Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 74!
For today I listened to a New World of Great symphonies, and I also took a swim down Memory Lane.
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 - February 2nd, 1953
Toscanini first conducted the New World Symphony in 1897, when the score was only five years old. He led the work intermittently throughout his career, culminating in four NBC broadcasts and this studio recording. It is appropriate that Toscanini led the symphony intermittently, as his performances of it were only intermittently compelling (rimshot).
There are certainly beauties to be found in this 1953 recording, but as a whole it is quite inconsistent. The symphony's introduction is particularly stiff and cold in its execution, and has some strange moments of rhythmic unsteadiness. The long rest that precedes the first fortissimo outburst is cut almost in half, and dotted figures are frequently tripletized. That is the worst of it. What follows is in many ways a perfectly respectable rendition of the New World Symphony, but the energy level is rather low, and the phrases feel limp. Only with the last movement do things really come to life. This Allegro con fuoco is taken at a powerfully fuoco pace, and at last the symphony becomes consistently engaging.
As this recording was made in the very hall where the New World Symphony was premiered sixty years earlier, it is tempting to view it as possessing a certain authenticity of timbre. But I don't find that to be a compelling reason to read any more into this performance than there is to read. This is, overall, a perfectly acceptable account of a classic of the orchestral repertory, but not an extraordinary one.
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 - February 9th, 1953
This is the third and last of Toscanini's official recordings of Schubert's Ninth. It also serves as documentation of the last time in the maestro's life that he ever led this score, which he had been conducting regularly since his first symphony concert in 1896.
This is the broadest and smoothest of Toscanini's three studio Schubert Ninths. There are some lovely moments in this performance, but I actually miss the grit of his earlier versions. The extra expanse in this recording amplifies the beauty of some sections (notably the introduction to the first movement, the middle of the slow movement, and the trio of the scherzo), but also drains energy and purpose from others (by which I mean pretty much the rest of the piece).
Since this is the third time I've talked about Schubert Nine I'm starting to run out of things to say about it. So I thought I'd finish up with an amusing story that has nothing whatsoever to do with Schubert.
During my twenties I was fortunate enough to attend the Lucerne Festival Academy four times. The Academy is a fabulous opportunity to work on contemporary repertoire with Pierre Boulez in the Swiss Alps, and remains among the most artistically satisfying musical activities I am ever likely to encounter. I also met my wife there in 2004, and that's got to count for something as well (we had both been living in Chicago two years before we finally met, so naturally we first met in Switzerland).
Musicians of the Academy are put up with townspeople of Lucerne, which can occasionally result in some interesting pairings. One year I was staying with an interesting couple that had a rather New Age philosophy and very strict standards for bathroom cleanliness (I had never known you were supposed to wipe down the bathtub after taking a shower). They also had an interesting take on English. I was once warned to not leave my clothes sitting out in the building's laundry room due to the danger of their being stolen by "mugglers and tieves."
That summer Central Europe faced historic flooding, when it basically did not stop raining throughout the month of August. Water flowed freely through the streets closest to the river, and getting around town could be quite a challenge. I will never forget the image the members of the visiting Russian National Orchestra trudging through the streets with their pants rolled up and instruments held over their heads, while Gidon Kremer was standing nearby with a look of shock on his face.
On the first day of these floods I was woken up at 5:00 in the morning by my host mother, who looked at me with frightening seriousness and said "Stephen, there are flutes all over Switzerland." Feeling very groggy, I was mentally scratching my head over that information: "Flutes?" Then she looked at me very closely and stared quite intently into my eyes and said: "Five people have DIED already." I immediately thought "WHAT???" She spent a good ten minutes telling me about how dangerous the flutes were before I finally woke up enough to realize she meant "floods." I wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved. I've encountered some dangerous flutes before.
Anyway, things eventually returned to normal and no flutes ended up killing me that summer. That story doesn't really have anything to do with Schubert's Ninth, but I bet the flutes in that symphony would kill you if they got the chance.
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That's it for Day 74!
Check back tomorrow, when I'll be pining for Hungary and more Schubert.
Happy Sunday!
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