Word: toscaninis
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Last winter Arturo Toscanini, the white-maned little titan, was beginning to look and move like a man nearing 84. Because of his ailing left knee, he was forced to cancel eight of his NBC concerts. When he flew off to Italy last spring, few of his musicians expected to have the privilege of trembling under one of his tirades again. Moreover, in midsummer came more bad news: the death of his wife Carla, 73, who had been his caretaker and counselor for 54 years. His friends feared he was through. They misjudged their man. Last week the old Arturo...
...this week was canceled, he demanded to know why. Told that the hall was available only after midnight, he said: "Oh. Perhaps the musicians will be too tired." Replied NBC Music Director Samuel Chotzinoff: "I wasn't thinking of them, Maestro, I was thinking of you." Said Toscanini: "Then we'll record." The truth seems to be that the old man, even though his son Walter and family are living with him, cannot bear the new loneliness of his big house overlooking the Hudson...
...Symphony (Sat. 6:30 p.m., NBC). Arturo Toscanini conducting Brahms's First Symphony...
...started off the week leading the NBC Symphony (in Toscanini's absence). Next day, he conducted his own Reading (Pa.) Symphony. Then he raced up to Worcester, Mass, to lead the Philadelphia Orchestra, of which he is associate conductor. He finished the week by taking the NBC again. Altogether, he went through five programs with three orchestras, to say nothing of eleven rehearsals...
Alex Hilsberg thinks the waiting did him good. After 25 years spent scraping an acquaintance with the classics, he shuns "interpretations" of them, finds his greatest satisfaction (as does Toscanini) in clean and powerful renderings of what the composer wrote. NBC listeners last week found that even Dvorak's done-to-death "New World" Symphony sounded fresh and clear...