Rediscovering Toscanini

[Dave2002]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNaF1bdXnkw

In this video James Levine states that Toscanini was the greatest conductor the 20th Century - or at least the first half of it.
Much of this film seems at odds with the notion that he was essentially a bully, and some of the other comments made about the conductor don't seem to fit with what the film portrays.

There are other films - but this will do as a start.

[richardfinegold]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNaF1bdXnkw

In this video James Levine states that Toscanini was the greatest conductor the 20th Century - or at least the first half of it.
Much of this film seems at odds with the notion that he was essentially a bully, and some of the other comments made about the conductor don't seem to fit with what the film portrays.

There are other films - but this will do as a start.

The link didn't work for me.
Many 1930s era Toscanini performances have been reissued on the label Immortal Performances, restored by Richard Caniell. These are earlier performances than the ones that constitute the official discography of Sony/BMG. I have only heard a brief snippet of a Verdi Requiem. The reviewers have been fulsome in their praise about the quality of the restorations. The recordings feature many rehearsal extracts and the reviewers have frequently commented that the Conductor is usually laughing and joking with the musicians who appear to be responding in kind, and how these excerpts appear to give lie to legend of Toscanini as a tempestuous prima donna

[Dave2002]

The link didn't work for me.
Many 1930s era Toscanini performances have been reissued on the label Immortal Performances, restored by Richard Caniell. These are earlier performances than the ones that constitute the official discography of Sony/BMG. I have only heard a brief snippet of a Verdi Requiem. The reviewers have been fulsome in their praise about the quality of the restorations. The recordings feature many rehearsal extracts and the reviewers have frequently commented that the Conductor is usually laughing and joking with the musicians who appear to be responding in kind, and how these excerpts appear to give lie to legend of Toscanini as a tempestuous prima donna

Sorry the link doesn't work for you. I've not changed it and it's still working here. Maybe a temporary thing, or a US rights issue. Let's see if others have the same observations.

Certainly the films I have seen about Toscanini suggest he was highly revered and also valued, and unless there was a truly enormous conspiracy, justifiably so. On one of his trips back from the US four other conductors went to hear his concert in Berlin - Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber and Wilhelm Furtwängler, and they appeared to consider him very highly indeed.

[umslopogaas]

My understanding is that Toscanini was a perfectionist and prone to bursts of rage if musicians didnt do what he wanted. However, as above, I have heard that musicians respected him greatly. I have also heard that the late recordings he made, towards the end of his life, the ones we hear most often, were made in a very dry acoustic. I assume these are the RCA recordings: I have a 72 CD set of them, along with a DVD which I havent yet watched. The CD quality, to my not very critical ears, is very good, despite possible problems with the acoustics.

[gurnemanz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNaF1bdXnkw

In this video James Levine states that Toscanini was the greatest conductor the 20th Century - or at least the first half of it.

Thanks for link. In the film, Furtwängler, Walter, Klemperer and Kleiber turned up to watch him conduct a concert in Berlin and seemed not to disagree with the above.

[Barbirollians]

I suggest the very cheap Warner Icon box for those doubtful of Toscanini's genius .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I suggest the very cheap Warner Icon box for those doubtful of Toscanini's genius .

The issue of Toscanini's Musicianship (which I don't much like in his work with the NBCSO - I much prefer the NYPO, BBCSO, and even PO recordings) is a separate one from that of his behaviour. There used to be a belief amongst some people that excellent Musicianship must somehow equate with exemplary moral conduct, a notion that doesn't hold water. Elsewhere, I have described Toscanini's behaviour as "infantile" and "bullying", and cited three examples of recordings to illustrate these characteristics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e89cjFuxhwk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F1__ELBbXc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxh-o9ENW5o

... to which I would add:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKLnTCShFcc

There are many reports by the Musicians who worked for him (and whose livelihoods depended upon his whims) of his uncontrollable rages and tirades - these are acknowledged even by those who would excuse them - Kenneth A. Christensen, for example, in his The Toscanini Mystique:

[Toscanini] ruled with a rod of iron, and forgiven conduct that would not be tolerated by any other Musician. He was a ... Musical tyrant at a time when blood and tears were shed to rid the world of tyrants ... [His] rehearsal rages became legendary. He would scream ... with tight-clenched fists and spittle spewing out of his mouth in all directions. He would kick the legs of the Music stand or a piano so hard that some Musicians feared he would break his leg. Some, listening to surviving tapes of his rehearsals would feel physically sick after hearing the shrieking stream of profanities accompanied by the snapping of his batons and the tearing up of Musicians' parts. If he was unable to break his baton, he would take out his handkerchief and tear that, and sometimes even his coat"

(Chapter 20)

I find it distressingly bewildering that anyone would listen to those rehearsal tapes, or read the many accounts of similar behaviour at many rehearsals and regard it as somehow "unjustifiable" to describe such behaviour as "infantile" and "bullying". In the name of all that's sane, what word(s) could possibly be adequately substituted?! If anyone's son or daughter came home from school or work and described their boss/teacher's behaving in this way, would they just shrug it off?

rfg mentions Musicians sharing a laugh with Toscanini. This, too, is typical behaviour of the bully - many of us will know of teachers who shout and rage at their pupils, and then make attempts at humour, which the kids laugh at, for fear of upsetting the teacher or changing his/her mood. Some of these teachers get excellent Exam. results from their classes - that does not excuse or justify their behaviour. The ends do not justify the means, and others (including those who admired his concerts) got equally satisfactory results by very different means.

[jayne lee wilson]

(It seems appropriate to copy these from the LvB 8 thread here now...)

With respect to Toscanini's outbursts, bullying or not, see Joseph Horowitz's psychoanalytical approach... in particular the indented quote from Martin H. Blum down the page...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PYVoi8JK0WMC&pg=PA447&lpg=PA447&dq=was+toscanini+a+bully&source=bl&ots=V3zjnjoVHH&sig=vem42RBgrVI0lSE8mxmQBbcLauA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiFq9jF17HRAhWCthoKHY2VDIsQ6AEILTAD#v=onepage&q=was%20toscanini%20a%20bully&f=false

Love of the Oppressor is a classic psychological reaction which can take various forms - think of how his trainee musicians feel about Terence Fletcher in the film Whiplash or more archetypally, how Winston comes to "love" Big Brother in Orwell's 1984. And of course human behaviour under totalitarian regimes generally...

"Bully" or "bullying" are terms applied to a wide variety of differently motivated and contextualised behaviours.
Psychoanalysis is closer to art than science so necessarily speculative. But it can offer "redescription" - an attempt to analyse why someone became as they are, behave as they do, and inspire or provoke certain behaviours in those they interact with. Which in certain unusual creative cases can offer a path to the truth, even perhaps to salvation, in a very human rather than a religious sense.

I linked to the Horowitz/Blum texts because they seemed to me to offer just such a redescription.

One would need to contextualise Toscanini's behaviour in rehearsal with that of other supposedly "tyrannical" figures of the time, such as Reiner or Szell, since no human behaviour is ever free of its cultural context. The 20th Century figure of the "Great Conductor" is a powerful myth with many variations, not all of them tyrannical. The individual musician, with that mythical image in mind, can almost helplessly assume this myth as an image and as a set of behaviours; the mask which sticks to the human face beneath. It is very persistent, though it does seem to have evolved or metamorphosed into many new "forms of authority" in the last few decades.

***
I recall after the murder of Jamie Bulger, which occurred just a few miles from here, how appalled I was to hear John Major say "we have to condemn a little more and understand a little less".
I couldn't help thinking of "Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner". Or perhaps more realistically, the more we know the better we forgive. Hopelessly idealistic perhaps. But if we don't try, we betray our own humanity. It can be a lifelong struggle, but victims of violence sometimes say they have to attempt forgiveness of the one who hurt them, just to try to move on with their lives.
***

Would at least some of Toscanini's musicians find forgiveness because of the recordings, the musical results? All I can say is - I hope so. The problem with audio or video clips or verbal descriptions of his rages is that they tend to dominate the view of "life under Toscanini" (as much as a stereotype of the "mad great conductor" as a reality) with little counterbalancing evidence of the joy and fulfilment they must surely have found at other times in their work with him.
Orchestras and conductors getting along together quietly is scarcely good box-office.

[Dave2002]

I don't find it impossible that Toscanini was what has been called a hard taskmaster, and that would explain how he got such impressive results.

He does not seem to have been without humanity though, as his relationships (or otherwise) with Italy (Mussolini) and Germany (the Fuhrer) showed later. This does not seem to suggest someone who didn't care about other people or without morals. Also, the films showing him with his family don't suggest that he was incapable of forming relationships, and relationships which were valued. He also valued, and was valued by, people who weren't in his family, such as the Wagner family. He differentiated between the German regime and the people, and he remained friends with those he valued - and vice-versa, I think.

Some of these factors do not appear to fit in with the speculative description (very much later) by Blum.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well - as long as you're happy with that.

[Dave2002]

Well - as long as you're happy with that.

Before a few days ago I didn't care one way or another - or even know anything about it.

You seem to want to paint him as a monster - and I'm not sure that he was - not yet anyway. If he was, I also doubt that he was the only one like that in the conducting profession.

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't find it impossible that Toscanini was what has been called a hard taskmaster, and that would explain how he got such impressive results.

He does not seem to have been without humanity though, as his relationships (or otherwise) with Italy (Mussolini) and Germany (the Fuhrer) showed later. This does not seem to suggest someone who didn't care about other people or without morals. Also, the films showing him with his family don't suggest that he was incapable of forming relationships, and relationships which were valued. He also valued, and was valued by, people who weren't in his family, such as the Wagner family. He differentiated between the German regime and the people, and he remained friends with those he valued - and vice-versa, I think.

Some of these factors do not appear to fit in with the speculative description (very much later) by Blum.

But Blum is trying to go beneath the surface contradictions between those relationships you mention and the much-reported behaviour on the rehearsal podium, to seek that "understanding" which may lead to a redemptive "forgiveness", because of what he achieved with the musicians he worked with. Blum's (and Horowitz's) tone is surely non-accusatory, attempting a broader generosity of spirit toward all those involved.

"He was clearly more fragile than they and they needed to solace him so he could lead them. In providing the medium of his states of rapture they guaranteed the materials of their own. What had developed on both sides was a curious kind of love."

"Referring to Toscanini's social and professional relations alike, Samuel Chotzinoff truthfully remarks in "Toscanini: An Intimate Portrait" : "all his life he had been forgiven conduct that would have been tolerated in no other artist."

It will always be for those of us who come after - to listen; to think; to reflect on why that would be; on the links between character, behaviour and creativity. Above all, in a world so full of instant adversarial judgement and sloganising accusation, to try to see - what lies beneath...

[Dave2002]

Jlw

Thanks. It'll take me some while - perhaps a very long while - to digest this. I certainly can't revise my views in just a few days, but I'm willing to reconsider and expand my views over a longer period. Looking back over long periods about the lives of people we have very little knowledge of is difficult. I also have warning bells ringing in my head when I read phrases such as " Simon Chotzinoff truthfully remarks ..." - so how do we know that both the reporter and the person whose words are being used as justification are both telling the truth?

Films such as the one I drew attention to may change perception of history by suppressing some "facts" so as to enhance a historical figure's reputation, but some commentators and biographers may go in the opposite direction. It is possible that such people have their own agendas, and the "truth" becomes further obfuscated.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, I had some misgivings about that "truthfully" myself at first - but Horowitz is simply drawing on his own detailed research and reflections for the book from which these quotes are drawn "Understanding Toscanini: A Social history of American Concert Life." For him, given the evidence, it seems ungainsayable.

I do think Blum's comments I quoted in #12 about fragility, solace and "states of rapture" are extraordinary though, giving you much to think about in art and in the wider world.
Thinking about Whiplash again, I wonder if the director/writer Damien Chazelle had Toscanini in mind, man and myth, when they created the character of Terence Fletcher - the Arturo of the Big Band!

[Dave2002]

Looks like you've added a book to read to my list - though I read very slowly. Life gets in the way.