Day 61: It's Christmas in October

Hey everyone! Happy Halloween and welcome to Day 61!

I love a good theme, and if I'd had the foresight I would have tried to plan out the project in such a way that today would have been entirely spooky music. I did not do that, so unfortunately you'll have to make do with the next best thing: Christmas music.


Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite - November 19th, 1951

Toscanini conducted the then three-year-old Nutcracker Suite at the first orchestral concert he ever led, in March of 1896. He performed it again at La Scala one month later, and then did not touch it again for another forty-four years. I don't know exactly why he only decided to return to the score when his career was beginning to near its end, but I'd like to think that the genuinely spirited Christmas aura of the music had an effect on him. It certainly does on me.

This recording is overall quite good, but Toscanini's pacing of the individual movements is extremely uneven. Some movements are excellent, notably the Overture, March, Chinese Dance and, above all, the fabulous Trepak. Other movements are overly tight and slip into the worst of the Toscanini stereotypes, such as the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy and Arabian Dance. Most bizarre of all is the Waltz of the Flowers, which has a drastically re-composed harp solo and two extra chords at the end imposed by Toscanini. The conductor also shortens the third-beat quarter notes of the main tune, producing a strangely limping rhythmic effect.

For a conductor as well-versed in the theatre as Toscanini, I would have hoped for more sensitivity to the danceability as a whole in this recording. As he chose to ignore this aspect of the ballet, all we have left is the substance of the music, and this he did seem to give serious, if occasionally misguided, attention to. This recording is extremely flawed, but it does make me long for Christmas cookies and festively stuffed stockings. In a way, I suppose that does make Toscanini's recording very effective indeed.

Beethoven: Septet - November 26th, 1951

I have an enormous affection for this piece because I spent the entirety of my last year of high school working on it while I was living in England. This was my second year attending the Purcell School, which is located just outside of London and is one of the great music schools of Europe. That was a particularly happy year for me, and the time I spent working on this Beethoven work was a wonderfully collaborative experience shared with good friends, as any good chamber music experience should be.

Toscanini had an enormous affection for the work because it was the first score he ever purchased with his own money.

Nostalgia, in short, seems to be a common reason for enjoying this piece. Beethoven himself felt it was short of his best work, and in all honesty I completely agree. Objective listening has forced me to conclude that the structures of the Septet are too ponderous for the slight musical materials. But that's okay, really. Nostalgia is as good a reason as any to like a piece of music. Why do you think Christmas music is so popular?

In any case, Toscanini's performance of the Septet is excellent, and particularly well-played by the NBC Symphony. The other chamber works Toscanini gave the symphonic treatment to tended to sound a bit elephantine and unwieldy. Most notable in this regard are the NBC readings of the Mendelssohn Octet and Mozart's Divertimento No. 15 (the latter work was particularly embarrassing, possessing such a high violin part that the NBC fiddlers had no chance of playing it with facility). Beethoven's Septet, on the other hand, comes off quite well, and is a splendid example of the remarkably precise ensemble of the NBC Symphony in its best moments.

Wagner: Prelude to Act III from Die Meistersinger - November 26th, 1951

The delicate Prelude to Act III of Die Meistersinger is worlds away from the grandeur of the more familiar Act I Prelude. This is music of subtle beauty, held together with sublime fragility. Toscanini approaches this work with quiet intensity and rapt attention to the long strands of line. The cello section is outstanding in the exposed opening passage, while the horns (generally not of the glories of the NBC Symphony) are particularly luminous in their beautiful quartet. This may not be the most noteworthy of Toscanini's recordings, but it is one of his most tender.

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That's it for Day 61!

Check back tomorrow for music with an intimate connection to Brad Pitt, a musical riddle wrapped in an Enigma, and a trip to Rome that has nothing to do with Dan Brown.

Happy Monday!