Today's listening featured three remarkable Wagner works Toscanini recorded in the same session in March of 1946.
Wagner: Die Meistersinger Prelude - March 11th, 1946
Toscanini's official discography can be a bit confusing. There are works represented multiple times in the collection that he performed relatively infrequently, such as the Overture to Mignon or Mozart's Haffner Symphony. Then there is the prelude to Die Meistersinger, which Toscanini performed more than any other (more than fifty times) yet recorded only once. Die Meistersinger was also the Wagner opera that Toscanini performed most often in the theater, including as part of his final series of staged operas at Salzburg in 1937. This was obviously music that was extremely deep within Toscanini, yet he chose to record the Prelude only once, and never programmed the opera (or any other complete Wagner opera) while at NBC. While I find this to be quite perplexing, it is nonetheless extremely fortunate that the one recording he did make of this Prelude happens to be of such extraordinary quality.
Of the twelve surviving performances of Toscanini performing the Die Meistersinger Prelude, the studio recording is the second-shortest, clocking in at eight minutes, fifty-seven seconds (the longest is a 1939 NBC broadcast that takes nine minutes, thirty seconds). Although Mortimer H. Frank (inexplicably, to my ears) finds the studio recording to be "inferior", I strongly doubt that Wagner would have found anything to object to in this performance. In 1876 the composer complained to Felix Mottl that this Prelude was always taken too slowly, and that it should be played in "vigorous march time." Wagner's description perfectly suits Toscanini's performance, which is vigorous and energetic without becoming glib or hurried. There is still room for spacious grandeur within the boundaries of "march time", and Toscanini brilliantly elicits this vital nobility from the NBC Symphony. Far from being "inferior", this recording is a perfect example of the masterful manner in which Toscanini treated the music he loved most.
Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries - March 11th, 1946
This certainly is an energetic recording, full of impetuous brilliance. I like the vitality of this performance very much, but ultimately I find it to be overly lacking in nobility. The Valkyries may be an enthusiastic and impulsive bunch, but they are still the daughters of Wotan, king of the gods. They have their pride, and while Wagner's music may portray them as being filled with youthful vigor (I once saw a production of Die Walküre in Chicago that had the valkyries jumping across a series of trampolines that had been stretched overhead of the stage, making the whole scene look like a big, drunken slumber party), there is also breadth and dignity to their character. That is the quality I find a bit lacking in Toscanini's performance, although the energy is infectious enough that I don't really care.
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll - March 11th, 1946
This recording is very different in character from the 1936 reading Toscanini led with the New York Philharmonic. This 1946 recording has a much more relaxed feeling than the earlier one, with more abundant emphasis on harmonic movement and greater breadth to the musical line. What is interesting in making this comparison is that the overall tempos of the two performances are very similar: the seemingly more leisurely 1946 Siegfried Idyll is actually four seconds faster than the Philharmonic recording of ten years earlier. These two readings are each magnificent in their own way, and they are also very instructive as to how great an effect the inner metabolism of a musical performance can have on the very character of the reading, without affecting the actual speed with which the performance is carried out.
............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 35!
Check back tomorrow for a mostly Russian selection that is tempered with a bit of German air.
Happy Wednesday!
No comments:
Post a Comment