Word: toscanini
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Bochco's childhood family life was close but beset by money problems. He grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the son of a violinist who once played with the NBC Symphony under Toscanini. After flirting with music, Bochco opted for playwriting at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon). The only play of his to be given a student production was a "disaster," Bochco . recalls. But he established a close circle of lifelong friends -- among them Actors Michael Tucker (Stuart Markowitz on L.A. Law) and Charles Haid (Renko on Hill Street Blues...
...doesn't need to understand or believe in Hegelian epistemology to recognize the syndromes Understanding Toscanini analyzes. Many decades have passed since "classical" music, whatever that is, was a living, breathing art, unencumbered by its own prestige and the status-seeking of audiences...
...easy for a cult of Toscanini to grow not only because of his enigmatic, stirring personality, but also because everything he conducted was rhythmically, erotically gripping...
More importantly, according to Horowitz, Toscanini's repertoire was restricted, especially in his later years, to what we now know as standard repertoire...
...Toscanini had conducted more modern works, more American works, Horowitz suggests, then perhaps classical music would not be as ossified as it is today, with young performers playing the same, standard works dating from earlier centuries. Toscanini, for Horowitz, was more than just a product of his times. He was also a formative influence on the American musical scene of his time and ours...