Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Pulcinella]

D flat!

Perhaps the river level dropped too after the meltdown!

[Mal]

11am Rob's Artist of the Week is the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. I almost spilled my coffee. Listen to those screaming violins storm heaven in Beethoven's 7th! More incendiary thrust than Karajan on a good day. Have the NYPO ever sounded better? Have any orchestra ever sounded better? To come: Debussy's Iberia, part of Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with Vladimir Horowitz. Desert Island? Only if a volcano is erupting...

[Nick Armstrong]

11am Rob's Artist of the Week is the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. I almost spilled my coffee. Listen to those screaming violins storm heaven in Beethoven's 7th! More incendiary thrust than Karajan on a good day. Have the NYPO ever sounded better? Have any orchestra ever sounded better?

Never heard the performance before - was held enthralled by the first movement. Some sour woodwind tuning in the slow movement put me off slightly... (don't think it was the recording); and then enthralled again till the end. Pretty amazing.

[cloughie]

Thats easy for you to say.

TBF, there are some works that might sound better played backwards.......

You been looking at the minimalist thread? No actually you'd not be able to hear a differnce with most of the pieces!

[Bryn]

Never heard the performance before - was held enthralled by the first movement. Some sour woodwind tuning in the slow movement put me off slightly... (don't think it was the recording); and then enthralled again till the end. Pretty amazing.

Volume 64 of the RCA Arturo Toscanini Collection. A snip at the £76.61 I paid when the big box came out 5 years ago, though I think it may have increased a little in price in the meantime.



[However, I note from a customer review on amazon.co.uk that the Naxos disc of this recording includes 2 'takes' of the first movement. Just ordered it as a complement.]

[Nick Armstrong]

I think it may have increased a little in price in the meantime.

... you're not kidding!

[Richard Tarleton]

I have a different 7 (coupled with 2, Vol 2 in Bryn's heap, second from bottom - I bought it as a single disc from a bookstall in Heathrow's old Terminal 1, waiting for the call to Gate 49 for flights to Belfast ) - I don't think the recording (NBC SO) is as well regarded as the one on this morning's prog - is it? - but Toscanini remains the touchstone for Beethoven 7 for me. No other conductor racks up the tension like he does.

[cloughie]

I have a different 7 (coupled with 2, Vol 2 in Bryn's heap, second from bottom - I bought it as a single disc from a bookstall in Heathrow's old Terminal 1, waiting for the call to Gate 49 for flights to Belfast ) - I don't think the recording (NBC SO) is as well regarded as the one on this morning's prog - is it? - but Toscanini remains the touchstone for Beethoven 7 for me. No other conductor racks up the tension like he does.

The 1936 NYPO has always been high up the heap.

[BBMmk2]

Radio 3 have a new presenter on Breakfast? Marianna Young.

[antongould]

Radio 3 have a new presenter on Breakfast? Marianna Young.

Georgia Mann in the North East bbm ..... are we being excluded again ..... ????

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

11am Rob's Artist of the Week is the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. I almost spilled my coffee. Listen to those screaming violins storm heaven in Beethoven's 7th! More incendiary thrust than Karajan on a good day. Have the NYPO ever sounded better? Have any orchestra ever sounded better? To come: Debussy's Iberia, part of Wagner's Götterdämmerung and Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with Vladimir Horowitz. Desert Island? Only if a volcano is erupting...

Never heard the performance before - was held enthralled by the first movement. Some sour woodwind tuning in the slow movement put me off slightly... (don't think it was the recording); and then enthralled again till the end. Pretty amazing.

Those NYPO recordings really represent Toscanini's art at its very best for me (as well as those with the BBCSO) - completely compelling. With the NBCSO, Toscanini so often became a caricature of himself - and the Music suffers as a result, becoming one-dimensional in the glare of the conductor's (and the recording studio's) reductive floodlighting. There are elements of this even in his earlier recordings - there are depths that Toscanini misses in his focus on the heights (yer man Wilhelm's the one you need for these) and a mischievous humour that Arturo (and Wilhelm) seem to consider blasphemous to contemplate - but I'm never aware of these whilst I listen; everything Toscanini achieves seems far more important then. (A blistering, incendiary Eroica from AT & the NYPO, too! Phew - we're lucky to get out in one piece!)

[BBMmk2]

Georgia Mann in the North East bbm ..... are we being excluded again ..... ????

I hope not AG!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The 1936 NYPO has always been high up the heap.

[Mal]

Those NYPO recordings really represent Toscanini's art at its very best for me (as well as those with the BBCSO) - completely compelling. With the NBCSO, Toscanini so often became a caricature of himself - and the Music suffers as a result, becoming one-dimensional in the glare of the conductor's (and the recording studio's) reductive floodlighting. There are elements of this even in his earlier recordings - there are depths that Toscanini misses in his focus on the heights (yer man Wilhelm's the one you need for these) and a mischievous humour that Arturo (and Wilhelm) seem to consider blasphemous to contemplate - but I'm never aware of these whilst I listen; everything Toscanini achieves seems far more important then. (A blistering, incendiary Eroica from AT & the NYPO, too! Phew - we're lucky to get out in one piece!)

I wasn't quite as impressed by the Tchaikovsky piano concerto 1, after the Beethoven 7 I was expecting the opposition to be blown away. But the sonic limitations undermine it, and although the orchestra and soloist are very dynamic, there are some moderns who can at least match them IMHO, and in great sound. I have Penguins top recommendation, Ohlsson/ASMF/Marriner, and that remains my top pick. Obviously the Beethoven 7 from 1936 can hardly be expected to have perfect sonics, but it sounded better than this, and the performance makes sonic considerations moot. "Third Ear" recommends three Horowitz/Toscanini collaborations in this concerto, between 1941 and 1943, and this one is not their first choice.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Today's Toscanini offering blew my mind:

Götterdämmerung: Dawn and Duet
Singer: Helen Traubel. Singer: Lauritz Melchior. Orchestra: NBC Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Arturo Toscanini.

Stunning...

I can't think of anything else to say.