Today I moved on to the recordings of Toscanini's tenth season with the NBC Symphony. Five of the performances from this season (including all three discussed below) were remakes of works Toscanini had recorded with the New York Philharmonic in 1926 and 1929. Direct comparisons of the readings Toscanini led with these respective orchestras are particularly revealing, and lead to the inescapable conclusion that the NBC Symphony, as remarkable an ensemble as it was, was not in the same league as the New York Philharmonic.
This should not be considered a slight to the orchestra with which Toscanini spent the last seventeen years of his career. The conductor was starting fresh with the NBC Symphony, which had had its first rehearsal only months before being joined by Toscanini. The New York Philharmonic, on the other hand, had been a long-established ensemble when Toscanini first conducted them in 1926. Their sound had already been shaped by the finest conductors of the era, such as Gustav Mahler, Walter Damrosch, and Willem Mengelberg. It takes years of dutiful attention to produce the kind of sounds the New York Philharmonic had produced under Toscanini, and the NBC Symphony was essentially a work in progress for its entire history.
What is remarkable about the NBC Symphony is not the grandeur of its sonority - even in its finest performances that was never its strong suit - but rather its brilliance and tensile vigor. There is no doubt that it was a collection of some of the very finest players in the United States, and it is deeply frustrating to think about what might have been had the NBC Symphony lasted beyond Toscanini's retirement. In its own way, however, these often rough and imperfect recordings make for fascinating listening precisely because they document this burgeoning relationship between a brash young orchestra and its elder statesman Maestro.
Gluck: Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo - November 4th, 1946
Though this is to some extent a perfectly respectable recording, this cannot be considered a particularly distinguished performance by the standards of a conductor like Toscanini. Although the 1929 New York Philharmonic recording was by no means the highlight of Toscanini's collaboration with that orchestra, the earlier reading at least had an angelic string tone going for it that partially masked the flat and directionless flute solo. This NBC recording has marginally better flute playing (I assume the soloist was Arthur Lora, who had been principal flute with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra before joining NBC), but the string sound is leaden and overly earth-bound. Perhaps these spirits weren't quite so blessed.
Mozart: Symphony No. 35 - November 4th, 1946
The 1929 New York Philharmonic recording of this symphony has its strengths, but without seeing Toscanini's face on the album cover you would never guess that he had been the interpreter. The phrasing of that performance was heavily inflected and the sound was extremely (too much so, in my view) polished. The recording Toscanini produced seventeen years later at NBC was worlds apart, and much more like one would expect from the conductor. Here the sonority is punchy and streamlined, and the attacks have a sharper edge. In short, this is an easily recognizable Toscanini recording, and one that to my ears is more Mozartean.
There are, however, drawbacks to this recording, the chief one being the messier string playing in the last movement. Comparing the 1929 and 1946 recordings of the last movement may be the best evidence we have that the New York Philharmonic was a more virtuosic ensemble than the NBC Symphony. The NBC performance is nonetheless one of the more satisfying of the earlier recordings of the Haffner Symphony. Toscanini never bought into the maddening notion that Mozart was the very definition of lightness and grace (has no one seen Amadeus?), and the extra edge he gives this symphony is highly refreshing.
Mendelssohn: Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream - November 6th, 1946
This is the penultimate of Toscanini's (wait for it…) six recordings of the Midsummer Night's Dream Scherzo. These recordings go all the way back to the ancient set that Toscanini produced with the La Scala Orchestra in 1921. You would think that by 1946 the conductor would have gotten it figured out, but I find this performance to be a step back in quality from the earlier readings. While this NBC recording is certainly no failure, it falls short of the gossamer fairyland atmosphere Toscanini elicited from the New York Philharmonic in 1929, or the perfectly manicured ensemble of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1942. The string passagework has now become chunky and a bit labored, leaving Mendelssohn's passagework rendered merely impressive.
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That's it for Day 37!
Check back tomorrow for music by Schumann, Wagner and Smetana, but no bartering or selling of souls will be allowed.
Happy Saturday!
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