Toscanini:
- The Maestro
The year was about 1955, and I was living in Denver, Colorado. I recall that I was sitting on the floor, right next to our family’s “Hi-Fi”, which in those days was composed of a Pilot AM/FM tuner, a Bogen amplifier, and a 33 – RPM record player. The equipment was set to a radio station that was about to broadcast a live concert by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
The maestro frequently performed works of Verdi, Rossini, Wagner, and Beethoven. On that day, however, he was going to perform the Symphony #40 by Mozart. I still recall how marvelous that performance was. And I literally almost jumped up and down and danced in the living room when the last movement began! Great musical memories—
On this DVD we get to view a documentary about the work of Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini whose career spanned across the 19th and 20th century. The program contains footage of Toscanini on television and in film, with home movies, clips from the Salzburg Festival in the 1930’s, and input from those who worked with him.
Arturo Toscanini raised the standards of orchestral and operatic performance over his 69 years on the podium. But as he did so, he acquired a reputation as something of a tyrant, who unleashed an explosive temper at musicians if rehearsals did not meet his expectations. He would scream at musicians “Stupido… ignoranti…” and he would stomp off the stage. But the results that he achieved were legendary.
Here is Arturo Toscanini conducting the Mozart Symphony No 40 G minor, K 550: (Yea… synchronization between video and audio is pretty poor!)
http://youtu.be/CuRN4ubSbsE
And here is Toscanini conducting Beethoven’s Symphony No.9:
And next, here is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, 1st movement, with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony orchestra:
Tags: Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony, Maestro
You were listening to the March 21, 1953 broadcast of the Mozart Symphony No.40. The broadcast also included the Cherubini Anacreon Overture and the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Overture. Source: The Maestro, magazine of The Arturo Toscanini Society, January-December 1970 issue. page 54. Toscanini’s titanic outbursts were always understood by his musicians to result from his striving toward orchestral perfection in the service of the composer. Gustav Mahler, the great turn-of-the century rival, was in the same “tyranical” mode.