110895bk 12/11/04 3:04 pm Page 5 ADD Producer’s Note GREAT CONDUCTORS · TOSCANINI Great Conductors • Toscanini 8.110895 This CD gathers together all of Toscanini’s earliest (1938-39) studio recordings with the ensemble HAYDN: Symphony No. 88 in G major 20:40 created for him, the NBC Symphony, with the exception of the Beethoven Fifth and Eighth 1 Adagio – Allegro 5:54 Symphonies. There were additional live recordings made during his Beethoven cycle toward the end of 2 Largo 7:37 1939. 3 Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio 3:50 Perhaps in an attempt to duplicate the success of his first Victor recordings with the New York 4 Finale: Allegro con spirito 3:20 HAYDN Philharmonic some nine years earlier, the repertoire chosen included a symphony each by Haydn and Recorded 8th March, 1938 in NBC Studio 8-H, New York City Mozart, a Rossini overture and a virtuoso orchestral showpiece. Unlike those earlier sessions held in Matrices: CS-021306-2, 021307-1, 021308-1, 021309-1, 021310-1 and 021311-1 the expansive acoustic of Carnegie Hall, however, these early NBC recordings were made in the First issued as Victor 14928 through 14930 in album M-451 Symphony No. 88 reverberation-free zone of Studio 8-H. It would not be until May of 1940 (with the Brahms Second Piano Concerto with Horowitz) that Toscanini/NBC recording sessions would be moved to Carnegie MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K.550 22:44 for the next few years. 5 Allegro molto 7:24 6 Andante 7:06 The sources for the restorations were pre-war U.S. Victor “Gold” label pressings, the most quiet form 7 Menuetto: Allegretto – Trio 3:58 MOZART of issue for these recordings. 8 Finale: Allegro assai 4:16 Mark Obert-Thorn Recorded 7th March, 1938 and 27th February, 1939 in NBC Studio 8-H, New York City Matrices: CS-021300-1, 021301-2, 032802-1, 032803-1, 032804-2 and 032805-1 Symphony No. 40 First issued as Victor 15753 through 15755 in album M-631 BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in F major, Op. 135 11:23 9 Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo 8:25 0 Vivace 2:58 ROSSINI Recorded 8th March, 1938 in NBC Studio 8-H, New York City Matrices: CS-021312-1, 021313-1 and 021314-2 First issued as Victor 15547 and 15548 in album M-590 William Tell Overture ! PAGANINI (arr. Toscanini): Moto Perpetuo 4:40 Recorded 17th April, 1939 in NBC Studio 8-H, New York City Matrix: CS-032818-2 First issued on Victor 15548 in album M-590 @ ROSSINI: William Tell Overture 11:43 Recorded 1st and 29th March, 1939 in NBC Studio 8-H, New York City Matrices: BS-032814-3, 032815-3, 032816-1 and 032817-1 NBC Symphony Orchestra First issued as Victor 2020 and 2021 in album M-605 Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn Arturo Toscanini Special thanks to Nathan Brown, Charles Niss and Don Tait for providing source material for this project (Historical recordings 1938-39) 8.110895 5 6 8.110895 110895bk 12/11/04 3:04 pm Page 2 Great Conductors • Arturo Toscanini generated by the sound only medium would play and artistic legacy that is unrepresentative of the lento assai as cantante e tranquillo is a gift for virtuosity of the NBC string section is on its HAYDN: Symphony No. 88 • MOZART: Symphony No. 40 well with Toscanini’s musical temperament, true quality of their achievement. Given the Toscanini’s vocal phrasing of leading lines, mettle in both works and Toscanini’s lean BEETHOVEN: Movements from String Quartet, Op. 135 particularly with regard to his obsessively high special quality of his orchestral work with the which here emerge with a tonal richness and presentation of Rossinian classical lines rather standards of rehearsal and execution. So it was NYPO, the circumstances of his departure must inevitability that amply reflect Beethoven’s than obvious graphics offers an unusually ROSSINI: William Tell Overture that the cream of orchestral musicians was have festered, leaving him not only with lessons emotional gravitas and architectural surety. The coherent reading of work that can all too often 1938 was a momentous year for Toscanini. Apart a mass audience lay ripe for the picking. headhunted from across the continent and to teach, but also owing to Sarnoff’s influence, fleetness of the following vivace provides a deft, sound sectional and gratuitous. An auspicious from Britain, he had severed most of his links During his final season in 1936, Toscanini’s beyond, expressly to custom-build an orchestra things to prove to posterity. Maybe some of this satisfying volte face that unexpectedly compensates start to a collaboration and enterprise that was to with Europe as the climax of a prolonged and demands on the New York Philharmonic for a man ready to be groomed for cult media status. was at the root of the impatience, anger and even for the missing context. last through to his final concert with the NBC very public stand against Fascism and in administration became increasingly at odds with The debate will probably endure for all time brutality that became more pronounced in the The programme is rounded off by two of the orchestra on 4th April, 1954. particular by refusing to conduct a revival of the financial and artistic realities of an orchestra whether Toscanini’s peak was his activity at NBC recordings. Maestro’s favourite calling cards, his own Die Meistersinger at Salzburg, leaving the spoils trying to adapt and survive in the post-depression La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, his tenure of It can hardly be coincidence that Mozart’s arrangement of Paganini’s Moto Perpetuo and the Ian Julier to Furtwängler. He was effectively barred from environment. He objected to certain guest the New York Philharmonic or the years with the Symphony No. 40 was chosen for these first NBC overture to Rossini’s William Tell. The corporate his homeland and his ongoing relationship with conductors appearing without being consulted, NBC Symphony Orchestra. Whatever the view, recordings, when it had also featured in Ada Mainardi was in full spate emotionally. potentially practical mergers with other there is no question that Sarnoff’s shrewd Toscanini’s farewell concert with the New York Having been lured back to the United States after orchestras were rejected and any reduction in the manoeuvring catapulted the Maestro to Philharmonic just two years previously, his departure from the New York Philharmonic as numbers of concerts, particularly his own, were international glory in a completely unprecedented especially when the work itself was nowhere near recently as 1936, he was now making his first dismissed out of hand. For all the public ballyhoo manner, establishing a promotional template that as ubiquitous as it has since become, nor with the commercial recordings following his inaugural and outpourings of grief that registered on a scale has endured in the musical world to this day. It composer being at the forefront of his repertoire. season with the orchestra specially formed by of national musical bereavement at his farewell was not all one-sided however. Toscanini was The interpretation is unexpectedly expressive and NBC as the bait. concerts, the Maestro had made his own position equally expert at his own brand of brinkmanship generously lyrical, enriched by a dynamic range No-one understood the dual chemistry of untenable and his ultimate resignation inevitable. in his dealings with the corporation, but from the widely delineated, but without undue exaggeration. artistic pride and marketability more acutely than Compromise and concession were never negotiable initial offer of the best post Toscanini could have A fieriness and spontaneity wholly in keeping David Sarnoff, the mastermind behind the within the context of his artistic standards and he hoped for in the context of the deteriorating with Mozartian G minor at its most subtly tragic foundation of the National Broadcasting effectively left himself with no choice. international political situation, Sarnoff was are neatly balanced with eloquent phrasing and Company in 1926. By 1930 he was firmly in Following his departure from the Philharmonic, cleverly able to keep one step ahead in the game. articulation, confounding those who look to these control as president and embarked upon a Toscanini’s field of operations shrank rapidly. Listening to these first forays in the very qualities from Furtwängler. Paradoxically, visionary realisation of the power of radio as a His flagship concerts with the newly formed infamously dry acoustic of Studio 8H brings a the Maestro’s arch-rival’s tempi in his commercial communicator, educator and purveyor of orchestra of Jewish immigrants in Palestine in surprising impression of mellowness and recording with the Vienna Philharmomnic entertainment with boundless mission and December 1936 had been a considerable success, flexibility that was increasingly sapped out of the Orchestra from ten years later are more urgent, the business acumen. Consolidating perceptive but hardly offered him the most far-reaching music in the sometimes severe and aggressive reading notably more intense and ruffled. advice from his team of programmers and development opportunity given his career to date. demeanour of Toscanini’s subsequent recorded Much the same trend is evident in Haydn’s advisers, especially Samuel Chotzinoff, Sarnoff knew that America and specifically radio commercial releases with the NBC. Many Symphony No. 88, which was even less well Toscanini’s swift return to the United States was offered a new and unique means to establish and witnesses, including members of the orchestra known at the time. There is an engaging geniality targeted as one of his prime objectives.