ARTURO TOSCANINI WAS A REVERED — AND FEARED — CONDUCTOR WHOSE INFLUENCE HAS NOT BEEN MATCHED
For much of the 20th Century, prominent symphonic and operatic conductors at work in the United States were addressed by using the honorific “doctor.” So it was: Dr. Koussevitzky, Dr. Stokowski, Dr. Walter, Dr. Reiner. It suggested they were on the same high level.
The exception was Arturo Toscanini. He was called “maestro” (“master”), which implied a power of command and control beyond the others. Not only did he insist on the designation, it also was given by common agreement, even by artists who might have had it applied to themselves. As pianist and statesman Ignace Paderewski wrote, “There is nobody to be compared with Toscanini.”
After him — Toscanini died 50 years ago this Tuesday — Herbert von Karajan attained as much power and Leonard Bernstein as much celebrity. But no conductor since Toscanini has been as influential. Like what he did or not, his was an achievement that coincided with — some have said, created — an environment for classical music in America that never has been equaled.
Today we look at Toscanini’s achievement and, in light of worldwide observances of his death, cite a few events that introduce listeners to (or remind them of) his artistry.
WAGNER’S EFFECT
Toscanini was born in Parma, Italy, in 1867, 20 years after Richard Wagner had become the greatest conductor in Europe. Wagner seldom still appeared as a guest conductor of standard repertory, but the influence of his subjective interpretations persisted. In 1869 he wrote about “correct tempo” and, more important, tempo modifications in the interest of heightened expression. His ideas were so free as to make the conductor less an executant than a co-creator equal in importance to the composer. Already in the 1850s, some found the resulting interpretations exaggerated. Much more time would elapse, however, before the romanticisms would be swept away.
SIMPLICITY EMPHASIZED
No single conductor was entirely responsible for making the shift to severe simplicity that Toscanini became known for. Karl Muck, Richard Strauss and Felix Weingartner all contributed to the movement. But Toscanini achieved the final transition with the greatest emphasis. Fidelity to the score — to only what the composer had written — became with him the standard for interpretation, and he pursued it with a seriousness that crossed over into agony. He was praised (rightly) as a corrective and (wrongly) as an objectivist. He found the performances of most of his colleagues showy, sentimental, preening or sloppy.
FIERY PERSONALITY
Toscanini’s performances established the highest degree of precision and clarity, but they were neither objective nor wholly faithful to the texts because, in the end, those standards are unattainable. The anxiety he inspired, the rage he vented (including physical attacks on players), the drama he ignited all were audible in his musicmaking, allied to a glowering countenance, fanatical drive and narrow musical culture (he did not distinguish between historical periods and styles and conducted no important modern music). In other words, the personal charged the analytical, and in the right scores — Verdi operas, Beethoven symphonies, Respighi tone poems — results could be both precise and spectacular.
NBC LURES HIM BACK
That this was a more tolerant age was indicated by the Toscanini intrigues and tirades the Metropolitan Opera (1908-15) and New York Philharmonic (1928-36) put up with. America embraced him like no other martinet, and when he left the second time, the loss was felt so acutely that NBC had to lure him back. The network created an orchestra especially for him, to broadcast, record and, eventually, show off on television. This was the period (1937-54) in which Toscanini became what has been called an “American culture-god,” selling 20 million recordings despite indifference to the process and a preference for the acoustically dead Studio 8H (now the home of “Saturday Night Live.”)
CELEBRITY CONDUCTOR
Most of his commercial recordings were low-fi, though they long stayed in the catalog, and collectors effused over even worse-sounding pirated alternatives. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of his birth, BMG Classics released 82 Toscanini CDs with a bookcase to hold them, a baton and videos of the 10 TV concerts he conducted between 1948 and 1952. He was the first musician to have been treated in such depth. (Sony BMG Classics now has remastered three discs from the set — with the Philadelphia Orchestra — and the television concerts also are newly available, on Testament DVDs.)
TOSCANINI LEGACY
The Toscanini influence continues to be felt through the literalism of conductors today. Without his enlivening character, however, their “objectivity” mainly conveys that they can read music. As critic Virgil Thomson noticed years ago: “Young conductors don’t bother much any more to feel music or make their musicians feel it. They analyze it, concentrate in rehearsal on the essentials of its rhetoric, and let the expressive details fall where they may, counting on each man’s skill to take care of these eventually. Poetry and nobility of expression are left for the last, to put in as with an eyedropper or laid on like cake icing.” It was not quite what Toscanini intended.
MORE MAESTRO
The following hold out greater possibilities for revealing aspects of the man and artist:
The Letters of Arturo Toscanini, edited and translated by Harvey Sachs (University of Chicago Press; 494 pages, $22.50, newly issued in paperback).
“Maestro’s Secret Music: The Artwork Collected by Arturo Toscanini,” an exhibition of 60 paintings, drawings and sculptures; Avery Fisher Hall, 132 W. 65th St., New York, Tuesday through March 31.
Lorin Maazel conducts the Symphonica Toscanini, 8 p.m. Wednesday, Orchestra Hall, 220 N. Michigan Ave.
“Toscanini: The Life, the Legend and the Legacy,” a documentary by John Tolansky, 3 to 5 p.m. March 25 (140th anniversary of Toscanini’s birth), WFMT-FM 98.7.
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aartner@tribune.com
