Word: toscanini
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...four cellists. In rehearsal for the first performance of his new opera, Otello, the La Scala orchestra had just reached the important cello passage in the first act. The second cellist, a 19-year-old boy, could barely be heard. The composer demanded to know his name. "Toscanini," he was told. Toscanini had played the passage exactly as it was marked-pppp. Patiently, Verdi explained that the fault was his own: he really intended only pianissimo, and had exaggerated his directions to make sure that they would be obeyed...
...cast-he preferred to use singers he could mold in his own way: stressing first expressiveness, then diction, and lastly voice. He had heard the Philadelphia La Scala Soprano Herva Nelli sing last summer, and announced, "This is Desdemona." She told him she had never sung the role. Toscanini snapped: "Good. I'll teach you myself." He drilled the Metropolitan's brilliant new baritone, Giuseppe Valdengo (a graduate of the New York City Opera Co.), for two hours on the proper way to sing just two words-"non so"-at a crucial spot in the play...
This week's hot tip from Walter Winchell: "The most inflammable stuff on Toscanini (and Lily P. and André K.) is resting quietly on a publisher's desk. It is a book tagged: The Other Side of the Record. Too Gee-Whiz for the printed page." Actually, the book was resting quietly at most bookstores; it had been published in October and widely reviewed (TIME...
...Symphony (Sat. 6:30 p.m., NBC). Vivaldi's Concerto for Violin and Strings in B Flat; Bach's Suite No. 3 in D Major and Passacaglia in C Minor; Handel's Concerto Grosso in D Minor. Conductor: Arturo Toscanini...
Berlioz: Romeo & Juliet Excerpts (NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini conducting; Victor, 6 sides). Berlioz' Romeo & Juliet is the kind of music that in lesser hands can sound merely bombastic; Toscanini gives it the care and excitement it deserves. Recording (on Vinylite): excellent...