For today I am partially jumping backward in time a bit. Last week I skipped over two works Toscanini recorded during his sixth season at NBC, and as I am trying to be as thorough as possible in this project I decided to include them in the beginning of this post. The I Lombardi excerpt and L'Arlésienne Suite were both recorded in 1943, during the height of World War II. Following these two works I returned to the proper chronology, with Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite and the overture to Don Giovanni, dating from late 1945 and early 1946, respectively. The Grofé was the final work recorded during Toscanini's eighth NBC season, while the Mozart was the first piece taken down in season nine. Normally I try not to mix pieces from different seasons in the same post, but in this case I decided to do just that so I could devote tomorrow entirely to Toscanini's historic recording of La bohème.
Verdi: I Lombardi, Act III Trio - January 31st, 1943
I Lombardi is one of the most resolutely evangelistic of all operas, to such an extent that I sometimes wonder how productions of it are even possible in the politically-charged times in which we live. Whether the situation happens to be cartoon drawings of Mohammed or whether to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays", it is remarkable how offended adherents of all religious groups can become over issues that seem monumentally unimportant to outsiders. Although it is not exactly a part of the mainstream operatic repertory, I Lombardi is performed often enough that I would have thought controversy over it would have erupted at some point, though to my knowledge that has never happened.
The convoluted plot of I Lombardi deals with squabbles that take place within a family that has travelled to the Holy Land to take part in the First Crusade. The Act III Trio involves a death-bed conversion of a Muslim named Orente to Christianity, so that his love for a Christian woman named Giselda may be blessed by God. Toscanini had not led a production of this opera since 1887, when he was only twenty years old. I do not know why he decided to program the Trio from I Lombardi again so much later in his career, but it is certainly fascinating to glimpse into how he might have led this early Verdi opera in his youth. His soloists were Vivian Della Chiesa, Nicola Moscona, and the wonderful Jan Peerce; this excerpt also features an extended violin obbligato that was performed by Toscanini's concertmaster, Mischa Mischakoff.
The style of this performance is quite impetuous, and a good deal less dreamy than a televised performance I recall seeing from the Metropolitan Opera about fifteen years ago. The violin solo sounds very much like a dramatic concerto as performed by Mischakoff, and not at all like the angelic background I have always imagined this obbligato to sound like. The vocal soloists are much better; Peerce in particular is outstanding in his earnest portrayal of the dying Orente. Overall this is by no means Toscanini's finest recording of the music of Verdi, but there is enough that is wonderful about it to at least make for intriguing listening. Please try not to be offended.
Bizet: L'Arlésienne Suite - September 19th, 1943
This recording is drawn from a live radio broadcast that may have been the only performance Toscanini ever led of this music (it was certainly the only time he conducted it with an American orchestra) although he did record the Farandole from the second L'Arlésienne suite with the La Scala orchestra in 1921. The suite Toscanini performed on this occasion included all four movements of the first suite, while inserting the Pastorale from the second suite in between the Adagietto and the Carillon.
This work was obviously not part of Toscanini's core repertoire, but you would never know it from this excellent performance. At turns exciting, grand, flexible and sonorous, this reading perfectly captures every affective nuance of Bizet's colorful imagination. This was the very first orchestral work to employ a saxophone, and Toscanini made the most of this new hue to the symphonic timbre with the immaculate balances he elicited from the NBC Symphony. This recording must be considered one of the prizes of Toscanini's legacy with French orchestral music.
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite - September 11th, 1945
A number of critics have snickered over Toscanini's attention to this piece (prior to this studio recording he had led it twice in his NBC broadcasts): Robert C. Marsh writes that "It is natural to be offended that Toscanini should have given his time to preparing and recording music as inconsequential as this". While it is true that this is light music, all that I find offensive is the idea that its lack of weight should make it "inconsequential." If this music was good enough for Toscanini to spend a good amount of time preparing, then I think it's good enough for us to listen to.
Toscanini did indeed lavish a great deal of attention to this piece. According to NBC violist William Carboni, the composer was bowled over at how seriously Toscanini took this score. Carboni recalled that "Every time [Toscanini] asked Grofé anything, he always called him 'Maestro'; and Grofé was just in heaven. When it was all over, the Old Man called him up to the podium to ask him if everything was all right, and Grofé said yes and was so overcome as he backed away that he backed into the chairs and fell over them."
This effort is all quite audible in this recording, which is to my ears the finest of Toscanini's few performances of American music. The conductor had visited the Grand Canyon with his family in the summer of 1940, and perhaps owing to this experience he seems to interpret the score as a grand tone poem to nature, which I suppose it is. If this piece is not one of the great titanic masterpieces of Western art, it is still a brilliant work of orchestral imagination and not the least bit "inconsequential." Toscanini is to be especially commended for understanding this work's importance.
Mozart: Don Giovanni Overture - January 27th, 1946
With World War II now over it may be that by 1946 everyone was ready for a little fire and damnation again. It is well-known that Mozart was not a composer for whom Toscanini generally had sympathy - in an interview with B.H. Haggin he admitted that with the exception of the Symphony No. 40 and the piano concertos he found Mozart's music to be quite boring - but for some reason he felt compelled to return to Don Giovanni after a thirty-nine year absence. Toscanini had last led a staged production of Mozart's blackest opera in Buenos Aires in 1906; he conducted the overture on this one occasion with the NBC Symphony nearly forty years later and never returned to it again.
It should not be surprising that this recording lacks full commitment (Mortimer H. Frank calls it "a bit cool, suggesting an antipathy for the opera") but it is an improvement over Toscanini's dreadful Jupiter Symphony set from seven months earlier. The tempos are a bit brisk (especially in the introduction) and the sonority is a bit lighter than one would hope for in this music, but all in all this recording really is not bad. The NBC Symphony plays with all of the precision of their finest performances, and the pulse has an intensity to its motion that is very much in keeping with the spirit of this work. I can't say I especially like this recording, but I am impressed by the potency Toscanini brings to it.
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That's it for Day 33!
As mentioned above do check back tomorrow for La bohème. Toscanini gave the world premiere of that glorious opera in 1896, and 50 years later he was still the work's finest interpreter.
Happy Monday!
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