Bach JS. Conc. Brandeburgo nr 2.
Haydn: sinfonia nr 31 "Hornsinal".
Tchaikovsky: sinfonía nr 6.
Orq. NBC. Dir. A. Toscanini.
1938 radio broadcast
October 29, 1938
Johann Sebastian Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047
1 Allegro 5:03
2 Andante 4:02
3 Allegro assai 2:42
Soloists:
Bernard Baker, trumpet; Robert Bloom, oboe; Mischa Misschakoff, violin; John Wummer, flute
Symphony No. 31 in D major ("Hornsignal"), H. 1/31
4
Allegro
Franz Joseph Haydn
4:54
5
Adagio
Franz Joseph Haydn
6:04
6
Minuet & Trio
Franz Joseph Haydn
3:49
7
Presto moderato - Molto presto
Franz Joseph Haydn
11:10
Symphony No. 6 in B minor ("Pathétique"), Op. 74
8
Adagio - Allegro non troppo
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
17:00
9
Allegro con grazia
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
6:37
10
Allegro molto vivace
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
8:28
11
Finale; Adagio lamentaso
Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky
Few orchestral conductors have attained the public recognition accorded Arturo Toscanini, due in part to his many recordings and frequent broadcast performances, but also to his dedication to the art of music-making. In a career spanning 68 years, he did more than anyone to revive the popular image of the all-powerful maestro.
In 1885, at age 19, he graduated from the Parma Conservatory as a cellist, and joined an opera company for a tour of South America. When in Rio de Janeiro, the incompetence of the Brazilian conductor engaged for the tour so incensed the Italian singers and players that he was forced to resign, and the 20-year-old cellist was asked to take the baton for Verdi's Aida. By the end of the tour he had led 26 performances of 11 operas, all from memory.
Between 1887 and 1895, Toscanini conducted in many Italian opera houses, and in 1896 became the principal conductor of Turin's Regio Opera House, leading the first Italian performances of Wagner's Götterdämmerung, Tristan and Isolde and Die Walküre, and the première of Puccini's La Bohème, as well as a series of highly successful orchestral concerts. He was the principal conductor at La Scala, Milan, from 1900 to 1908, and first appeared at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1915, where he conducted the première of Puccini's La fanciulla del West. In the same year he made his debut in the U.S. as a symphonic conductor.
Recalled to La Scala in 1919, he reformed the orchestra and took it on a triumphant tour of the U.S., conducting 67 concerts in 77 days, followed by an Italian tour in which he led 38 concerts in 56 days. From 1926-1927, he was a guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1929 left La Scala to become its permanent conductor, a post he filled until 1939.
In 1937 Toscanini was invited by NBC to conduct broadcast concerts in America with a new symphony orchestra specifically created for the purpose. He then toured with that orchestra to South America in 1940 and throughout the United States in 1950. He also conducted a memorable series of concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London between 1935 and 1939.
Toscanini's opposition to Fascism and Nazism was implacable. In 1931, he was attacked for refusing to play the Giovanezza, a Fascist anthem. In the same year he was the first non-German conductor to appear at the Wagner Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, but refused to return in 1933 in protest of the Nazi's treatment of Jewish musicians. He also turned his back on the Salzburg Festival because the Jewish conductor Bruno Walter's performances there were not broadcast in Germany. In 1938-1939, he conducted without fee at a festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, where the orchestra was composed entirely of musicians who had fled German persecution.
Toscanini's conducting style featured a precise, vigorous beat and vivid body-language, which orchestras understood and responded to with dramatic results. By the end of his career he had memorized 250 symphonic works, and over 100 operas. Though he enthusiastically embraced post-Romantic, twentieth century music, he virtually ignored the Second Viennese School and the new breed of American composers that were making their mark by the 1950s. It was not false modesty, but genuine humility that led him to say in an interview "I am no genius. I have created nothing. I play the music of other men. I am just a musician."
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The 1938 Pathetique marked Toscanini's return to a score that he had last conducted in 1897 (three years after its premiere)... the 1938 broadcast has a rhythmic elasticity, an unforced vitality and an Italianate warmth that are in many ways unique. Go to 630" into the first movement, to the big full-string statement of the big tune, and I defy anyone to quote a rival performance that is either more beautiful or less fussy. The string choirs sweep in with total unanimity, and the effect is both lean and lustrous. Similar observations apply to the finale, which has a candid expressiveness that quite eludes Toscanini's other recordings of the piece. As to the rest, the Scherzo is less taut than in 1941 (NBC), and the attention to nuance — and structure — less acute than in Philadelphia (1942) or at the NBC in 1947 (especially in the first movement). Still, the sympathetic plain-speaking of Toscanini in 1938 might be viewed as the diametric opposite of Furtwdngler's tortured — and interpretatively wilful — Berlin recording from the same year. Both are essential documents. Not that the remainder of this 1938 concert is without musical interest. The Bach and Haydn items — both of which are unique in Toscanini's NBC discography — have previously surfaced in various unofficial incarnations. The Hornsi goal is brusque, forceful and, in the Minuet, despatched without either ceremony or elegance. The finale's theme and variations are warm in tone but heavily stated. It's an interesting performance, fairly well played (save for the odd cracked horn note), whereas the Brandenlrurg Concerto has at its centre a rapturously beautiful Andante where even the discreet cello line sings. Granted, the outer movements are just a little too angular, even stiff-jointed, but the overall impression is of conditional joyousness. As with the Tchaikovsky, the broadcast sound is good for the period and Naxos's transfers are generally excellent. What a treat!
Rob Cowan - GRAMOPHONE, February 2000
