Word: toscanini
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...Mayer-Burstyn), made by OWI Overseas in 1943 for European distribution, is now for the first time released in the U.S. Its star: Arturo Toscanini, who (with Tenor Jan Peerce, the Westminster Choir and the NBC Symphony Orchestra) made this movie debut, for patriotic motives, free of charge. Content: Verdi's Overture to La Forza del Destino and Hymn of the Nations, the latter with revisions and interpolations by Toscanini. (He changed Italia, patria mia-Italy, my fatherland-to Italia tradita-Italy, betrayed, and climaxed the piece with the Internationale and The Star-Spangled Banner...
...film is made with unshowy, clear intelligence. The playing of Verdi has a vigor, sensitiveness and brilliance which only Toscanini himself, in performances untroubled by the interruptions necessary to his new medium, could excel. And the faces of singers and musicians at work are now amusing, again very moving...
...what gives the film its modest greatness and its permanent value is its record of one of the few beneficent giants of this century: Toscanini. Often the camera shows that he is singing, shouting, speaking through the music, and for the sake of history it is too bad that his voice is lost in the sound-track din. But the face itself shows God's plenty. Incredibly concentrated, vigilant and severe, it has the intensity of a crucible, the ultimate, almost masklike human magnificence which may be seen in the sculpture of Michelangelo. This face is all the more...
Beethoven: Concerto No. 1 in C for Piano and Orchestra (Ania Dorfmann and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini conducting; Victor, 8 sides). Toscanini features a protege who is not quite up to it; Artur Schnabel's earlier version is better. Performance: fair...
Ferde Grofe: Grand Canyon Suite (DM 1038) is a highly superficial programistic piece depicting various views of the Grand Canyon such as "Sunrise" complete with twittering flute. Of the three recordings of this work, the new one by Toscanini and the NBC surpasses both the older Whiteman and Kostelanetz performances in technical proficiency, but, like so many Toscanini readings of modern American music, lacks the sympathetic treatment provided by Whiteman. Recording is fair...