For today I listened to two large programmatic works. One made me eager to visit the festivals of Rome, and the other convinced me to never try to summon dark spirits while hiking in the Alps (it just seems like a bad idea).
Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony - December 5th, 1949
There is sometimes no accounting for taste, even in the case of an artist like Toscanini. He seemed to generally dislike the music of Tchaikovsky, and refused to conduct such popular works of his as the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. The Fifth in particular he sneered at as "banal." He did, however, strongly approve of the composer's Manfred Symphony, and felt that it had "not one banal note." Toscanini led Tchaikovksy's enormous program symphony six times at NBC, more than any Beethoven symphony save the Eroica and Pastoral. Manfred was clearly a work that appealed greatly to Toscanini's temperament, and yet if he felt it had "not one banal note," he must have thought it had a great many banal measures.
It has become a boring cliché in discussions about Toscanini to get bogged down into talk about "literal" interpretation. The conductor was widely perceived, particularly by his detractors, as being overly literal and objective in the way he interpreted the notes he conducted. At times Toscanini himself seemed to support such a view, by saying such things as "tradition is only the last bad performance" and "the score is my tradition!"
Yet Toscanini's actions in a wide variety of cases are evidence that he felt that the interpreter really was the final arbiter of decisions on how to play the notes on the page. He was less different from conductors like Wilhelm Furtwängler in this regard than either would have liked to admit.
The most extreme example of this is in this recording of the Manfred Symphony, in which Toscanini is a true law unto himself when it comes to interpreting what Tchaikovsky wrote. Numerous elements of the orchestration were changed, and some excisions were made in the score. Most glaring was a huge cut of 118 bars from the last movement, leaving it a bleeding torso of itself. Not that I ever plan on counting exactly how many, but I'm guessing there are quite a few notes in those 118 bars (but the problem obviously can't possibly have been that they were banal, no siree). The result of this is that the Manfred Symphony's monumental structures are considerably tightened in Toscanini's hands. This does make the work more easily digestible, but I don't think it does Tchaikovsky any favors.
Tightening does not mean improving. The effect of this tampering with the architecture of the symphony is that proportions are lost, and climaxes lose their impact. Tchaikovsky had a keen sense for structural proportions, and I find Toscanini's modifications to be quite injurious to the Manfred Symphony. This is a work about summoning evil spirits. When you take away the darkest music from this score, these spirits take on a less menacing form (I bet they even wear a monocle).
What does this mean for Toscanini's actual performance? Nothing. This recording is fabulous. It is stunning in its visceral impact, and the build-up of nerve-gripping tension has an overwhelming inevitability about it. If you only measure emotional impact, this is certainly one of the finest recordings Toscanini ever made. It has great interpretive sweep, and is stunningly played by the NBC Symphony. But on an intellectual level the cuts are a deal-breaker for me. While Toscanini's performance has undeniable power, the loss of Tchaikovsky's immaculate structures are too high a price to pay. In the end, this underwhelms my emotional response as well.
Respighi: Roman Festivals - December 12th, 1949
Toscanini premiered this work with the New York Philharmonic in 1929, and twenty years later he had not lost his touch. This 1949 NBC recording is absolutely thrilling from start to finish, and displays remarkable orchestral virtuosity. Toscanini had last recorded Roman Festivals with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941. Though well-performed, the Philadelphia recording is dim-sounding, and suggests little of the vibrant orchestral colors Toscanini must have given it. By contrast, the NBC recording is one of the most brilliant-sounding recordings that had yet been produced by 1949. RCA's engineers really stepped up to the plate for Roman Festivals, and gave Toscanini all the technical leeway he needed to fully place Respighi's rich palette of hues on display. I can't imagine ever listening to a more satisfying recording of this work.
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That's it for Day 51!
Check back tomorrow for some Wagner, a myth, and a Requiem. What could be more thigh-slappingly fun?
Happy Friday!
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