Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 73!
Today's listening brought two overtures, a surprising symphony, and some titillating pictures.
Beethoven: Egmont Overture - January 19th, 1953
The best performances of this overture are characterized by a carefully modulated transition from darkness to light that never lose a sense of inevitability. Toscanini's tight-fisted approach to this work prevents such a realization, and instead make it sound coldly clinical. I doubt Beethoven would have approved.
Rossini: William Tell Overture - January 19th, 1953
This is an excellent performance, but what struck me most was the extraordinary quality of the recorded sound. RCA really stepped up to the plate for this one, and produced a recording that beautifully recreates every nuance of the Toscanini sound. The pictorial aspects of the overture are played with powerfully vivid colors by the NBC Symphony, and immaculately reproduced in this top-notch CD release.
Haydn: Symphony No. 94 - January 26th, 1953
This Surprise Symphony is no surprise, really. All in all this is one of Toscanini's most satisfying and energetic recordings of an 18 century symphony, but it lacks the element of surprise that gives the work its name. A shame really, because in many ways this performance is so right in its focused drive, yet falls short right where it needs the theatrical element Toscanini should have been the perfect man to provide. What should have left me surprised ended up leaving me slightly queasy.
Mussorgsky/Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition - January 26th, 1953
I don't agree with everything Toscanini does to this score, but there is no denying its visceral power. The maestro often called the Ravel version of this work history's greatest treatise on orchestration, but this did not stop him from altering significant portions of that orchestration. The Great Gate of Kiev, for example, has numerous details changed, including brass lines reassigned to the strings and numerous additions being made to the timpani part. The result is undeniably impressive in its resultant sonority, though I think Ravel's original is more precisely calculated in its range of effects. In short, as impressive a piece of work as this recording is, it should not be considered a fully successful statement of Ravel's intentions as orchestrator.
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That's it for Day 73!
Check back tomorrow for a whole new world of great symphonies.
Happy Saturday!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Day 72: Heaven's Gait
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 72!
For today I listened to two operatic excerpts and an overture that was based on music from an opera. I also watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Today was a good day.
Gluck: Overture from Iphigenia in Aulis - November 22nd, 1952
Fail.
I take a very protective attitude towards this overture, as the middle school orchestra version of it I played in 6th grade was what first attracted me to the music of Gluck. I read obsessively about the composer and badgered my parents to buy me recordings of all of his mature operas. I may have been an unusual kid, but darn it I had an appreciation for late 18th century operatic reforms! I tried to play that card on the playground, but somehow I kept getting beaten up. Moving right along...
Toscanini uses the Wagner arrangement of this overture, which in itself is no great sin (though a moderate one), except that he also interprets it in a massive, bloated Wagnerian manner that prevents the musical line from making any sense. This is music of extraordinary, sublime beauty, but you wouldn't know it from this recording. I shouldn't take it personally, but then this music mean a lot to me personally.
Gluck: Act II from Orfeo ed Euridice - November 22nd, 1952
Orfeo was the oldest opera Toscanini ever conducted. The only other 18th century operas the maestro ever conducted were Armide, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. I don't know if that's necessarily indicative of a general lack of interest in the music of that century (though I think it is). But it does suggest that Toscanini did not lead this music with enough frequency to really have a fluent way with it, and this Gluck recording puts that on uncomfortable display.
Rather like the Iphigenia overture (taken from the same broadcast), Orfeo is afflicted by a bloated, slow-moving pulse that prevents any continuity of line and (more importantly) completely ruins the work's dramatic impact. The sleeve note writer for the RCA CD somehow makes a virtue of this, but noting that Toscanini's "expansiveness made the music seem less trivial and more terrifying." To this I say "uh, what?" I hear no terror in these Furies; only a lumbering, bored gait.
Perhaps this is appropriate. This being the story of Orpheus in the underworld, I guess you might say he had reached the Gaits of Heaven.
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture - January 19th, 1953
Much better.
Toscanini was an outstanding Berlioz conductor at a time when little of that composer's music was being performed. Here he leads this fabulous overture with brilliantly flowing line and extraordinary vitality. Why couldn't Toscanini achieve the same thing with the Gluck?
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That's it for Day 72!
Check back tomorrow for two overtures, a Haydn symphony, and pictures from an exhibitionist.
Happy Friday!
For today I listened to two operatic excerpts and an overture that was based on music from an opera. I also watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Today was a good day.
Gluck: Overture from Iphigenia in Aulis - November 22nd, 1952
Fail.
I take a very protective attitude towards this overture, as the middle school orchestra version of it I played in 6th grade was what first attracted me to the music of Gluck. I read obsessively about the composer and badgered my parents to buy me recordings of all of his mature operas. I may have been an unusual kid, but darn it I had an appreciation for late 18th century operatic reforms! I tried to play that card on the playground, but somehow I kept getting beaten up. Moving right along...
Toscanini uses the Wagner arrangement of this overture, which in itself is no great sin (though a moderate one), except that he also interprets it in a massive, bloated Wagnerian manner that prevents the musical line from making any sense. This is music of extraordinary, sublime beauty, but you wouldn't know it from this recording. I shouldn't take it personally, but then this music mean a lot to me personally.
Gluck: Act II from Orfeo ed Euridice - November 22nd, 1952
Orfeo was the oldest opera Toscanini ever conducted. The only other 18th century operas the maestro ever conducted were Armide, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. I don't know if that's necessarily indicative of a general lack of interest in the music of that century (though I think it is). But it does suggest that Toscanini did not lead this music with enough frequency to really have a fluent way with it, and this Gluck recording puts that on uncomfortable display.
Rather like the Iphigenia overture (taken from the same broadcast), Orfeo is afflicted by a bloated, slow-moving pulse that prevents any continuity of line and (more importantly) completely ruins the work's dramatic impact. The sleeve note writer for the RCA CD somehow makes a virtue of this, but noting that Toscanini's "expansiveness made the music seem less trivial and more terrifying." To this I say "uh, what?" I hear no terror in these Furies; only a lumbering, bored gait.
Perhaps this is appropriate. This being the story of Orpheus in the underworld, I guess you might say he had reached the Gaits of Heaven.
Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture - January 19th, 1953
Much better.
Toscanini was an outstanding Berlioz conductor at a time when little of that composer's music was being performed. Here he leads this fabulous overture with brilliantly flowing line and extraordinary vitality. Why couldn't Toscanini achieve the same thing with the Gluck?
........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 72!
Check back tomorrow for two overtures, a Haydn symphony, and pictures from an exhibitionist.
Happy Friday!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Day 71: Splendor in the Brass
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!
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.
...........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 71!
Check back tomorrow for some Gluck, and some French music from Rome.
Happy Thursday!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Day 70: This Totally Tannhaused Me
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 70!
Today I listened to the first three recordings of Toscanini's sixteenth and penultimate season with NBC. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks, two out of these three recordings are excellent, and that ain't bad.
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 - November 4th, 1952
Oh dear. Oh…oh dear. Every now and then an absolutely inexplicable dud comes up in this project, and this unspeakably dreadful recording is one of them.
Toscanini was frequently an edgy conductor when it came to his basic conception of tempo (although not to the over-simplified extent bizarrely leveled at him by admirers and detractors alike). But when he did interpret a score in a slow, weighty manner, the work often attained monumental grandeur and supple flexibility. Not so in this off-the-charts awful Brahms recording, a performance that makes you say "but…wha…why??" The tempos throughout are crawlingly slow, but do not elicit any sense of breadth. Rather, the result is a limp, lifeless wet noodle that never comes to life.
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks - November 4th, 1952
Toscanini always called himself a man of the theatre, and his long experience in that area made him a particularly ideal conductor of programmatic music. This recording of Till Eulenspiegel is an apt example of this, featuring a remarkable attention to dramatic content that is free of gratuitous sentimentality. The impish characteristics of the merry prankster are perfectly conveyed without degenerating into clownish caricature.
Since tempo is such an annoyingly ubiquitous topic with Toscanini discussions, I thought I would note for the record that this 1952 account of Till Eulenspiegel clocks in at fifteen minutes, thirteen seconds, which is precisely one second faster than the timing of the composer's own 1944 recording. I thought you might want to know.
Wagner: Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser - November 8th, 1952
The news coming out of Penn State this week is making it frighteningly evident how easy it is for a career to end in shame, rather than in the blaze of glory that might have been. Arturo Toscanini was never plagued by the kind of scandal afflicting Joe Paterno right now, but I have no doubt that he considered the manner of his exit from the podium to be of the profoundest possible humiliation.
Toscanini's final NBC broadcast in April of 1954 marked the one time he ever entirely lost control of a performance. During that all-Wagner broadcast the maestro was overcome by what was likely a combination of emotion and loss of memory, and stopped conducting for a number of bars. The ensemble came close to falling apart, but cellist Frank Miller managed to hold things together by giving cues with his bow. NBC immediately yanked the broadcast from the air, and substituted it with a Brahms recording that had been held in reserve in case something like this were to happen. Toscanini resigned from NBC the next day, and did not conduct publicly again.
The reason I tell this story now is that the work that Toscanini was conducting when he lost control was the Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser. This 1952 recording shows what Toscanini could do with this music when he was entirely lucid, and serves as a revealing gloss on what was to end up causing him so much trouble.
Only a year and a half before he lost it entirely, Toscanini was conducting this music with brilliant power and sweep. The moving dignity of the overture gives way to a bacchanal of furious intensity that in turn ebbs away into sublime silence. Toscanini led this opera at Bayreuth in 1930, and was intimately familiar with the work's dramatic content. The maestro led the Overture and Bacchanal in the concert hall throughout his career, and the theatrical element of the score was always a profound element of these presentations.
One moment of losing control did not destroy Toscanini's legacy, just as a disastrous action in 2002 cannot undo what Joe Paterno achieved at Penn State. But every person who achieves great things wants the story to end happily, and entirely on their own terms. Toscanini's extraordinary longevity prevented that from happening, but the many fine recordings he made over the course of his career will last more deeply in our collective consciousness than the pain of his final broadcast. This wonderful Wagner recording is a perfect example.
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That's it for Day 70!
Check back tomorrow for an even-numbered and even-tempered Beethoven symphony, an overture that shoves destiny down your throat with great force, and an organ recital that hides itself behind a large symphony orchestra.
Happy Wednesday!
Today I listened to the first three recordings of Toscanini's sixteenth and penultimate season with NBC. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks, two out of these three recordings are excellent, and that ain't bad.
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 - November 4th, 1952
Oh dear. Oh…oh dear. Every now and then an absolutely inexplicable dud comes up in this project, and this unspeakably dreadful recording is one of them.
Toscanini was frequently an edgy conductor when it came to his basic conception of tempo (although not to the over-simplified extent bizarrely leveled at him by admirers and detractors alike). But when he did interpret a score in a slow, weighty manner, the work often attained monumental grandeur and supple flexibility. Not so in this off-the-charts awful Brahms recording, a performance that makes you say "but…wha…why??" The tempos throughout are crawlingly slow, but do not elicit any sense of breadth. Rather, the result is a limp, lifeless wet noodle that never comes to life.
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks - November 4th, 1952
Toscanini always called himself a man of the theatre, and his long experience in that area made him a particularly ideal conductor of programmatic music. This recording of Till Eulenspiegel is an apt example of this, featuring a remarkable attention to dramatic content that is free of gratuitous sentimentality. The impish characteristics of the merry prankster are perfectly conveyed without degenerating into clownish caricature.
Since tempo is such an annoyingly ubiquitous topic with Toscanini discussions, I thought I would note for the record that this 1952 account of Till Eulenspiegel clocks in at fifteen minutes, thirteen seconds, which is precisely one second faster than the timing of the composer's own 1944 recording. I thought you might want to know.
Wagner: Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser - November 8th, 1952
The news coming out of Penn State this week is making it frighteningly evident how easy it is for a career to end in shame, rather than in the blaze of glory that might have been. Arturo Toscanini was never plagued by the kind of scandal afflicting Joe Paterno right now, but I have no doubt that he considered the manner of his exit from the podium to be of the profoundest possible humiliation.
Toscanini's final NBC broadcast in April of 1954 marked the one time he ever entirely lost control of a performance. During that all-Wagner broadcast the maestro was overcome by what was likely a combination of emotion and loss of memory, and stopped conducting for a number of bars. The ensemble came close to falling apart, but cellist Frank Miller managed to hold things together by giving cues with his bow. NBC immediately yanked the broadcast from the air, and substituted it with a Brahms recording that had been held in reserve in case something like this were to happen. Toscanini resigned from NBC the next day, and did not conduct publicly again.
The reason I tell this story now is that the work that Toscanini was conducting when he lost control was the Overture and Bacchanal from Tannhäuser. This 1952 recording shows what Toscanini could do with this music when he was entirely lucid, and serves as a revealing gloss on what was to end up causing him so much trouble.
Only a year and a half before he lost it entirely, Toscanini was conducting this music with brilliant power and sweep. The moving dignity of the overture gives way to a bacchanal of furious intensity that in turn ebbs away into sublime silence. Toscanini led this opera at Bayreuth in 1930, and was intimately familiar with the work's dramatic content. The maestro led the Overture and Bacchanal in the concert hall throughout his career, and the theatrical element of the score was always a profound element of these presentations.
One moment of losing control did not destroy Toscanini's legacy, just as a disastrous action in 2002 cannot undo what Joe Paterno achieved at Penn State. But every person who achieves great things wants the story to end happily, and entirely on their own terms. Toscanini's extraordinary longevity prevented that from happening, but the many fine recordings he made over the course of his career will last more deeply in our collective consciousness than the pain of his final broadcast. This wonderful Wagner recording is a perfect example.
..........................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 70!
Check back tomorrow for an even-numbered and even-tempered Beethoven symphony, an overture that shoves destiny down your throat with great force, and an organ recital that hides itself behind a large symphony orchestra.
Happy Wednesday!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Day 69: Real Musicians Don't Let Tornados Stop The Concert
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 69!
For today I listened to seven works that Toscanini recorded on the same day in 1952. I initially felt dubious about doing all of these in one day's entry, but I figured that if Toscanini could record them in one day, I could write about them in one day.
These performances mark the final series of studio recordings Toscanini made during his prolific fifteenth season with NBC. More of his official discography comes from this year during any other of his long career. These performances are for the most part consistently satisfying, and lay at the core of his surviving legacy. These seven pieces discussed today come from the end of that productive season, and are all lighter works, suggesting that Toscanini was ready to have some fun. I had fun, too.
Bizet: Carmen Suite - August 5th, 1952
This is more or less the standard Carmen Suite No. 1, but Toscanini departs from it in a number of respects: the order of movements is switched around, there is an added harp cadenza (composed by Toscanini), and the Toreador music is taken from its appearance in the final act, rather than from the Prelude.
This is a wonderfully energetic performance that perfectly captures the spirit of Bizet's drama. Not every NBC woodwind soloist is absolutely, 100% immaculate, but the overall effect is one of strength and beautiful exoticism.
Catalani: Dance of the Water Nymphs from Loreley - August 5th, 1952
Arturo Toscanini was in many respects a far from admirable person, but whatever he may have been, he was always unfailingly loyal to his friends. Alfredo Catalani was a successful composer of traditional (in other words: not verismo) Italian opera, and a close friend of Toscanini who died much too young. The maestro conducted a number of Catalani's operas throughout his career in the theatre, and occasionally performed two excerpts from those works in the concert hall.
Though I admit I have little to go on, Catalani's music strikes as a sort of poor man's Puccini. They share a similar melodic sweep and dramatic intensity, but the latter composer is consistently more compelling in his use of those materials. Toscanini's performance of this dance is certainly a lovely one, but it does not really draw one into the dramatic content of the opera (not that I know what that content is, but this performance should at least suggest it).
Catalani: Prelude to Act IV from La Wally - August 5th, 1952
Toscanini always performed this Prelude as part of a set with the dance discussed above. The conductor obviously felt a great affinity for this opera: he named his eldest daughter Wally, after the lead heroine of the Catalani opera. My feeling for this excerpt is a bit like the Loreley dance. I find it to be a bit bland and characterless, and Toscanini's performance just doesn't draw me in any closer.
Hérold: Zampa Overture - August 5th, 1952
The Zampa overture is another one of those works that I will always associate with a cartoon. In this case, the cartoon was the amazing 1935 Disney short The Band Concert. This is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that centeres around a band that overcomes pretty remarkable adversity (including playing through a tornado) to perform music such as the Zampa and William Tell overtures. Interestingly enough, Toscanini was himself evidently a big fan of this cartoon, and it's probably not that much of a stretch to think that The Band Concert may have inspired him to perform Zampa himself. This 1952 recording is wonderfully fresh and exciting, and immaculately played by the NBC Symphony.
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel Prelude - August 5th, 1952
It has become a bit of a cliché to describe this opera as "children's Wagner," but from how Toscanini performs this overture I think it's an apt way to put it. There is a serious depth of of sonority in this recording, but it possesses a fresher, more innocent feel than Toscanini's Wagner performances.
Sibelius: Finlandia - August 5th, 1952
Wow, this is fabulous. Toscanini grew up hearing tales of his father serving in Garibaldi's army towards the cause of Italian statehood, and carried with him that zeal for national independence for the rest of his life. Finlandia was the ultimate expression of Finnish nationalism, and I'm sure that it tremendously appealed to Toscanini's sensibilities. The maestro could be very uneven in his Sibelius interpretations (his recording of the Symphony No. 2 was utterly dreadful, while Pohjola's Daughter was breathtakingly beautiful), but he gave Finlandia an unfailingly dignified and moving grandeur.
Weber: Oberon Overture - August 5th, 1952
This is certainly breathlessly paced, but very exciting. This overture is usually taken at a more deliberate speed than Toscanini takes it, but this opera is, of course, about fairies. It makes little sense to approach this music with a weighty gait, and Toscanini gives it all the fairyland atmosphere one could hope for.
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That's it for Day 69!
Check back tomorrow for three solid German works, only one of which ends with someone being hanged.
Happy Tuesday!
For today I listened to seven works that Toscanini recorded on the same day in 1952. I initially felt dubious about doing all of these in one day's entry, but I figured that if Toscanini could record them in one day, I could write about them in one day.
These performances mark the final series of studio recordings Toscanini made during his prolific fifteenth season with NBC. More of his official discography comes from this year during any other of his long career. These performances are for the most part consistently satisfying, and lay at the core of his surviving legacy. These seven pieces discussed today come from the end of that productive season, and are all lighter works, suggesting that Toscanini was ready to have some fun. I had fun, too.
Bizet: Carmen Suite - August 5th, 1952
This is more or less the standard Carmen Suite No. 1, but Toscanini departs from it in a number of respects: the order of movements is switched around, there is an added harp cadenza (composed by Toscanini), and the Toreador music is taken from its appearance in the final act, rather than from the Prelude.
This is a wonderfully energetic performance that perfectly captures the spirit of Bizet's drama. Not every NBC woodwind soloist is absolutely, 100% immaculate, but the overall effect is one of strength and beautiful exoticism.
Catalani: Dance of the Water Nymphs from Loreley - August 5th, 1952
Arturo Toscanini was in many respects a far from admirable person, but whatever he may have been, he was always unfailingly loyal to his friends. Alfredo Catalani was a successful composer of traditional (in other words: not verismo) Italian opera, and a close friend of Toscanini who died much too young. The maestro conducted a number of Catalani's operas throughout his career in the theatre, and occasionally performed two excerpts from those works in the concert hall.
Though I admit I have little to go on, Catalani's music strikes as a sort of poor man's Puccini. They share a similar melodic sweep and dramatic intensity, but the latter composer is consistently more compelling in his use of those materials. Toscanini's performance of this dance is certainly a lovely one, but it does not really draw one into the dramatic content of the opera (not that I know what that content is, but this performance should at least suggest it).
Catalani: Prelude to Act IV from La Wally - August 5th, 1952
Toscanini always performed this Prelude as part of a set with the dance discussed above. The conductor obviously felt a great affinity for this opera: he named his eldest daughter Wally, after the lead heroine of the Catalani opera. My feeling for this excerpt is a bit like the Loreley dance. I find it to be a bit bland and characterless, and Toscanini's performance just doesn't draw me in any closer.
Hérold: Zampa Overture - August 5th, 1952
The Zampa overture is another one of those works that I will always associate with a cartoon. In this case, the cartoon was the amazing 1935 Disney short The Band Concert. This is a Mickey Mouse cartoon that centeres around a band that overcomes pretty remarkable adversity (including playing through a tornado) to perform music such as the Zampa and William Tell overtures. Interestingly enough, Toscanini was himself evidently a big fan of this cartoon, and it's probably not that much of a stretch to think that The Band Concert may have inspired him to perform Zampa himself. This 1952 recording is wonderfully fresh and exciting, and immaculately played by the NBC Symphony.
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel Prelude - August 5th, 1952
It has become a bit of a cliché to describe this opera as "children's Wagner," but from how Toscanini performs this overture I think it's an apt way to put it. There is a serious depth of of sonority in this recording, but it possesses a fresher, more innocent feel than Toscanini's Wagner performances.
Sibelius: Finlandia - August 5th, 1952
Wow, this is fabulous. Toscanini grew up hearing tales of his father serving in Garibaldi's army towards the cause of Italian statehood, and carried with him that zeal for national independence for the rest of his life. Finlandia was the ultimate expression of Finnish nationalism, and I'm sure that it tremendously appealed to Toscanini's sensibilities. The maestro could be very uneven in his Sibelius interpretations (his recording of the Symphony No. 2 was utterly dreadful, while Pohjola's Daughter was breathtakingly beautiful), but he gave Finlandia an unfailingly dignified and moving grandeur.
Weber: Oberon Overture - August 5th, 1952
This is certainly breathlessly paced, but very exciting. This overture is usually taken at a more deliberate speed than Toscanini takes it, but this opera is, of course, about fairies. It makes little sense to approach this music with a weighty gait, and Toscanini gives it all the fairyland atmosphere one could hope for.
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That's it for Day 69!
Check back tomorrow for three solid German works, only one of which ends with someone being hanged.
Happy Tuesday!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Day 68: It's Best To Not Look Behind The Stove
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 68!
Today's listening took me to four works recorded on the same day in 1952.
Liadov: Kikimora - July 29th, 1952
When I set out to listen to this score of Anatoly Liadov I had a very strong and immediate reaction: "What the hell is a Kikimora?"
My scholarly researches led me to a wikipedia article that explains that "Kikimora is a legendary creature, a female house spirit in Slavic Mythology, sometimes said to be married to the Domovoi. She usually lives behind the stove or in the cellar of the house she haunts." I think that explains why I can never get my soup hot enough.
This is a curious piece, sort of a mix of The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Baba Yaga. I have nothing to judge Toscanini's recording against, but it is an effective performance. The low strings are particularly full-sounding in the introduction, and the woodwind solos have a sparkling clarity to them.
Now if only we can do something about that soup.
Thomas: Mignon Overture - July 29th, 1952
There is nothing in the slightest bit stereotypically Toscanini about this recording. I don't know for sure if that's a good thing, but it makes for extremely compelling listening.
From the beginning, this performance is marked by an extraordinary breadth and flexibility of tempo more reminiscent of conductors like Leonard Bernstein. That Toscanini was quite capable of conducting like this is certainly not surprising when you have listened to a significant sampling of his work, but it is far from the image of the tight-fisted, metronomically rigid conductor that has become all too common.
This is all very mundane, however. The more pertinent point is whether or not this approach is appropriate to the music.
The schmaltzy manner with which Toscanini treats the first half of this overture is more akin to Viennese waltzes than to French overtures. I cannot say whether it is right or wrong to interpret the music in this way, but it is very beautiful. It even made me think of some of the gushier moments of the James Bond scores composed by John Barry. This conception doesn't sound very French to my ears, but it is all too easy to get bogged down with national boundaries in interpretation. I strongly doubt that most composers think of their own music in nationalist terms, and Ambroise Thomas probably felt it was more important for his music to be beautiful than to be idiomatically French, Viennese, Cambodian, Klingon or anything else.
Of course, there are many ways you can define beauty, and it is entirely possible that a more stereotypically Toscanini performance would have been exactly what the composer wanted. In the absence of any proof in that regard, I am happy to accept what sounds right to me, and I like this very much.
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda - July 29th, 1952
Most people (and by "most people," I mean "me") who have seen Fantasia have a hard time listening to this music without thinking of those dancing hippos in their tutus. But it turns out that there is an entire opera attached to these dances, and Toscanini's association with the work goes back to his very first run as a conductor in 1886, at the age of nineteen. Toscanini continued to lead the opera throughout his career in the theatre, and his expert way with the famous Dance of the Hours likely has to do with his immaculate understanding of the context that surrounds the interlude. That's a guess, of course, since I don't know anything about the opera, but it seems logical. All I know is that Toscanini's recording is fabulous.
Wager: Siegfried Idyll - July 29th, 1952
This is the last of the three official recordings Toscanini made of this work, and it is by far the broadest and warmest of them. This 1952 recording is about a minute and a half longer than the 1936 and 1946 accounts, and this extra expanse is used to canvas out a a reading that is deeply passionate and transcendently delicate.
Incidentally, Robert C. Marsh writes of this recording that "Students of concert life in New York should note that this ends with a fanfare of automobile horns." I listened very closely to the ending and could detect nothing of blaring car horns. Either modern remastering has gotten rid of the offending sounds, or perhaps the cars driven in New York in the 50s were quite Wagnerian in tone quality.
.............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 68!
Check back tomorrow for a lengthy list of short pieces I don't even want to think about right now. Just like my shopping list.
Happy Monday!
Today's listening took me to four works recorded on the same day in 1952.
Liadov: Kikimora - July 29th, 1952
When I set out to listen to this score of Anatoly Liadov I had a very strong and immediate reaction: "What the hell is a Kikimora?"
My scholarly researches led me to a wikipedia article that explains that "Kikimora is a legendary creature, a female house spirit in Slavic Mythology, sometimes said to be married to the Domovoi. She usually lives behind the stove or in the cellar of the house she haunts." I think that explains why I can never get my soup hot enough.
This is a curious piece, sort of a mix of The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Baba Yaga. I have nothing to judge Toscanini's recording against, but it is an effective performance. The low strings are particularly full-sounding in the introduction, and the woodwind solos have a sparkling clarity to them.
Now if only we can do something about that soup.
Thomas: Mignon Overture - July 29th, 1952
There is nothing in the slightest bit stereotypically Toscanini about this recording. I don't know for sure if that's a good thing, but it makes for extremely compelling listening.
From the beginning, this performance is marked by an extraordinary breadth and flexibility of tempo more reminiscent of conductors like Leonard Bernstein. That Toscanini was quite capable of conducting like this is certainly not surprising when you have listened to a significant sampling of his work, but it is far from the image of the tight-fisted, metronomically rigid conductor that has become all too common.
This is all very mundane, however. The more pertinent point is whether or not this approach is appropriate to the music.
The schmaltzy manner with which Toscanini treats the first half of this overture is more akin to Viennese waltzes than to French overtures. I cannot say whether it is right or wrong to interpret the music in this way, but it is very beautiful. It even made me think of some of the gushier moments of the James Bond scores composed by John Barry. This conception doesn't sound very French to my ears, but it is all too easy to get bogged down with national boundaries in interpretation. I strongly doubt that most composers think of their own music in nationalist terms, and Ambroise Thomas probably felt it was more important for his music to be beautiful than to be idiomatically French, Viennese, Cambodian, Klingon or anything else.
Of course, there are many ways you can define beauty, and it is entirely possible that a more stereotypically Toscanini performance would have been exactly what the composer wanted. In the absence of any proof in that regard, I am happy to accept what sounds right to me, and I like this very much.
Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda - July 29th, 1952
Most people (and by "most people," I mean "me") who have seen Fantasia have a hard time listening to this music without thinking of those dancing hippos in their tutus. But it turns out that there is an entire opera attached to these dances, and Toscanini's association with the work goes back to his very first run as a conductor in 1886, at the age of nineteen. Toscanini continued to lead the opera throughout his career in the theatre, and his expert way with the famous Dance of the Hours likely has to do with his immaculate understanding of the context that surrounds the interlude. That's a guess, of course, since I don't know anything about the opera, but it seems logical. All I know is that Toscanini's recording is fabulous.
Wager: Siegfried Idyll - July 29th, 1952
This is the last of the three official recordings Toscanini made of this work, and it is by far the broadest and warmest of them. This 1952 recording is about a minute and a half longer than the 1936 and 1946 accounts, and this extra expanse is used to canvas out a a reading that is deeply passionate and transcendently delicate.
Incidentally, Robert C. Marsh writes of this recording that "Students of concert life in New York should note that this ends with a fanfare of automobile horns." I listened very closely to the ending and could detect nothing of blaring car horns. Either modern remastering has gotten rid of the offending sounds, or perhaps the cars driven in New York in the 50s were quite Wagnerian in tone quality.
.............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 68!
Check back tomorrow for a lengthy list of short pieces I don't even want to think about right now. Just like my shopping list.
Happy Monday!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Day 67: My Symphonies To You At This Difficult Time
Hey everyone! Welcome to Day 67!
For today I listened to two minor-keyed Beethoven symphonies. How odd that they are such major works.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 - March 22nd, 1952
Popularity has been more destructive to this symphony than to just about any another work in the standard orchestral repertoire. Over-familiarity has dulled its shock value, and given charlatan conductors leeway to misrepresent the work however they see fit in the name of having an "imaginative" interpretation.
The good news about this Toscanini recording is that it largely avoids these destructive mannerisms. The bad news is that the performance just isn't very good.
The problem from the very first measures is a general rhythmic unsteadiness. Although Toscanini's finest recordings from this period demonstrate that he was still capable of maintaining strict discipline from the podium, there can be no doubt that the general trend is one of diminishing control. This Beethoven recording never exactly falls apart, but it is wayward enough that momentum is rarely sufficiently maintained to produce successful climaxes. The line frequently meanders and loses focus.
Throughout all of this, Toscanini displays the same interpretive brilliance of his earlier and superior recordings of this symphony. The perfection of his tempos is a big factor in this. The extent to which Beethoven's metronome markings should be taken seriously is a touchy issue with the Fifth, but Toscanini's finest recordings of the work show how effective they can be when the indications are (more or less) adhered to. The scherzo is a perfect example of this, as it is frequently interpreted in a ponderous manner that transforms it into something slower that is most certainly not a scherzo. Toscanini hits Beethoven's tempo pretty much on the nose and elicits a performance of stunning vitality that erupts with passion and precision (or at least that would be the case in a better version of the same interpretation).
Considering the best and worst of this recording leaves me a little uncertain as to how much I like it. Toscanini's 1939 recording of the Fifth is vastly superior as a performance and displays the same interpretive brilliance, yet survives in much duller sound. This may be an instance where a listener has to take all of the available evidence and just use his or her imagination to supply the rest. Not a ringing endorsement, I suppose, but can you think of a better use for the imagination?
Don't answer that.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 - March 31st and April 1st, 1952
Toscanini's 1952 recording of Beethoven's Ninth is one of the most famous and influential of the many versions of the work. It has been used in a wide variety of NBC programs over the last fifty years (most recently in remixed form on Countdown with Keith Obermann), and can still be readily found in the few remaining record stores.
Yet Toscanini himself was a bit uncertain of his interpretive command of the symphony. During these recording sessions he was heard to say "I still don't understand that music." That statement has frequently been cited as an example of the conductor's humility, but some Toscanini biographers feel it was grounded in truth. Mortimer H. Frank, for example, notes that "Among all of Beethoven's orchestral works, the first movement of the Ninth Symphony may be the one whose mysteries he never satisfactorily penetrated." Actually, I think that sentiment could be applied to the whole symphony, at least to some extent.
In many respects I like this recording very much. It has power, intensity, and great beauty of line. But it is also lacking in harmonic drive and structural unity, and frequently meanders in its forward motion. The great Adagio, for example, is as beautifully phrased as I have ever heard, but is so lacking in harmonic weight that it loses all sense of structure. Much of the recording is like this, and as much as I would like to call this a great performance, there is just too much that is unsatisfactory.
............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 67!
Check back tomorrow for four little pieces from four medium to large-sized countries.
Happy Sunday!
For today I listened to two minor-keyed Beethoven symphonies. How odd that they are such major works.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 - March 22nd, 1952
Popularity has been more destructive to this symphony than to just about any another work in the standard orchestral repertoire. Over-familiarity has dulled its shock value, and given charlatan conductors leeway to misrepresent the work however they see fit in the name of having an "imaginative" interpretation.
The good news about this Toscanini recording is that it largely avoids these destructive mannerisms. The bad news is that the performance just isn't very good.
The problem from the very first measures is a general rhythmic unsteadiness. Although Toscanini's finest recordings from this period demonstrate that he was still capable of maintaining strict discipline from the podium, there can be no doubt that the general trend is one of diminishing control. This Beethoven recording never exactly falls apart, but it is wayward enough that momentum is rarely sufficiently maintained to produce successful climaxes. The line frequently meanders and loses focus.
Throughout all of this, Toscanini displays the same interpretive brilliance of his earlier and superior recordings of this symphony. The perfection of his tempos is a big factor in this. The extent to which Beethoven's metronome markings should be taken seriously is a touchy issue with the Fifth, but Toscanini's finest recordings of the work show how effective they can be when the indications are (more or less) adhered to. The scherzo is a perfect example of this, as it is frequently interpreted in a ponderous manner that transforms it into something slower that is most certainly not a scherzo. Toscanini hits Beethoven's tempo pretty much on the nose and elicits a performance of stunning vitality that erupts with passion and precision (or at least that would be the case in a better version of the same interpretation).
Considering the best and worst of this recording leaves me a little uncertain as to how much I like it. Toscanini's 1939 recording of the Fifth is vastly superior as a performance and displays the same interpretive brilliance, yet survives in much duller sound. This may be an instance where a listener has to take all of the available evidence and just use his or her imagination to supply the rest. Not a ringing endorsement, I suppose, but can you think of a better use for the imagination?
Don't answer that.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 - March 31st and April 1st, 1952
Toscanini's 1952 recording of Beethoven's Ninth is one of the most famous and influential of the many versions of the work. It has been used in a wide variety of NBC programs over the last fifty years (most recently in remixed form on Countdown with Keith Obermann), and can still be readily found in the few remaining record stores.
Yet Toscanini himself was a bit uncertain of his interpretive command of the symphony. During these recording sessions he was heard to say "I still don't understand that music." That statement has frequently been cited as an example of the conductor's humility, but some Toscanini biographers feel it was grounded in truth. Mortimer H. Frank, for example, notes that "Among all of Beethoven's orchestral works, the first movement of the Ninth Symphony may be the one whose mysteries he never satisfactorily penetrated." Actually, I think that sentiment could be applied to the whole symphony, at least to some extent.
In many respects I like this recording very much. It has power, intensity, and great beauty of line. But it is also lacking in harmonic drive and structural unity, and frequently meanders in its forward motion. The great Adagio, for example, is as beautifully phrased as I have ever heard, but is so lacking in harmonic weight that it loses all sense of structure. Much of the recording is like this, and as much as I would like to call this a great performance, there is just too much that is unsatisfactory.
............................................................................................................................................
That's it for Day 67!
Check back tomorrow for four little pieces from four medium to large-sized countries.
Happy Sunday!
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