Toscanini: A Collapsed Reputation?

[Guest]

Last week, I picked up his NBC Brahms Symphonies/assorted bits and pieces: the performances impress with their clarity and dynamism and the early remastering obviously did wonders with the very dry original sound of these recordings.

But Toscanini is no longer a name to drop, it would seem. Thirty or so years ago, he was still acknowledged by many as THE conductor of the 20th century....even twenty years ago, I can recall him being mentioned in the same breath as Furtwangler (his long-standing rival)....but nowadays, he seems to be dismissed by many as an old-fashioned hard driver whose renditions of the classic repertoire lack replace poetry with tension.

All nonsense, I'd say. I know he did once have a reputation for 'objectivity' which, on closer inspection, was undeserved (he pretty much tore up the score of the Leningrad Symphony when he recorded it, I hear) but that's no reason to rubbish his entire legacy. Maybe people have strong memories of those drily-recorded NBC sessions, which tended to make listening to his recordings a bit of an ordeal?

Anyway, I'd argue that his recording of Otello is the only one that makes that opera sound like the masterpiece many maintain it is.

[Auferstehen2]

Hello Mandryka!

On the “Best Conductors" thread, I ended up being the lone voice supporting Carlos Kleiber as the No 1 conductor (as voted by other conductors). I may end up experiencing a self-imposed solitary confinement again, but I have just purchased that very box of Brahms 4 Symphonies, and apart from the touching up of various parts that dent his reputation somewhat for me, no one, but no one gets to the heart of a score closer than he.

I also have a few rehearsals of him, and even in such an innocuous work as Beethoven’s Coriolan overture, he manages to fill the skipping outwardly-seeming happy theme on the violins with such a tight tension, it seems precisely in keeping with Beethoven’s vision. I also have his Otello and Falstaff recordings but haven't touched them yet.

A terror for orchestral musicians? I’m insufficiently read to pass judgement, but maybe, just maybe, the ends justified the means?

Best wishes,

Mario

[Mandryka]

Hello Mandryka!

On the “Best Conductors" thread, I ended up being the lone voice supporting Carlos Kleiber as the No 1 conductor (as voted by other conductors). I may end up experiencing a self-imposed solitary confinement again, but I have just purchased that very box of Brahms 4 Symphonies, and apart from the touching up of various parts that dent his reputation somewhat for me, no one, but no one gets to the heart of a score closer than he.

I also have a few rehearsals of him, and even in such an innocuous work as Beethoven’s Coriolan overture, he manages to fill the skipping outwardly-seeming happy theme on the violins with such a tight tension, it seems precisely in keeping with Beethoven’s vision. I also have his Otello and Falstaff recordings but haven't touched them yet.

A terror for orchestral musicians? I’m insufficiently read to pass judgement, but maybe, just maybe, the ends justified the means?

Best wishes,

Mario

Hello, Mario

I've heard recordings of his rehearsals and I think the 'terror' epithet may well be justified. Then again, I'm sure he was no worse, in this respect, than many other martinets of his generation.

I think your point about the Coriolan overture is a good one: his recording of Sibelius 2 redefines this work, giving us a torrid Mediterranean landscape where other conductors go for the default of Scandinavian ice girders.

[french frank]

I appreciate the directness of your thread titles, Mandryka. I was half expecting 'Toscanini: Dead'

[Ferretfancy]

Toscanini was probably the first conductor to benefit ( if that's the right word ) from intensive marketing, particularly where his recordings were concerned, with enormous hype from NBC. Maybe Stokowski was another American commercial phenomenon, but not so much as Toscanini. He was certainly a hard driver in his postwar career, but his pre-war recordings are quite another story.I would not like to be without his Beethoven 1 & 4 with the BBC SO, and I still remember as a schoolboy hearing his broadcasts of Brahms with the Philharmonia from the RFH.

[Mandryka]

Toscanini was probably the first conductor to benefit ( if that's the right word ) from intensive marketing, particularly where his recordings were concerned, with enormous hype from NBC. Maybe Stokowski was another American commercial phenomenon, but not so much as Toscanini. He was certainly a hard driver in his postwar career, but his pre-war recordings are quite another story.I would not like to be without his Beethoven 1 & 4 with the BBC SO, and I still remember as a schoolboy hearing his broadcasts of Brahms with the Philharmonia from the RFH.

That would be the Brahms cycle that's now on Testmament, would it not?

I'll admit to not being as familiar with his pre-WW2 recordings and have never heard any of the acoustic recordings he made at La Scala (sidebar question: have acoustic recordings of orchestral music got any value at all, beyond being curios?). I HAVE heard the BBC concerts from 1935 which do convey was A.T. was about at that stage of his career and were incredibly well-recorded.

[Roslynmuse]

I haven't heard a great many of Toscanini's recordings, but I grew up with his NBC Dvorak 9 (not heard for many years so am not prepared to comment beyond its personal, sentimental value) and the old LP box of Philadelphia recordings, which I now have on CD. They got short shrift from reviewers when they were eventually re-released in c 1976/7, but the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream music, despite the poor sound quality, has a magic that I have never heard anywhere else. More recently, I listened to the final scene of Gotterdammerung on the Great Conductors series and was amazed by the detail, tension and sheer energy of the music making. Whether it's too hard-driven or not is another matter, but far better this than the polished but anonymous performances we hear all too frequently.

[Auferstehen2]

Whether it's too hard-driven or not is another matter, but far better this than the polished but anonymous performances we hear all too frequently.

Mario

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think Toscanini's reputation for "hard-driven" performances is largely a result of those unflattering RCA recordings. Musically, they are strong, but rarely hard-driven.

[amateur51]

I think this thread is a classic Mandryka thread, based on a mischieviously false premise

What evidence is there that Toscaninui's reputation has collapsed?

As we move away from his time and as his recordings sound less & less modern perhaps he isn't as prominent in discussions as he once was, for sure

But why then does Pristine Classical continue to restore his recordings (currently numbering over 50 recordings) and make them available in possibly best-ever sound??

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/indexes/ArtistT.html#toscanini

[Flosshilde]

I have a recording by him of the Verdi Requiem, & it has the most terrifying Dies Irae I've heard. (It's an RCA, in a gold box - I don't know, without dragging it out of the cupboard where my vinyl discs are stored, who is playing/singing)

[vinteuil]

I think this thread is a classic Mandryka thread, based on a mischieviously false premise

What evidence is there that Toscanini's reputation has collapsed?


:

I have always loved his Falstaff - and I still get great pleasure from his Franck Symphony, Verdi Requiem, Sibelius 2, Brahms 1 and 2, Beethoven 1,2,3, and 5...

As far as I recall, when composers of his period are discussed on Radio 3 - or indeed here - he is talked of with the same kind of respect that is accorded to Furtwangler and others...

[umslopogaas]

Flosshilde (post 11) I've got an RCA recording of the Verdi Requiem conducted by Toscanini on 2 mono LPs (RB 16131/2). It was recorded during an actual performance in Carnegie Hall on 27 Jan 1951, given by the NBC SO. Soloists were Herva Nelli, Fedora Barbieri, Giuseppe di Stefano and Cesar Siepi with the Robert Shaw Chorale (phew, quite a line-up!).

[gradus]

I am an admirer of the old tyrant's recordings, for example the Beethoven 7th from the thirties, still my favourite version.

[Chris Newman]

I enjoy giving Toscanini's records a spin now and again. Like Sir Charles Mackerras he blows the varnish and cobwebs off works we take for granted. I have a different Verdi Requiem to Flosshilde with the BBCSO and SC, Milanov, Thorberg, Rosvaenge and Moscona and can vouch that the Dies Irae is as frightening as on Giulini's best recording of the work (the Prom one with Amy Shuard, Anna Reynolds, Richard Lewis and David Ward). Toscanini's Otello with Vinay is the most electrifying thing imaginable.