Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 71!
Today's listening took me through symphonies from France and Germany, and an opera overture from Italy. I also had Indian food for lunch, making today as international as I could manage.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 - November 10th, 1952
I probably shouldn't admit this, but my plan when I began listening today was to just skim through this recording of the Beethoven Eighth, as I have heard it a number of times already. Then I pressed play, and found there was no way I could turn it off; it's just too compelling. From start to finish the energy level is almost exhausting in its intensity, and leaves you with the inescapable feeling that you have just listened to (gasp!) a Beethoven symphony.
The odd-numbered Beethoven symphonies are so monumental in their unprecedented size and originality that the more bucolic pastures of the even-numbered works are almost inevitably going to be at least an initial disappointment. The Pastoral excepted, these symphonies have not entered the popular imagination as have the others, with their heroic rhythms, fate motifs, dance apotheoses, and odes to joy. The even-numbered symphonies stand no chance against this when they are played in an unfailingly elegant and classical manner. Lost in this is that even the even-numbered Beethoven symphonies just happen to be Beethoven symphonies.
Toscanini never lost sight of the fact that the Eighth is a Beethoven symphony, and consistently performed it with the same incisive vitality he gave the Eroica or the Fifth. It is almost surprising how well this approach works for the Eighth, as it is so infrequently heard in this manner. Unlike those misguidedly elegant versions, performances like Toscanini's really stick with you, and make it hard to move away from them. Even when you try.
Verdi: La forza del destino Overture - November 10th, 1952
Considering that this was recorded on the same day as the fabulous Beethoven recording discussed above, I'd say that this Verdi overture is a disappointment. It is certainly a competent piece of work, but radiates none of the fire of the Beethoven Eighth or, for that matter, Toscanini's 1945 recording of the La forza del destino overture. There is precision in this performance, but little theatre, and Verdi's superbly timed drama is lost in lackluster execution.
Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 - November 14th and 15th, 1952
The Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony practically serves as a metaphor for symphonic grandeur, and Toscanini does not disappointment with this unusually broad and spacious performance. The maestro first conducted this work in 1898, and subsequently led it ten times during his decade with the New York Philharmonic. But this 1952 broadcast (patched with rehearsal material from the previous day) is his only surviving account of the symphony.
There is plenty about this recording that is wonderful. The sostenuto line of the slow movement is breathtakingly phrased, the scherzo is replete with powerfully incisive attacks from the strings, and the concluding section is given genuine grandeur and splendor of sonority. But the peculiarities still have me scratching my head. Most bizarre is that Toscanini inexplicably seems to have beefed up the orchestration by adding winds to the famous organ chords that open the symphony's final section. The result is that these chords actually feel scrawnier and less monumental than when played with organ alone. I also find Toscanini's deliberate pace for the ending to be quite anticlimactic and lacking in purpose.
Nonetheless, what is right about this performance is brilliantly right. There are moments in this symphony that are reminiscent of Wagner, and other that look forward to Messiaen, and Toscanini beautifully plays up these connections without losing sight of the French romanticism that is at the work's core. This recording is not perfect, but it is wonderful.
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That's it for Day 71!
Check back tomorrow for some Gluck, and some French music from Rome.
Happy Thursday!
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