to the third movement of the Beethoven Seventh by taking a look at the two metronome marks. The marking for the Scherzo proper is 132, while the trio slows down to 84. Taking Barenboim's argument at face value, it seems that the tempo for the trio should be in relation to whatever tempo the scherzo is taken at, or about 64% of the tempo for the scherzo-proper. To me this seems a reasonable tempo for assai meno presto.
Toscanini takes the scherzo tempo at roughly 125, slightly slower than Beethoven's indication, while Furtwängler goes a little quicker, about 134. Using these opening tempos as a guide, Toscanini's trio tempo should be about 80, while Furtwängler's should be close to 86, when in fact Toscanini takes the trio at about 85, and Furtwängler takes it much, much slower at 48. Neither conductor is quite at the tempo relationship implied by Beethoven, but Toscanini is obviously much closer. His trio tempo is about 68% of his scherzo tempo, while Furtwängler is only at 36%.
Obviously it is neither possible nor desirable to be so precise about tempo relationships in actual performance. But this does tell us a great deal about the interpretive whims of two master conductors.
At the end of the day what does this really tell us about how Beethoven's Seventh should be played? Not much, really. I have played the Beethoven Seventh under Barenboim (as devoted a Furtwängler acolyte as there has ever been), and I have played it under Gunther Schuller, who is very much of the Toscanini mold (at least in their shared philosophy of textual fidelity). Both performances were thrilling, and when the final triumphant A Major chords were played no one was thinking about how closely the ink was followed.
Details are very important, but the final assessment of a performance will always have more to do with the big picture. Both Toscanini and Furtwängler had a profound feeling for the Beethoven Seventh as a totality. While I have made no bones about preferring Toscanini's version there are many details to Furtwängler's performance that I love dearly. These details add up to a big picture that is different from Toscanini's big picture, but extremely beautiful nonetheless. In other words, there is no such thing as perfection in music.
Brahms: Variations on a Theme of Haydn - April 10th, 1936
This is a very clean performance of the Haydn Variations that still builds up great power in its conclusion without excessive rhetoric. It is often very different from how German conductors of Toscanini's era would perform this work, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Pierre Monteux once related a story about his string quartet going to play for Brahms shortly before he died. Brahms gave a hearty nod of approval and said that only the French understood his music, that German musicians always played it too heavily. Even if Monteux was exaggerating a bit, his story is very instructive about how easy it is to place cultural assumptions on the music you perform without looking past that to what the composer actually wrote. "Brahms is always thick!" etc. Toscanini proved that great performances don't always need to be weighty.
Rossini: L'italiana in Algeri Overture - April 10th, 1936
This is a much, much more energetic performance than the 1929 recording of the Barber of Seville Overture. This time all of the necessary Rossini humor is there, but it also bursts with infectious energy.
Rossini: Semiramide Overture - April 10th, 1936
This is likewise a stunningly well-played, fabulously energetic performance. Although Rossini's music is very much at home in "pops" concerts, Toscanini showed just how profound it can be.
B.H. Haggin, in Conversations with Toscanini, wrote about how these last few recordings with the New York Philharmonic show just what Toscanini was able to accomplish as an orchestra trainer, and that the Rossini overtures in particular "exhibit the incandescence" of what Toscanini had achieved after a decade of working with this orchestra. Toscanini never quite got this sound out of any other orchestra he worked with, and the New York Philharmonic years can rightly be considered to be among the highest points of his career.
Toscanini conducted his farewell concert with the New York Philharmonic nineteen days after these last recordings were finished. Had all gone according to plan, he would have been heading off for a nice retirement at his Italian villa and his recorded legacy would have been extremely meager, albeit extraordinary in quality. Fortunately, there was much more to come.
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That's it for Day 4. For the next two days I'll be going over the recordings Toscanini made with the BBC Symphony between 1937 and 1939. Have a good evening and I'll see you soon!
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