Word: toscanini
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Right from the start of the NBC Symphony's first transcontinental tour, the maestro had seemed different. Instead of the usual dignified and photographer-shy Toscanini peeping out from under a rolled-brim black fedora, newsreels showed the warm, shining face and cheery handwaves of a man who looked almost as if he were out after the corn-belt vote. There was no letdown in his musicmaking, as sell-out audiences found, everywhere he conducted his orchestra. But by last week many a spot in the U.S. was getting a treat that most New Yorkers never get: the warming...
Last week, after heart-warming welcomes up the Pacific Coast from Pasadena to Seattle, the little maestro took to the outdoors. At Sun Valley, he lolled on the grass, watched his grandson, Yale Sophomore Walfredo Toscanini, play tennis, then sat himself in a ski-lift chair for a trip part way up 9,200-ft. Baldy Mountain. Was he scared? Not a bit, scoffed Toscanini. He had been a mountain climber in his youth-which was a good 60 years ago. Up & down the lift, he gaily applauded members of his orchestra as they passed, crying "Bellissimo," with the enthusiasm...
...River and a porters' quartet turned to on Down by the Old Mill Stream, Finally, at his musicians' urging, the 83-year-old little perfectionist stood up to conduct them himself in shirtsleeves and beret. "That was a little out of tune, Maestro," grinned a trumpeter, afterward. Toscanini beamed happily: "Well, a little, but it was good...
...frequently guest-conducted it, and declared himself well pleased. Most English critics rank it as one of Britain's top three (the other two: Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic, Barbirolli's Hallé). If it has not won the prestige in Britain that Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony has achieved in the U.S., that is mainly because, as one British critic put it, "the BBC has not had a Toscanini." But in 20 years the BBC has become a solid box-office attraction both in London, where it divides its time between the studio...
...change he is determined to make. So far, the BBC has played its broadcast performances in a huge, empty studio in suburban Maida Vale. If Sir Malcolm has his way, he will open the doors to an invited public as Toscanini and the NBC orchestra do. Says he: "One misses the presence of people listening...