Hey everyone! Welcome to Day...
I can't say it. This project has been a labor of love, and I'm very sorry to see it end. This is the 80th day of 80 Days of Toscanini, which means that things must finally come to an end. The support I've gotten from my friends and family has meant a lot to me, and I cannot thank you all enough.
Unfortunately, all good things, as they say, must come to an end. 80 Days of Toscanini has run its course, and I am very proud of the project. Although I will mourn its end, I'm sure the time will come to add Toscanini-related thoughts to this blog as the months and years go by, but it will not be on a daily basis anymore.
Today's listening comprises the last three works that Toscanini approved for release from the final year of his career.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 - February 26th, 27th and 28th, 1954
Toscanini once told B.H. Haggin that he objected to the Italian Symphony because of its saltarello last movement. He evidently felt this tarantella-like music was something of a national slur (though I wonder if Toscanini would have felt the same way had the exact same music been written by a composer born in Milan rather than Hamburg). This did not stop the maestro from programming the symphony four times at NBC, and his conception was actually quite traditional in its orientation. This conception was also extremely compelling. There have been faster, more brilliant performances of the Italian Symphony, but the extraordinary clarity Toscanini gets out of the NBC strings makes the issue unimportant.
Toscanini was always very good at creating the illusion of great speed from the remarkably clear-textured sonorities he elicited. This was not always a good thing (his performances of Brahms and of 20th century music often suffered from too much obsession with clarity), but this approach worked perfectly for Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. Even briskly-paced performances of this work can bog down when the execution is imprecise, and Toscanini avoids this with the the qualities he was both admired and detested for. You just can't please everyone.
Boito: Prologue from Mefistofele - March 14th, 1954
Good lord, this is intense.
Arrigo Boito had a profound effect on the early career of Arturo Toscanini. With Verdi nearing the end of the road, Boito was among the most dominant figures in all of the Italian artistic world at the end of the 19th century. He had composed the hugely popular opera Mefistofele in 1867, and written the librettos to Verdi's final two operas, Otello and Falstaff (as well as the revised edition of Simon Boccanegra). In 1897 Boito became Vice President of the governing board of La Scala, and was the leading voice in appointing the thirty-one year old Arturo Toscanini to be musical director of that organization.
Boito had enthusiastically followed Toscanini's career since attending the conductor's Turin productions of Götterdämmerung and Falstaff in 1895. He also repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to convince Verdi to observe Toscanini's rehearsals at Turin's Teatro Regio. In all likelihood Verdi never saw Toscanini conduct, although they had one very significant musical meeting, as we shall see.
Toscanini was appointed musical director of La Scala in 1898, and the relationship between the maestro and Boito was to remain strong until the latter's death in 1918. Toscanini posthumously returned the favor Boito had done him early in his career by orchestrating and supervising the completion of Nerone, an opera Boito had worked on off and on since 1877.
Boito's only significant musical composition was the opera Mefistofele, which Toscanini conducted a number of times throughout his career. The Prologue, in which Satan and a celestial chorus place a wager on Faust's soul, remains a popular concert piece. Toscanini led three concert presentations of the Prologue, the last of which was this intense 1954 NBC broadcast.
Mortimer H. Frank summarizes this performance as "one of Toscanini's most remarkable achievements of his last years. His fabled control, which seemed to be ebbing in his final season, is fully evident here. The shape, dramatic contrasts, and stunning climax that he produced are astonishing, especially when judged in the context of what must have been the strain of the approaching end of an activity he could not live without. It is as if, for a brief hour, a younger conductor were in charge."
Everything about this description is amazingly true. This performance is almost mind-blowing in its visceral power. It is the musical equivalent of a monumental Renaissance fresco that overwhelms you with its spiritually-charged emotion. That the elderly Toscanini could produce an achievement like this is testament both to the extraordinary depth of his musical powers and to the closeness of a friendship that was personally and artistically enriching to two of the greatest figures in all of Italian art.
Verdi: Te Deum - March 14th, 1954
"I've asked you whether you're religious, whether you believe! I do - I believe - I'm not an atheist like Verdi, but I don't have time to go into the subject. I'll do it some other time."
The Roman Catholic Church was both a source of deep scorn for Arturo Toscanini and the origin of a great deal of his being. He was not a church-goer, and held the Vatican in extreme suspicion for its ties to authoritarian regimes. He reserved special hatred for Pope Pius XI, whom he felt had enabled Benito Mussolini's odious political maneuvering. At the same time, the Church shaped Toscanini as a man in profound ways, and affected his personal relationships for his entire life.
Harvey Sachs has summarized Toscanini's religious beliefs as "intellectually pantheistic but, at a gut level, closely related to the superstitious and image-oriented Roman Catholicism typical of the time, place, and class in which he grew up. He was not, however, a practicing Catholic and is not known to have attended a mass after the age of seventeen or eighteen."
An example of how his religious upbringing affected his adult personality lies in Toscanini's bizarrely Catholic attitude towards marriage. Despite his incredible philandering, Toscanini genuinely took matrimony extremely seriously, and invariably ended friendships with anyone who had been divorced or had even remarried following the death of a spouse. In the case of his own marriage, he seems to have liked his wife well enough, but felt she was personally extremely cold. The surviving correspondence between the two show little in the way of shared affection. By contrast, Toscanini really opened up to a woman named Ada Mainardi, whom he had a long affair with. The letters he sent to Mainardi display his personality in vivid color and detail, and document his views on a wide range of subjects, including religion. The quotation I began with came from one of the letters Toscanini sent to Mainardi.
I cannot be sure about Verdi's religious views, but Toscanini was evidently under the impression that the composer was an atheist. If so, the Four Sacred Pieces that ended Verdi's creative life are particularly curious. These works, of which the Te Deum is one, are among the most sublimely beautiful Verdi ever composed. Their profound feeling appears so deeply felt that it is hard to imagine them not coming from a true believer.
Toscanini performed the Te Deum like a true believer. The unearthly sense of reverence that exists in his 1954 performance is breathtaking in its sustained power. The Robert Shaw Chorale gives one its greatest performances in this music. The spiritual affinity between Toscanini and Verdi's Te Deum can perhaps be explained by an important meeting between the conductor and the grand old man of Italian music.
In 1898 Toscanini conducted the Italian premiere of three of the Four Sacred Pieces in Turin. Toscanini was troubled by the Te Deum's pacing, and felt that the work required some unwritten rallentandos. Having secured an audience with Verdi, Toscanini asked the composer to play the Te Deum on the piano, to which Verdi replied "No, no, you play it." Toscanini sat down and played the music as he felt it, with the tempo modifications he felt were necessary. "Bravo," said Verdi. Toscanini stopped in his tracks and said, "Maestro, if you knew how much this has been bothering me…Why didn't you write the rallentando?" Verdi replied that "If I had written it, a bad musician would have exaggerated it; but if one is a good musician, one feels it and plays it, just as you've done, without the necessity of having it written down."
This meeting deeply affected how Toscanini thought about musical pacing, and was to have a tremendous impact on his finest performances. By the time Toscanini had become the old maestro, his performances had frequently become rigid and unyielding. But not this time, and not in any other work that lay deep within him. I cannot say whether or not Toscanini's religious beliefs shaped how he conducted the Te Deum, but the sublime beauty that he achieved in this music suggests a belief in something higher.
Arturo Toscanini was a very difficult man, and one who did some very bad things over the course of his life. He could be nauseatingly belittling to the musicians that played for him, and the disgusting extent of his infidelities caused terrible pain upon his family. But his greatest performances show that he was a man who understood beauty, and in the end that may be the most important characteristic to a person's soul. Beauty - true beauty - is what separates good from evil, and I believe that what Arturo Toscanini was able to express in his most inspired music-making was the very definition of beauty.
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That's it for 80 Days of Toscanini!
Again, thank you all so much for the support you've given me since last September. I apologize to anyone I may have inadvertently ignored as a result of my involvement in this project! Thanks are also due to the Toscanini scholarship of Harvey Sachs, Mortimer H. Frank, Robert C. Marsh and others that have proven invaluable aids in this project. Some thanks must also go to google, facebook and twitter, which have made this process much more democratic, and allowed a person like me to get his thoughts out to the world.
Thank you all, and Happy Saturday!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Day 79: Boston on the Baltic
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 79!
Wow, the project is almost done. Tomorrow will see the end of what has been an amazing musical journey. But the goodbye tears are for another day (tomorrow). Today is a day for opera.
Verdi: Un ballo in maschera - January 17th and 24th, 1954
Un ballo in maschera was the work that bookended Arturo Toscanini's long association with the world of Italian opera. The conductor's parents took him to see a production of the work at Parma's Teatro Regio in 1871, when he was only four years old. Eighty-three years later, Toscanini conducted Un ballo at NBC, in what was to be his last performance of a complete opera.
Toscanini was well aware that this would be the end of his storied career in operatic theatre. Following the second of the two broadcasts that was to comprise this complete Un ballo, Toscanini said that "This was my last opera performance. I began by hearing a performance of Un ballo in maschera at the age of 4, up in the gallery, and I've finished by conducting it at 87." Opera lovers have been left tantalizingly little in the way of recordings to document Toscanini's way with Italian opera, but that is what makes these few surviving performances so great in importance.
Un ballo in maschera has a curious history. Loosely based on an assassination that took place at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792, the opera went through a wide variety of changes to satisfy government censors wary of the plot's political intrigue. What began as an opera named Gustavo III that was set in Stockholm eventually became, after a three year gestation, Un ballo in maschera, an opera set in colonial Boston. It seems that the Boston setting is pretty much ignored in modern productions, but I still find it amusing to think about an opera set in America that has main characters named Riccardo, Renato and Silvano. I think those were my three best childhood friends.
As the opera was performed in a concert setting for the purposes of this 1954 broadcast, I don't think its setting really matters - though it doesn't sound much like Boston to my ears (or Stockholm, for that matter). What it does sound like is a master conductor having the time of his life in an opera that he had loved dearly since childhood, and which he knew he would be conducting for the last time. During the rehearsals for the performance, Toscanini told the orchestra "I'm an old relic, but I won't let you down." Based on the extraordinarily high level of this performance, I seriously doubt that the old man let the NBC Symphony or his cast down.
Yet there is an interesting remark in Toscanini and the Art of Conducting by Robert C. Marsh, who was in the audience for these broadcasts. Marsh writes that he is "competent to assure the person who listens to the recording that what he hears is superior in a number of ways - particularly balance - to what one heard in the actual performance."
It is certainly true that recordings can cover a multitude of sins, but I have a hard time accepting Marsh's statement. For my taste, everything is a bit too closely miked in the recording. This may marginally raise the level of audible detail, but it also subtracts from maintaining a sense of theatre. This is actually a bit of a blanket criticism I have of all of Toscanini's concert opera performances at NBC. Although these operas were obviously not staged, this makes it all the more important to maintain the illusion of theatricality in the music-making.
All this applies only to the recording, not to the performance itself. Although the general trend in Toscanini's later work is one of diminished control, this performance of Un ballo in maschera is so ebullient in its execution that any flaws are quite unimportant. Arturo Toscanini was one of the greatest opera conductors in history, and this performance was the perfect way to close the career of this old relic.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 79!
Check back tomorrow for the end of the project, which will feature some very spiritual works as well as the greatest Italian work ever written by a German.
Happy Friday!
Wow, the project is almost done. Tomorrow will see the end of what has been an amazing musical journey. But the goodbye tears are for another day (tomorrow). Today is a day for opera.
Verdi: Un ballo in maschera - January 17th and 24th, 1954
Un ballo in maschera was the work that bookended Arturo Toscanini's long association with the world of Italian opera. The conductor's parents took him to see a production of the work at Parma's Teatro Regio in 1871, when he was only four years old. Eighty-three years later, Toscanini conducted Un ballo at NBC, in what was to be his last performance of a complete opera.
Toscanini was well aware that this would be the end of his storied career in operatic theatre. Following the second of the two broadcasts that was to comprise this complete Un ballo, Toscanini said that "This was my last opera performance. I began by hearing a performance of Un ballo in maschera at the age of 4, up in the gallery, and I've finished by conducting it at 87." Opera lovers have been left tantalizingly little in the way of recordings to document Toscanini's way with Italian opera, but that is what makes these few surviving performances so great in importance.
Un ballo in maschera has a curious history. Loosely based on an assassination that took place at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792, the opera went through a wide variety of changes to satisfy government censors wary of the plot's political intrigue. What began as an opera named Gustavo III that was set in Stockholm eventually became, after a three year gestation, Un ballo in maschera, an opera set in colonial Boston. It seems that the Boston setting is pretty much ignored in modern productions, but I still find it amusing to think about an opera set in America that has main characters named Riccardo, Renato and Silvano. I think those were my three best childhood friends.
As the opera was performed in a concert setting for the purposes of this 1954 broadcast, I don't think its setting really matters - though it doesn't sound much like Boston to my ears (or Stockholm, for that matter). What it does sound like is a master conductor having the time of his life in an opera that he had loved dearly since childhood, and which he knew he would be conducting for the last time. During the rehearsals for the performance, Toscanini told the orchestra "I'm an old relic, but I won't let you down." Based on the extraordinarily high level of this performance, I seriously doubt that the old man let the NBC Symphony or his cast down.
Yet there is an interesting remark in Toscanini and the Art of Conducting by Robert C. Marsh, who was in the audience for these broadcasts. Marsh writes that he is "competent to assure the person who listens to the recording that what he hears is superior in a number of ways - particularly balance - to what one heard in the actual performance."
It is certainly true that recordings can cover a multitude of sins, but I have a hard time accepting Marsh's statement. For my taste, everything is a bit too closely miked in the recording. This may marginally raise the level of audible detail, but it also subtracts from maintaining a sense of theatre. This is actually a bit of a blanket criticism I have of all of Toscanini's concert opera performances at NBC. Although these operas were obviously not staged, this makes it all the more important to maintain the illusion of theatricality in the music-making.
All this applies only to the recording, not to the performance itself. Although the general trend in Toscanini's later work is one of diminished control, this performance of Un ballo in maschera is so ebullient in its execution that any flaws are quite unimportant. Arturo Toscanini was one of the greatest opera conductors in history, and this performance was the perfect way to close the career of this old relic.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 79!
Check back tomorrow for the end of the project, which will feature some very spiritual works as well as the greatest Italian work ever written by a German.
Happy Friday!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Day 78: The Fighting Lutherans
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 78!
For today I listened to Toscanini's final Eroica, and a very broad Lutheran canvas.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 - December 6th, 1953
Here we come to the last of Toscanini's many performances of the Eroica. At the dress rehearsal for this broadcast the maestro turned to his orchestra to ask for the Marcia funebre one more time, "just for me." It seems Toscanini had a feeling this would be his last time conducting this music. This is not my favorite Toscanini recording, or even my favorite Toscanini recording of the Eroica. But it is a moving document of a master conductor playing one of his favorite works for the final time.
What made Toscanini such an ideal conductor for the Eroica was his refusal to follow the tradition of "monumental" interpretations of the symphony that transformed it into a weighty utterance of misguided grandeur. I would like to quote Michael Steinberg one last time (as I've done for the other two Toscanini Eroicas), as he puts into words so brilliantly what I have flailingly tried to paraphrase for years now:
"We would do well at this point to remember that we are not likely to find it 'unusual and fantastic' either - which, if so, is very much our loss. When it comes to maintaining a sense of the 'unusual and fantastic' or just of freshness, we are not much helped by conductors, particularly the ones whose attitude of reverence and awe before A Great Classic leads them into 'monumental' tempi at which the length of the work easily becomes 'inordinate', if not 'unendurable'. Of course the rare conductor of genius like Furtwängler or Klemperer can make a convincing case for a 'monumental' Eroica. More valuable by far is the fiery performance - at Beethoven's tempi or something close to them - that can give us an experience like the one the audience in the Theater an der Wien in 1805 must have had, that of an electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution, with a force sufficient to blast doors and windows out of the room. Once in a while that happens, but it is rare. Too rare."
Toscanini's finest Eroica, the broadcast of 1939, is a perfect example of Steinberg's "electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution," and is for me one of the very greatest recordings ever made of any work. His subsequent Eroicas are no slouches, however, and there are still many beauties to be found in this autumnal document in Toscanini's discography. Robert C. Marsh evens calls this 1953 recording "one of the indispensable Toscanini discs." I agree to some extent, although I feel its importance lies primarily in the opportunity it affords to experience Toscanini's conception of the Eroica in high-quality sound.
Although Toscanini's electrifying take on this symphony is still evident, the tempos are now steadier than in his earlier recordings. The maestro admitted to B.H. Haggin that the ebb and flow of older performances was in part a nod to Germanic tradition, and that in his old age he no longer felt the need for that. This would likely account for the more classical proportions of the 1953 Eroica, but it still contains a great deal of charged energy - the old boy still had some life in him.
It is true that the 1939 recording had more rubato than in 1953, but the ebb and flow was never disruptive to the musical line. That is what made Toscanini such a towering giant of musical interpretation when he was at his best: his extraordinary ability to elicit a plastic flexibility to tempo that always maintained the impression of steady momentum. Whether due to sagging powers of control or by choice (as the conductor's admission to B.H. Haggin might indicate), Toscanini had moved on from that style by his last year. The result is still extremely impressive both from an intellectual and visceral standpoint. but this is not Toscanini's best work. For that we must turn to an earlier and more ancient-sounding source.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 - December 13th, 1953
I was raised a Lutheran, and I know Lutheran musical interpretation when I hear it. This is an amazingly Lutheran-sounding performance of the Reformation Symphony from the hands of an Italian Catholic.
Like Death and Transfiguration, the Reformation Symphony is a work many of Toscanini's admirers feel was an unworthy score for the maestro to lavish his attention on. Robert C. Marsh, for example, feels that "the stately thumping-out of chorales and bits of chorales and the less than flamingly inspired material that connects them rather pompous and dull." But Toscanini's interpretation was not the problem. Mortimer H. Frank notes that "Toscanini's unorthodox approach to the Reformation Symphony - characterized by a fiery opening movement, a graceful, lilting second movement, and a uniquely expansive finale in which the perorational "Ein feste Burg" is stunningly dramatic and grand - transformed a potentially second-rate score into a potent masterpiece."
That is certainly an apt description of Toscanini's recording. It is an exceptionally broad performance marked with an expansive sensibility more associated with conductors like Furtwängler. I like it very much, though I doubt that it is how Mendelssohn would have conducted it. The tempo for the last movement is objectively too slow in my view, but there is a monumental grandeur and beauty to Toscanini's interpretation that makes it extremely compelling.
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That's it for Day 78!
Check back tomorrow for an evening at a masked ball that may be located in Stockholm or Boston. Please rsvp.
Happy Thursday!
For today I listened to Toscanini's final Eroica, and a very broad Lutheran canvas.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 - December 6th, 1953
Here we come to the last of Toscanini's many performances of the Eroica. At the dress rehearsal for this broadcast the maestro turned to his orchestra to ask for the Marcia funebre one more time, "just for me." It seems Toscanini had a feeling this would be his last time conducting this music. This is not my favorite Toscanini recording, or even my favorite Toscanini recording of the Eroica. But it is a moving document of a master conductor playing one of his favorite works for the final time.
What made Toscanini such an ideal conductor for the Eroica was his refusal to follow the tradition of "monumental" interpretations of the symphony that transformed it into a weighty utterance of misguided grandeur. I would like to quote Michael Steinberg one last time (as I've done for the other two Toscanini Eroicas), as he puts into words so brilliantly what I have flailingly tried to paraphrase for years now:
"We would do well at this point to remember that we are not likely to find it 'unusual and fantastic' either - which, if so, is very much our loss. When it comes to maintaining a sense of the 'unusual and fantastic' or just of freshness, we are not much helped by conductors, particularly the ones whose attitude of reverence and awe before A Great Classic leads them into 'monumental' tempi at which the length of the work easily becomes 'inordinate', if not 'unendurable'. Of course the rare conductor of genius like Furtwängler or Klemperer can make a convincing case for a 'monumental' Eroica. More valuable by far is the fiery performance - at Beethoven's tempi or something close to them - that can give us an experience like the one the audience in the Theater an der Wien in 1805 must have had, that of an electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution, with a force sufficient to blast doors and windows out of the room. Once in a while that happens, but it is rare. Too rare."
Toscanini's finest Eroica, the broadcast of 1939, is a perfect example of Steinberg's "electrifying, frightening encounter with revolution," and is for me one of the very greatest recordings ever made of any work. His subsequent Eroicas are no slouches, however, and there are still many beauties to be found in this autumnal document in Toscanini's discography. Robert C. Marsh evens calls this 1953 recording "one of the indispensable Toscanini discs." I agree to some extent, although I feel its importance lies primarily in the opportunity it affords to experience Toscanini's conception of the Eroica in high-quality sound.
Although Toscanini's electrifying take on this symphony is still evident, the tempos are now steadier than in his earlier recordings. The maestro admitted to B.H. Haggin that the ebb and flow of older performances was in part a nod to Germanic tradition, and that in his old age he no longer felt the need for that. This would likely account for the more classical proportions of the 1953 Eroica, but it still contains a great deal of charged energy - the old boy still had some life in him.
It is true that the 1939 recording had more rubato than in 1953, but the ebb and flow was never disruptive to the musical line. That is what made Toscanini such a towering giant of musical interpretation when he was at his best: his extraordinary ability to elicit a plastic flexibility to tempo that always maintained the impression of steady momentum. Whether due to sagging powers of control or by choice (as the conductor's admission to B.H. Haggin might indicate), Toscanini had moved on from that style by his last year. The result is still extremely impressive both from an intellectual and visceral standpoint. but this is not Toscanini's best work. For that we must turn to an earlier and more ancient-sounding source.
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 - December 13th, 1953
I was raised a Lutheran, and I know Lutheran musical interpretation when I hear it. This is an amazingly Lutheran-sounding performance of the Reformation Symphony from the hands of an Italian Catholic.
Like Death and Transfiguration, the Reformation Symphony is a work many of Toscanini's admirers feel was an unworthy score for the maestro to lavish his attention on. Robert C. Marsh, for example, feels that "the stately thumping-out of chorales and bits of chorales and the less than flamingly inspired material that connects them rather pompous and dull." But Toscanini's interpretation was not the problem. Mortimer H. Frank notes that "Toscanini's unorthodox approach to the Reformation Symphony - characterized by a fiery opening movement, a graceful, lilting second movement, and a uniquely expansive finale in which the perorational "Ein feste Burg" is stunningly dramatic and grand - transformed a potentially second-rate score into a potent masterpiece."
That is certainly an apt description of Toscanini's recording. It is an exceptionally broad performance marked with an expansive sensibility more associated with conductors like Furtwängler. I like it very much, though I doubt that it is how Mendelssohn would have conducted it. The tempo for the last movement is objectively too slow in my view, but there is a monumental grandeur and beauty to Toscanini's interpretation that makes it extremely compelling.
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That's it for Day 78!
Check back tomorrow for an evening at a masked ball that may be located in Stockholm or Boston. Please rsvp.
Happy Thursday!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Day 77: The Tragically Unhip
Hey everyone welcome to Day 77!
Today's listening comprised the first three recordings to come from the final season of Toscanini's career.
Strauss: Don Quixote - November 21st and 22nd, 1953
I find it interesting that most of Toscanini's biographers feel that there is no doubt that Don Quixote is Strauss's finest tone poem, while Death and Transfiguration is banal and subpar. I don't remotely agree with either view, and in any case I think there is a reason why Death and Transfiguration is performed much more frequently. Yet there must also be a reason why Toscanini's admirers are seemingly unanimous in their somewhat unorthodox opinion.
Although there is certainly drama and tone-painting in this work (muted brass portraying braying sheep, etc.), I don't think it's that much of a reach to say that of Strauss's tone poems Don Quixote is the most concerned with formal structures. The audibility of the program is rather downplayed in comparison with a work like Till Eulenspiegel, and I wonder if that is what appeals to Toscanini's admirers. Perhaps a devotee of Pierre Monteux or Carlos Kleiber would have a different view? Or are any apparent patterns just coincidence?
In any case, Toscanini's performance is certainly a strong, highly competent one. The playing of cellist Frank Miller is especially fine. The main source for the recording is the broadcast of November 22nd, which had to be patched with portions from the preceding day's rehearsal due to a number of technical lapses at the concert. The edits are unobtrusive, and the recording holds together remarkably well.
Brahms: Tragic Overture - November 22nd, 1953
This is a short-form equivalent to the dreadful recording of the Brahms Third from the previous year. The tempo is slow, but there is no weight of sonority. There is only a slack, limp noodle feeling that keeps the phrases from having any rhythmic backbone. The only tragedy here is the lackluster execution.
Berlioz: Harold in Italy - November 28th and 29th, 1953
Toscanini took "correctness" very seriously with this work, and this performance is successful enough that I don't think any negative connotations can come with that.
Harold in Italy was still a novelty in 1939 when Toscanini first asked his then-principal violist William Primrose to learn the work for an NBC broadcast. Several years later (after leaving the NBC Symphony) Primrose recorded the work commercially with Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony. Upon hearing that recording, Toscanini became quite agitated and was heard to say "Poor Primrose! Next year he come to play this piece with me again, and he must play correct! This is not correct!"
The problem seemed to be Koussevitsky's nonchalant attitude towards the metronome markings, which in some cases considerably altered Berlioz's tempo relationships. Toscanini took those relationships extremely seriously, and produced in this work a very different kind of effect from that of Koussevitsky. B.H. Haggin was a fervent admirer of Toscanini's conception of Harold in Italy, and noted that the maestro "produced tempos which integrated not only the section of a movement (notably the third) but the movements within the entire work - making the recurring viola melody, for example, move at the same pace in each movement."
True enough. A great deal of expression is contained in tempo relationships, and I think that is an undervalued aspect of taking metronome markings seriously. That is a big part of the wonderful success of this performance.
This 1953 recording was made not with Primrose but with Carlton Cooley, who became principal violist of the NBC Symphony upon Primrose's departure. Cooley was a less polished performer than Primrose, but his understated playing is still quite effective. Harold in Italy is not really a soloist's piece, and the manner of Cooley's performance is suggestive more of an orchestral obligato than as a solo line. Although the work was commissioned to be a concerto (Paganini wanted to show off his viola chops), I think the obligato conception was really more of what Berlioz had in mind. The effect works brilliantly in this performance.
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That's it for Day 77!
Check back tomorrow for some heroic Lutheranism.
Happy Wednesday!
Today's listening comprised the first three recordings to come from the final season of Toscanini's career.
Strauss: Don Quixote - November 21st and 22nd, 1953
I find it interesting that most of Toscanini's biographers feel that there is no doubt that Don Quixote is Strauss's finest tone poem, while Death and Transfiguration is banal and subpar. I don't remotely agree with either view, and in any case I think there is a reason why Death and Transfiguration is performed much more frequently. Yet there must also be a reason why Toscanini's admirers are seemingly unanimous in their somewhat unorthodox opinion.
Although there is certainly drama and tone-painting in this work (muted brass portraying braying sheep, etc.), I don't think it's that much of a reach to say that of Strauss's tone poems Don Quixote is the most concerned with formal structures. The audibility of the program is rather downplayed in comparison with a work like Till Eulenspiegel, and I wonder if that is what appeals to Toscanini's admirers. Perhaps a devotee of Pierre Monteux or Carlos Kleiber would have a different view? Or are any apparent patterns just coincidence?
In any case, Toscanini's performance is certainly a strong, highly competent one. The playing of cellist Frank Miller is especially fine. The main source for the recording is the broadcast of November 22nd, which had to be patched with portions from the preceding day's rehearsal due to a number of technical lapses at the concert. The edits are unobtrusive, and the recording holds together remarkably well.
Brahms: Tragic Overture - November 22nd, 1953
This is a short-form equivalent to the dreadful recording of the Brahms Third from the previous year. The tempo is slow, but there is no weight of sonority. There is only a slack, limp noodle feeling that keeps the phrases from having any rhythmic backbone. The only tragedy here is the lackluster execution.
Berlioz: Harold in Italy - November 28th and 29th, 1953
Toscanini took "correctness" very seriously with this work, and this performance is successful enough that I don't think any negative connotations can come with that.
Harold in Italy was still a novelty in 1939 when Toscanini first asked his then-principal violist William Primrose to learn the work for an NBC broadcast. Several years later (after leaving the NBC Symphony) Primrose recorded the work commercially with Serge Koussevitsky and the Boston Symphony. Upon hearing that recording, Toscanini became quite agitated and was heard to say "Poor Primrose! Next year he come to play this piece with me again, and he must play correct! This is not correct!"
The problem seemed to be Koussevitsky's nonchalant attitude towards the metronome markings, which in some cases considerably altered Berlioz's tempo relationships. Toscanini took those relationships extremely seriously, and produced in this work a very different kind of effect from that of Koussevitsky. B.H. Haggin was a fervent admirer of Toscanini's conception of Harold in Italy, and noted that the maestro "produced tempos which integrated not only the section of a movement (notably the third) but the movements within the entire work - making the recurring viola melody, for example, move at the same pace in each movement."
True enough. A great deal of expression is contained in tempo relationships, and I think that is an undervalued aspect of taking metronome markings seriously. That is a big part of the wonderful success of this performance.
This 1953 recording was made not with Primrose but with Carlton Cooley, who became principal violist of the NBC Symphony upon Primrose's departure. Cooley was a less polished performer than Primrose, but his understated playing is still quite effective. Harold in Italy is not really a soloist's piece, and the manner of Cooley's performance is suggestive more of an orchestral obligato than as a solo line. Although the work was commissioned to be a concerto (Paganini wanted to show off his viola chops), I think the obligato conception was really more of what Berlioz had in mind. The effect works brilliantly in this performance.
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That's it for Day 77!
Check back tomorrow for some heroic Lutheranism.
Happy Wednesday!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Day 76: Historical Anacreonisms
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 76!
With today's listening we reach the end of Toscanini's penultimate season at NBC, and the beginning of the end of this project. It's been a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot in process. It will also be a bit of a relief to not have to base my daily activities around the blog, at least for a while. Sooner or later I will miss the daily writing, and I'm sure there will be more I can add to this blog as the months and years go by.
It is, however, a little too soon to shed the goodbye tears. There are still five days to go, and many wonderful pieces to listen to. Today's listening featured one wonderful piece, and another that was once thought to be wonderful (though not by me).
Cherubini: Anacréon Overture - March 21st, 1953
Amazingly, this overture was once a fairly standard part of the orchestral repertoire. Many of the leading conductors of the first half of the twentieth century (Furtwängler, for example) recorded it, and I still don't really know why. I find there to very little to like in the way of melodic interest or formal shape. Whatever the reason for its earlier success, Toscanini performed the work four times with the NBC Symphony. This recording is taken from the last of those four broadcasts. This is a competent enough performance, but if there is more to like in this overture than meets the ear I didn't get it from this recording.
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis - March 30th and 31st, 1953
Toscanini conducted the Missa Solemnis for the first time in 1934, when he was sixty-six years old - this studio recording came nineteen years later. If you believe Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs, a considerable transformation in the maestro's interpretation occurred during that time. Sachs compares three of the surviving Toscanini performances of the Missa Solemnis: a New York Philharmonic broadcast from 1935, an NBC broadcast from 1940, and this 1953 studio recording.
Sachs notes of the earliest of these performances that "most of his tempi are the slowest I have ever heard in any performance of this work…There is great flexibility in the handling of every section, and the total effect is uniquely gripping and moving." Of the 1940 NBC version, Sachs believes that "the general conception has become less massive, more dramatic." And finally, of the studio recording, that "the tempi become faster, but the modifications within those tempi have been reduced to the barest minimum: everything is done with the greatest simplicity."
Comparing these three recordings that took place over the course of eighteen years can be taken as a microcosm of the orthodox view of the evolution of Toscanini's interpretations: that they became faster and tighter over the years. Sachs himself cautions against reading this as a generality of all of Toscanini's work because it happens to be true of the Missa Solemnis, and the more recent biography by Mortimer H. Frank is particularly vociferous about there being no hard and fast patterns in this regard. I would agree with them to some extent, but aging is most certainly a pattern, and it is a fact that certain views and manners are going to evolve with age. Preference for one view or another notwithstanding, there is no shame in one performing a piece differently at age eighty than one did at forty. This may be a result of degenerating physical or mental capacities, or it may simply be a matter of seeing things differently. Either way, some degree of change is inevitable.
I have not heard either of the earlier two recordings Sachs compares to this studio recording, but I can easily believe that things have become tighter by 1953. This is certainly not a spacious take on the Missa Solemnis, and that has its strengths and weaknesses. I would definitely not wish for a tempo any slower than Toscanini takes for the radiantly exuberant Gloria, and the military sounds that accompany the Dona Nobis Pacem have a shattering irony to them that I have heard in no other performance. Yet the overall effect is one of breathless and very much earthbound momentum. This defeats the timeless expression of eternity that resonates within Beethoven's creation. For music like this, temporal considerations should be unimportant to anyone but the union representative.
That is my view of this recording at the age of thirty-one. I'm sure I will view it differently at sixty-one. Got a problem with that?
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 76!
Check back tomorrow for a tragic look at the life of a wannabe knight, and also a trip to Italy.
Happy Tuesday!
With today's listening we reach the end of Toscanini's penultimate season at NBC, and the beginning of the end of this project. It's been a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot in process. It will also be a bit of a relief to not have to base my daily activities around the blog, at least for a while. Sooner or later I will miss the daily writing, and I'm sure there will be more I can add to this blog as the months and years go by.
It is, however, a little too soon to shed the goodbye tears. There are still five days to go, and many wonderful pieces to listen to. Today's listening featured one wonderful piece, and another that was once thought to be wonderful (though not by me).
Cherubini: Anacréon Overture - March 21st, 1953
Amazingly, this overture was once a fairly standard part of the orchestral repertoire. Many of the leading conductors of the first half of the twentieth century (Furtwängler, for example) recorded it, and I still don't really know why. I find there to very little to like in the way of melodic interest or formal shape. Whatever the reason for its earlier success, Toscanini performed the work four times with the NBC Symphony. This recording is taken from the last of those four broadcasts. This is a competent enough performance, but if there is more to like in this overture than meets the ear I didn't get it from this recording.
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis - March 30th and 31st, 1953
Toscanini conducted the Missa Solemnis for the first time in 1934, when he was sixty-six years old - this studio recording came nineteen years later. If you believe Toscanini biographer Harvey Sachs, a considerable transformation in the maestro's interpretation occurred during that time. Sachs compares three of the surviving Toscanini performances of the Missa Solemnis: a New York Philharmonic broadcast from 1935, an NBC broadcast from 1940, and this 1953 studio recording.
Sachs notes of the earliest of these performances that "most of his tempi are the slowest I have ever heard in any performance of this work…There is great flexibility in the handling of every section, and the total effect is uniquely gripping and moving." Of the 1940 NBC version, Sachs believes that "the general conception has become less massive, more dramatic." And finally, of the studio recording, that "the tempi become faster, but the modifications within those tempi have been reduced to the barest minimum: everything is done with the greatest simplicity."
Comparing these three recordings that took place over the course of eighteen years can be taken as a microcosm of the orthodox view of the evolution of Toscanini's interpretations: that they became faster and tighter over the years. Sachs himself cautions against reading this as a generality of all of Toscanini's work because it happens to be true of the Missa Solemnis, and the more recent biography by Mortimer H. Frank is particularly vociferous about there being no hard and fast patterns in this regard. I would agree with them to some extent, but aging is most certainly a pattern, and it is a fact that certain views and manners are going to evolve with age. Preference for one view or another notwithstanding, there is no shame in one performing a piece differently at age eighty than one did at forty. This may be a result of degenerating physical or mental capacities, or it may simply be a matter of seeing things differently. Either way, some degree of change is inevitable.
I have not heard either of the earlier two recordings Sachs compares to this studio recording, but I can easily believe that things have become tighter by 1953. This is certainly not a spacious take on the Missa Solemnis, and that has its strengths and weaknesses. I would definitely not wish for a tempo any slower than Toscanini takes for the radiantly exuberant Gloria, and the military sounds that accompany the Dona Nobis Pacem have a shattering irony to them that I have heard in no other performance. Yet the overall effect is one of breathless and very much earthbound momentum. This defeats the timeless expression of eternity that resonates within Beethoven's creation. For music like this, temporal considerations should be unimportant to anyone but the union representative.
That is my view of this recording at the age of thirty-one. I'm sure I will view it differently at sixty-one. Got a problem with that?
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 76!
Check back tomorrow for a tragic look at the life of a wannabe knight, and also a trip to Italy.
Happy Tuesday!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Day 75: Hungarian Glances
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 75!
It's getting late, so I'll get right to it.
Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun - February 13th and 14th, 1953
This is the ultimate music of otherworldly sensuality, but Toscanini treats Faun with a rather earthbound intensity. This has its own kind of beauty, but it lacks that quietly sublime sonority that makes this music so unspeakably beautiful.
Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 17, 20 and 21 - February 17th, 1953
There is a lot of sparkle to these performances, but not much gypsy feeling. I get the impression from listening to these dances that there was a bit of an interpretive war going on between Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. The orchestra seems to be trying to pull things back and to play these dances with traditional tempo give and take, while Toscanini relentlessly pushes things forward. In an odd way, you actually kind of get the best of both worlds with these performances.
No one alive in 2011 can be absolutely certain what Brahms wanted in terms of tempo consistency (there is a recording dating from 1889 of Brahms playing the first Hungarian Dance, but the sound quality is too poor to infer much about his performance), but the surviving recordings of the dances played Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim at least suggest that the tradition of generous rubato in this music is nothing new. Gypsy violinists still play that way today, and fine performers such as Roby Lakatos and Sándor Járóka keep alive a remarkable musical tradition that has likely existed for a very long time. Brahms took the tunes for his Hungarian Dances from the gypsy tradition, and I see no reason to think that he didn't want them performed as a gypsy would have played them.
At the same time, it is easy to carry this too far, and to unthinkingly apply extreme tempo modifications to this music simply because they seem "authentic." Some continuity of time is required for these pieces to have a danceable character. Toscanini certainly does provide that consistency - too much so, in my view. But the attempts of the NBC Symphony to pull the dances back into line with tradition are audible, and in fact almost give the impression of rubato in places where there is none. Between the will of the conductor and that of the ensemble, an ideal middle ground is paradoxically reached.
Toscanini did not perform in the Hungarian Dances in an "authentic" way, but he had a very compelling way with them that became something wonderful when carried out by the right orchestra. At least on this occasion, the NBC Symphony was the right orchestra.
Schubert: Symphony No. 5 - March 17th, 1953
This symphony was the last work to enter Toscanini's repertory. The eighty-five year old conductor programmed it for the first and only time on March 14th, 1953. This recording comes from a studio session held three days after that broadcast.
This performance has a very trim and focused sonority that looks forward to the more stylistically aware days of a later era. Yet there is warmth to accompany the precision, and Toscanini never allows the rhythmic momentum to overflow the musical line.
Respighi: Pines of Rome - March 17th, 1953
My parents owned a copy of the old RCA LP of this recording, and I remember being very disappointed by it when I was younger. The NBC Symphony was simply not as polished an ensemble as most of the orchestras that have recorded Pines of Rome over the last twenty years or so, and I had a hard time looking past that.
It is still not entirely easy for me to listen to this recording without wincing at some of grittier moments (the brass intonation is spotty throughout, and there is a dreadfully exposed oboe splat in the third movement), but this time around I was able to concentrate on Toscanini's remarkable pacing. His performance of the final movement in particular perfectly realizes the extraordinary transition from darkness to blinding light that makes this work so iconic as an example of the sheer splendor of symphonic sonority.
......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 75!
Check back tomorrow for something solemn, and something anacreonistic.
Happy Monday!
It's getting late, so I'll get right to it.
Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun - February 13th and 14th, 1953
This is the ultimate music of otherworldly sensuality, but Toscanini treats Faun with a rather earthbound intensity. This has its own kind of beauty, but it lacks that quietly sublime sonority that makes this music so unspeakably beautiful.
Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 17, 20 and 21 - February 17th, 1953
There is a lot of sparkle to these performances, but not much gypsy feeling. I get the impression from listening to these dances that there was a bit of an interpretive war going on between Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. The orchestra seems to be trying to pull things back and to play these dances with traditional tempo give and take, while Toscanini relentlessly pushes things forward. In an odd way, you actually kind of get the best of both worlds with these performances.
No one alive in 2011 can be absolutely certain what Brahms wanted in terms of tempo consistency (there is a recording dating from 1889 of Brahms playing the first Hungarian Dance, but the sound quality is too poor to infer much about his performance), but the surviving recordings of the dances played Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim at least suggest that the tradition of generous rubato in this music is nothing new. Gypsy violinists still play that way today, and fine performers such as Roby Lakatos and Sándor Járóka keep alive a remarkable musical tradition that has likely existed for a very long time. Brahms took the tunes for his Hungarian Dances from the gypsy tradition, and I see no reason to think that he didn't want them performed as a gypsy would have played them.
At the same time, it is easy to carry this too far, and to unthinkingly apply extreme tempo modifications to this music simply because they seem "authentic." Some continuity of time is required for these pieces to have a danceable character. Toscanini certainly does provide that consistency - too much so, in my view. But the attempts of the NBC Symphony to pull the dances back into line with tradition are audible, and in fact almost give the impression of rubato in places where there is none. Between the will of the conductor and that of the ensemble, an ideal middle ground is paradoxically reached.
Toscanini did not perform in the Hungarian Dances in an "authentic" way, but he had a very compelling way with them that became something wonderful when carried out by the right orchestra. At least on this occasion, the NBC Symphony was the right orchestra.
Schubert: Symphony No. 5 - March 17th, 1953
This symphony was the last work to enter Toscanini's repertory. The eighty-five year old conductor programmed it for the first and only time on March 14th, 1953. This recording comes from a studio session held three days after that broadcast.
This performance has a very trim and focused sonority that looks forward to the more stylistically aware days of a later era. Yet there is warmth to accompany the precision, and Toscanini never allows the rhythmic momentum to overflow the musical line.
Respighi: Pines of Rome - March 17th, 1953
My parents owned a copy of the old RCA LP of this recording, and I remember being very disappointed by it when I was younger. The NBC Symphony was simply not as polished an ensemble as most of the orchestras that have recorded Pines of Rome over the last twenty years or so, and I had a hard time looking past that.
It is still not entirely easy for me to listen to this recording without wincing at some of grittier moments (the brass intonation is spotty throughout, and there is a dreadfully exposed oboe splat in the third movement), but this time around I was able to concentrate on Toscanini's remarkable pacing. His performance of the final movement in particular perfectly realizes the extraordinary transition from darkness to blinding light that makes this work so iconic as an example of the sheer splendor of symphonic sonority.
......................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 75!
Check back tomorrow for something solemn, and something anacreonistic.
Happy Monday!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Day 74: The Killer Flutes
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.
.....................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 74!
Check back tomorrow, when I'll be pining for Hungary and more Schubert.
Happy Sunday!
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.
.....................................................................................................................................
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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