Famous though it is,
it’s always a salutary experience to
listen afresh to Toscanini’s way with
the Pastoral in 1937. Lean, fresh, lilting,
driven by an imperturbable but flexible
motor, what impresses more even than
these is the sheer orchestral mastery.
The conveyance of the naturalistic-through-musical
means is notoriously taxing but time
and again Toscanini elicits detail at
a tempo that is forward moving but elastically
relaxed. The opening movement, which
he could press far too hard, is here,
though bracing, notable for the sense
of inexorable rightness of tempo generated
as it is for the verdant woodwind playing
of the BBC principals and the elegant
string portamenti. The ‘scene by the
brook’ achieves exceptional clarity
and depth of feeling at a tempo that
might surprise those who know Weingartner’s
1927 recording with the Orchestra of
the Royal Philharmonic Society (also
on Naxos). The latter was a swift and
convulsively flowing 10.56 whereas Toscanini
takes a minute longer. He doesn’t stint
the storm at all but the climaxes are
blended and calibrated and elsewhere
the sense of drama and tension is palpable.
Coupled with the Pastoral
is a series of works, all recorded at
Queen’s Hall between 1937 and 1938.
The Mozart is dramatic and powerful
and though the strings of the BBC articulate
splendidly they are sometimes pushed
too fast. Rossini’s La Scala di Seta
is buoyant though not necessarily preferable
as a performance to Beecham’s contemporaneous
recording, and the Weber-Berlioz, if
it has to be done at all, is done with
swagger. But the jewel of the overtures
is Brahms’ Tragic Overture which he
recorded a few days after the last of
the Pastoral sessions (those sessions
incidentally were spread out over the
period of the London Festival, from
June to October 1937). Boult and the
orchestra had laid down their interpretation
of it a few years earlier – one of Boult’s
first BBC recordings and that was a
fine enough disc from a long-admired
Brahmsian. But Toscanini’s is still
finer – taut, tense, coiled and powerfully
focused.
For the transfers,
producer Mark Obert-Thorn has used American
Victors and has filled in some missing
bars in the Pastoral where side-breaks
led to a loss of music. Pitch has also
been stabilized. I last heard the Pastoral
on two LPs, the first a celebratory
BBC box and the second an EMI Treasury
set. The former had the better tonal
qualities, warm and attractive, but
was marred by the problems noted above
– especially in the ‘Scene by the brook’
– though the surfaces were quiet. Naxos’s
commercial Victors are pretty quiet
as well and there is a good bloom to
the sound – though the lean clarity
of the orchestra is equally caught.
Neville Cardus, amongst Toscanini’s
British critics, was never persuaded
by his Pastoral. Here’s a chance to
put that judgement to the test.
Jonathan Woolf
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BBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini