Word: toscanini
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...week he was named concertmaster; three years later he made his conducting debut leading a shortened version of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. Blessed with a nearly flawless memory and perfect pitch, Ormandy rose quickly. In 1931 he scored a triumph with the Philadelphia Orchestra when he substituted for Arturo Toscanini, which led to five seasons as conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony. In 1936 he returned to Philadelphia for two years as co-conductor with the mercurial Leopold Stokowski...
Celibidache explains his approach to conducting: "You cannot impose your will on an orchestra. If you do, they will imitate you, not create on their own. They will not be able to see your reasons. Toscanini was a very great conductor, but he was not a great musician." Despite the work load and the stream of mysterious utterances, many Curtis students love him. Says Concertmaster Susan Synnestvedt, a third-year violinist: "He feels there is a truth in music, and it should be discovered...
...performances, Levine strives to banish interpretive routine to get at the heart of the composer's message. "My function," he says, "is to be a necessary middleman, not a willful, distorting, idiosyncratic, egocentric middleman." His high performance standards are derived from three major influences: Toscanini, Soprano Maria Callas and Director Wieland Wagner. From the incandescent Toscanini, Levine learned the value of a taut, singing musical line. Callas, the indomitable spirit who assaulted her audiences with intense, molten performances, taught Levine that opera must always be convincing as drama, not simply a collection of voices gift wrapped in period costumes...
...while Levine has learned his lessons well, he is aware of human limitations, as Callas, with her temperamental voice, always was and as Toscanini, with his fiery temper, usually was not. Levine's musical ethos, demanding though it is, is still far from that of old-fashioned tyrants like his mentor, George Szell, or Fritz Reiner. "Perfectionist is one of the stupidest words in the English language," says Levine. "Take any performance. I promise you that there will be a pizzicato chord that's not together; somewhere or other a horn will crack. If there are a number...
Under Karajan's fiercely perfectionist leadership, the Berlin has been refined into an infinitely supple, responsive ensemble. At first cast in the uncompromising mold of Toscanini, Karajan, 74, drilled his orchestra until its virtuosity was unquestioned. Later Karajan moved toward Furtwangler's ideal of fluidity, and his music making took on a greater spaciousness. In works from Beethoven through Mahler, Karajan knows few peers, and no superiors. In honor of the orchestra's centenary, Deutsche Grammophon in September released a six-volume, 33-disc set of memorable recordings, tracing the Philharmonic from the Nikisch days through Karajan...