Word: maestro
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Died. Carla de Martini Toscanini, 73, wife of the famed conductor and one of the musical world's "most important second fiddles," who for 54 selfless years cut the Maestro's hair, cooked for him, attended to all the daily drudgeries which he hated; of a heart attack; in Milan, Italy...
After a performance in Boston's Symphony Hall some years ago, an excited dowager swept backstage to the conductor's dressing room. "Maestro!" she cried. "Maestro, you play so magnificently! You -you are God!" Serge Koussevitzky turned to his fan and, with a perfect deadpan, replied humbly: "Yes, modom, and soch a responsibility...
Something did: the telephone rang a third time. Testifies Menuhin: "Deliberately, the Maestro got up, walked over to the phone, picked it up, and with one mighty yank he pulled it, plaster and all, out of the wall. All this without saying a word. Then, completely relaxed again, at peace with the world, he sat down and we continued to play the Beethoven concerto...
...Maestro was playing the piano when the telephone rang. He was so absorbed in the Beethoven concerto that he positively refused to recognize this foreign noise-but for me it was like trying to ignore a fire siren. Toscanini kept right on playing, and I was certainly going to continue as long as he did, but I could feel the pressure, the temperature rising. Any second, something had to explode...
...concert was scheduled to begin in Birmingham, England, a local news photographer snapped an unauthorized shot of hot-tempered, camera-shy Conductor Leopold Stokowski, who blinked in anger and issued an ultimatum: hand over the film or there will be no concert. The photographer surrendered, waited patiently, caught the maestro unexpectedly for the second time after the concert was finished...