Word: toscaninis
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Manhattan concertgoers who have looked back with twinges of regret to the golden years from 1926 to 1936, when Arturo Toscanini was the fabulous war lord of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, had no apprehensions. Sold out, the orchestra office had to return $25,000 in checks to applicants who wanted seats for the two-week postseason Beethoven festival at Carnegie Hall with wiry, white-haloed Maestro Toscanini conducting...
...first-night audience last week rose reverently to its feet as Toscanini walked briskly on to the stage, faced the 93 Philharmonic players, the 250 Westminster Choir singers, robed in white and maroon, the four soloists. Then sounded music of humanity, solace, peace, triumph: Beethoven's great Missa Solemnis, under the magic Toscanini touch. In later concerts, with the orchestra alone, the First and Second Symphonies emerged in shining clarity and freshness, the Eroica with towering architecture, and blazing spirit. By the time the Beethoven series ends, all nine symphonies, five overtures and the Triple Concerto will have been...
...festival crowns the Philharmonic's centennial year. It crowns, for Toscanini, a sporadic season of conducting. A year ago, when the maestro ended his 1940-41 season with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, he would not decide to continue for another year. NBC made other plans, secured Leopold Stokowski as its star conductor. Other orchestras pressed the conductor for guest appearances. He finally succumbed. Since November, he has conducted eight Philadelphia Orchestra concerts, five NBC Symphony broadcasts for the Treasury Department (for which he took no pay), has also done more recording for Victor than in any previous year...
...When Toscanini left the Philharmonic in 1936, the orchestra was on close competing terms with Serge Koussevitzky's Boston Symphony and Leopold Stokowski's Philadelphia Orchestra. Then the Philharmonic pinned its faith on short, swart John Barbirolli, who proved an able welterweight, but no world champ. The Philharmonic went into a slump. Attendance dropped from 86% of capacity to 81%. This season, partly to celebrate its centennial, partly to lift its dwindling prestige, the Philharmonic gave its subscribers a glittering stream of guest conductors. An erratic season, it produced some half-empty houses, but attendance rose...
...wasn't much impressed either by Toscanini's recording of the Brahms First for Victor despite its technical brilliance. The last movement was crratic in tempo and over-sentimentalized, and throughout there was too much theatre and too little attention to the continuity of the music. Victory seems to be working the Toscanini legend for more than it is worth at the expense of their own standards. When he is good, as in the Victory "Gotterdacmmerung" recordings, he is superb, but he is getting old and of late his performances have lacked evenness...