Word: toscaninis
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...Viva Toscanini...
...Toscanini was baptized a Roman Catholic, but has seldom gone to church in recent years, except for the first communions of his two grandchildren. He refuses to conduct without a heavy, brass-framed strip of pictures of his children in his pocket. (The strip includes a picture of son Giorgio, who died at eight in South America...
Scrupulously honest, he detects sham of all kinds instantly. Years ago, after Richard Strauss had asked him to conduct the first performance of his Salome, then gave it to another conductor, Toscanini went all the way from Milan to Vienna to tell him, "Strauss, as a musician I take my hat off to you; as a man [Toscanini here went through a furious pantomime of a man clomping on hats repeatedly] I put on twelve hats...
...Toscanini is sometimes criticized for not playing enough contemporary music, or for choosing, in the current music he does play, the second-rate or derivative. But the Maestro knows his own limits: he will not play music he is not sure he understands (although he has tried Gershwin without much success). Looking at a new score, he seldom says, "This is bad." Instead, he says, "This is not music for me." He does not trust music that does not touch his heart. He feels that he was a pioneer in his youth, and that it is now up to younger...
...most music lovers, Toscanini already comes closer to the secrets than anyone before him. He does his best to ignore the legend of his own greatness, but he knows that it is around. At a rehearsal of his all-Debussy concert a month ago, he was flushed with a fever of 102 degrees. His friends tried to persuade the old man not to conduct, but he was insistent. Said he, as he trudged out to the podium: "Sometimes I must act like Toscanini...