Another feast for Toscanini
admirers from Guild. Whether the programme
will tempt those not addicted to the
man Americans call Maestro is
another matter altogether and I think
those who are wavering will probably
need to concentrate on Sibelius’s Fourth
Symphony. This joins Toscanini’s Second
as a statement of invincible, eviscerating
drive – a very quick reading, intense,
devoted to the long line, but one capable
of considerable elasticity and unexpected
lightening. In the first movement the
orchestra is not entirely tidy and the
recording, which is slightly muddy,
doesn’t really help, in this of all
works. He doesn’t press too hard in
the second movement where one might
have expected the indication Allegro
molto vivace to have roused his
sense of the athletic. But no, he’s
nowhere near Beecham’s tempo and is
on a par with such as Berglund, amongst
the Moderns. There are glints of wit
here as well as the darkening. I find
the slow movement unconvincing though
I daresay acolytes will welcome his
impress here. Yes, the high winds are
desolate, and those middle string voices
are well brought out but at just over
eight minutes this is a brisk and rather
superficial view. The finale is steady.
Coupled with the Symphony is a large
rehearsal segment. We can hear Toscanini’s
insistence on rhythmic exactitude, accents,
phrasing and his care over the woodwind
passages. Unusually he speaks far more
in English than I’m used to hearing
in NBC rehearsal sessions.
Elsewhere we have a
clean-limbed, dry-eyed Holberg Suite
(don’t expected Scherchen or Beecham
here – not that you would) and a lean
and powerful Franck. The Ravel is in
slightly muddied sound but Toscanini
is gimlet eyed and full of insinuation
and menacing drive. There is a Concert
for the Liberty of Italy from September
1943, a hodgepodge of an affair that
adds nothing to what we already know,
many times over. There’s the first movement
(only) of Beethoven’s Fifth with some
uncertain horns, the William Tell overture,
with a splendid clarinettist and cello
principal (Frank Miller was it?) and
a couple of dodgy woodwind ones. We
end with Garibaldi’s War Hymn and the
Star Spangled Banner.
It might have been
better sense to have issued this as
a single disc and concentrated on the
Sibelius and Grieg and added something
else. The broadcast commentaries are
included which gives the set historical
resonance though obviously there will
be many who won’t give a damn for such
things. I happen to give a damn.
Jonathan Woolf
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NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini