Patrick Summers on Toscanini
Patrick Summers has a good piece on Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957) in the Playbill for the last opera in HGO’s 2003/04 season. He makes a few remarks about the legendary conductor and his times that were news to me and are worth repeating here.
[…] Toscanini [did not] indulge in the irritating habit of breaking music down into classes like “good,” “bad,” “serious,” or “light.” He was content to let history decide. Throughout his career he lavished the same energy and detail on Grofé, Gershwin, and John Philip Sousa (his recording of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” is unforgettable!) as he did on Beethoven and Wagner. He loved the great Broadway voices of his time.
It’s refreshing to learn this about an artist whose legacy casts one of the longest shadows over “serious” music. Summers notes that Toscanini conducted the premières of Pagliacci and La Bohème, and he introduced Italy to Pelléas et Mélisande, Salome, Evgeny Onegin, Die Götterdämmerung, Siegfried, and Die Meistersinger—performing and rehearsing all of these from memory! But he also has this to say about the present:
I’m left wondering what Toscanini would think of the artistic state of the adopted country he loved, the United States. We have allowed several generations of children to mature with only a passing education in the fine arts, leaving so many with only simplistic forums to express their complex young experiences. How can we then wonder why our arts audiences are dwindling? Toscanini saw a U.S. television network create an orchestra for him because it was thought important to preserve as many of his performances as possible. Can any of us imagine that occurring today? Arts organizations in the U.S. are engaged in a constant campaign to simply justify their survival.
It is amusing and a bit depressing to consider that NBC, an erstwhile custodian of the arts, is responsible today for “Average Joe” and “The Fear Factor,” two treasures more aptly associated with “the custodial arts.” This is called Progress.
Summers cites the following Toscanini recordings as “vital for any music lover”:
- Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger from the 1937 Salzburg Festival
- Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphonies with the NBC Symphony Orchestra
- Operas on RCA Victor
- Recordings with the Orchestra of La Scala
These are going on my wish list. I just learned about the Zeffirelli film Young Toscanini. It’ll probably be hard to find but it looks like it’s worth a shot.
Viva Toscanini! Viva l’opera! 
