Riveting, there’s no
other word for it. And I don’t just
mean they’re the fastest and loudest
performances ever, if that’s what Toscanini’s
reputation means to you.
It’s true that the
acoustic is dry – forte chords followed
by a rest go completely dead. And it’s
true that the trumpets blare a bit at
times, particularly in the Fifth. But
these recordings stand out among Toscanini
recordings for their faithfulness to
his wide range of dynamics. For once
you can hear Toscanini performances
where it is the pianissimos that impress
above all, where the delicate nuances
from the strings and wind can really
be heard.
The opening of the
Fifth (placed first on the record) is
surely arresting. But what exquisite
handling of the second subject material,
and how Toscanini, in spite of his swift
speed, seems to have all the time in
the world to shape it. And the tension
of the performance – in this movement
and the next – lies in the quiet passages
which build up inexorably until they
just have to explode.
You’ll get a surprise
as the finale of this symphony starts
– a surprisingly slow tempo. The reason
for this is that Toscanini knew well
that Beethoven’s metronome mark for
the half-bar is slower than that
for the whole bar of the Scherzo. Most
other conductors know this, but unless
they can get the Scherzo to work at
a tempo like Toscanini’s (not many can),
it just isn’t possible to take a slower
tempo for the finale – it would be just
too slow altogether. The solution of
Kapellmeisters like Klemperer and Keilberth
was to take the same tempo all through,
which was at least better than taking
the finale faster, with an attendant
drop in tension when the Scherzo material
reappears halfway through.
Just to be the devil’s
advocate, let us admit that the coda
of the first movement contains a bit
of Toscanini’s over-impatience
As the first movement
of the "Eroica" starts, the
phrasing is so serene and relaxed you
might not even realize how fast Toscanini
is actually going. He shapes the whole
movement in one gigantic breath. In
the "Marche funèbre"
his relatively swift tempo means that
he doesn’t have to speed up for
the episodes, so much of this movement
actually comes out slower than
usual. The tension he screws up becomes
almost unbearable.
A whirlwind of a Scherzo
– but what clarity, what gradation of
the softer dynamics. You may notice
as never before how little of this movement
is actually forte. Again, terrific articulation
in the finale, and no loss of tension
as the andante section takes over. But
let us again admit that he is guilty
of a spot of tub-thumping in the coda.
Terrific performances
then, set down before Toscanini’s final
onslaught of nerves caused him to see
everything through a red haze. But don’t
make them your bread-and-butter listening,
or you’ll be spoilt for everything else.
Take them down when the slack standards
and human frailty of most other versions
are causing you to lose faith in Beethoven.
And above all, if you’re a conductor,
don’t take them as models. Anybody who
tries some of these tempi without
Toscanini’s command of phrasing
and rhythm is committing kamikaze.
But wait a minute.
Are they so very fast? Let’s
look at some timings.
Symphony no. 3
| |
I
|
II |
III |
IV |
|
Böhm (Berlin)
|
14:40 |
14:25 |
05:59 |
12:24 |
|
Boult
|
15:20 |
13:01 |
05:54 |
12:10 |
|
Furtwängler
(Rome 1952)
|
16:30 |
17:35 |
06:50 |
12:50 |
| Harnoncourt |
15:53R |
14:35 |
05:37 |
11:27 |
| Keilberth |
15:10 |
14:46 |
05:59 |
11:51 |
| Kempe (RPO 1974) |
16:20 |
17:28 |
05:34 |
12:39 |
| E. Kleiber (1953) |
13:57 |
15:23 |
05:28 |
11:12 |
| Klemperer (1955) |
15:54 |
14:43 |
06:26 |
12:25 |
| Kubelik |
16:06 |
17:38 |
06:17 |
12:37 |
| Stokowski |
15:38 |
13:59 |
05:42 |
11:21 |
| Toscanini (1939) |
13:44 |
16:06 |
05:14 |
10:35 |
| Weingartner |
14:21 |
15:11 |
04:13* |
11:32 |
Symphony no.5
| |
I |
II |
III |
IV |
III+IV |
| Boult |
08:00R |
09:17 |
|
|
13:46 |
| Furtwängler (Rome
1952) |
08:55R |
11:53 |
|
|
15:30 |
| Harnoncourt |
07:12R |
09:54 |
08:22R |
10:51R |
19:13RR |
| Keilberth |
08:43R |
10:12 |
05:59 |
08:51 |
14:50 |
| E. Kleiber |
07:18R |
09:15 |
05:20 |
09:25 |
14:45 |
| Klemperer (1955) |
08:05R |
10:07 |
05:41 |
11:09R |
16:50R |
| Klemperer (c.1960) |
08:46R |
11:06 |
|
|
19:25R |
| Koussevitzky (LPO) |
08:00R |
10:43 |
05:35 |
08:53 |
14:28 |
| Kubelik |
08:16R |
11:02 |
05:18 |
11:10R |
16:28R |
| Toscanini |
07:11R |
09:31 |
05:06 |
08:56 |
14:02 |
| Weingartner (British
SO) |
06:36 |
08:36 |
05:15 |
08:46 |
14:01 |
R = repeat taken
* = a misleading timing since some repeats
are missing
This is not a carefully
selected list of the best recordings,
they’re just some I happen to have.
We can see that in
three out of four movements of the "Eroica"
Toscanini does, in fact, prove the fastest,
most nearly approached by Kleiber, although
since Harnoncourt gets through the first
movement with repeat in the same
time it takes Klemperer without,
it may be suspected that he is faster
still. Certainly, he reduces the music
to a meaningless gabble in a way Toscanini
does not. What is interesting is that
Toscanini’s refusal to move forward
in the major key episodes of the "Marche
funèbre" results in one
of the slowest readings. All those conductors
working in the Weingartner or the Kapellmeister
tradition – Böhm, Boult, Keilberth,
Klemperer – are noticeably swifter,
incredibly so in the case of Boult.
The myth of Klemperer’s slowness is
not really born out either, at least
in his 1955 readings. Longer timings
are to be found from those conductors
working within the Wagnerian-Furtwänglerian
axis: Furtwängler himself, Kempe
and Kubelik. Their romantic-dramatic
concept is totally different from Toscanini’s
granitic rigour.
In the Fifth, it is
only in the first and third movements
that Toscanini sees off all comers –
by one second in the case of Harnoncourt’s
first movement. Again, he is most closely
shadowed by Kleiber. Weingartner’s first
movement would have taken 08:16 with
the repeat. The interesting thing here
is that there isn’t really all that
much variation between the performances
of this movement, discounting the elderly
Klemperer’s massive approach and Furtwängler’s
rhetoric which is sui generic.
And much of the variation depends, not
on the actual tempi but on the interpretation
of the various pauses and fermatas,
and on how far the second subject is
to be relaxed. We may note that Kubelik
mainly kept his Furtwänglerian
leanings to slow movements.
In the second movement,
we again find that the Weingartner tradition
gives the lie to the myth of Toscanini’s
invariable speeding. Weingartner himself
was possibly obliged to squeeze the
movement onto two 78 sides, but Boult
– once again the master of the swift
slow movement – and Kleiber had no such
problems.
In the finale matters
are complicated by the fact that several
discs only give an overall timing for
the third and fourth movements taken
together. However, it can be seen that
Kleiber, the only other conductor who
fully observes the tempo relationship
commented upon above, is a shade slower
in both these movements, while many
of those who opt for a uniform tempo
or reverse the indicated relationship
have swifter finales than Toscanini.
Klemperer’s 1955 finale, without the
repeat, would have come to 09:04, somewhere
in between Toscanini and Kleiber; his
combined third and fourth movements
would then have come to 14:45, exactly
the same as Kleiber but differently
distributed. A re-sampling of the transition
from the third to the fourth movement
in Boult’s recording suggests that his
record-breaking timing is the result
of a uniform tempo for the two movements,
but a considerably swifter one that
that of Klemperer or Keilberth.
In conclusion, then
the myth of Toscanini’s manic speeding
is proved to be a meaningless simplification
of a much more complicated situation.
What we can say is that the unremitting
tension of his performances, even when
not pressed to the manic extremes of
his later years, gives them a fiery
tautness not matched by any of his competitors,
whether they happen to be faster or
slower, combined with a control over
dynamics and phrasing which can leave
other performances sounding distinctly
sketchy. In the 1930s he was surely
at the height of his powers as a Beethoven
interpreter and these performances are
surely the greatest possible of their
given viewpoint. So utterly gripping
are they that even today we have to
take a deep breath after listening to
them and clear our minds in order to
realize that other approaches do
have their own validity.
Christopher Howell
NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini 
