NBC Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Arturo Toscanini
Rec. 20 April 1940, 6 May 1940
Original transfer to CD by Music and Arts, 1994
XR remastering by Andrew Rose, April 2007
Download ID: 295107
(Duration 67'58")
The Marriage of Figaro is
beautiful; I heard a performance
many years ago
conducted by Richard Strauss
and I was entranced. But I
thought: ...there is something
about it which I cannot
understand, which eludes me
and which is lacking in me.
The Barber of Seville is a
magnificent opera, but there
are some poor moments,
unnecessary pages which
aren't beautiful and need
cutting; but compared with
Figaro,-how much sunlight,
and variety and genuine gaiety
there is in the music!
And again of Mozart:
He was
too perfect, everything is just where
it should be. Some of his music I find
cold. But he was a unique genius
Evidently Toscanini had
difficulty with Mozart. It is not
therefore surprising that his exploration
of the symphonic repertoire was
sketchy and incomplete. Of the late
symphonies, no Linz, just one
Prague in 1938, a single 39th in the
last thirty years of his career - both
of these demonstrating, in their
barely trammelled ferocity, why he
never conducted them more often.
Just three scores were programmed
with any frequency: the Haffner and
the G minor, both of which featured
in concerts throughout his career,
and the Jupiter. It is apparent why
these scores appealed: the heroics of
Symphonies Nos. 35 and 41 and the
passionate utterances of No.40 are
major elements of the works to
which Toscanini's musical make-up
could respond without equivocation.
Nevertheless, it seems that
Mozart's last symphony did not enter
Toscanini's repertoire until the
conductor was sixty-two, in his first
season as director of the New York
Philharmonic-Symphony, when in
the course of 1929-1930 he programmed
it on five occasions.
Further performances followed in
1933, but thereafter the work
achieved just three outings, with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra in the
Queen's Hall on June 3 1938, the
present performance, his first with
the NBC Symphony, and finally again
with NBC on 4 February 1945. He
recorded the work with this orchestra
in sessions taking place in June
1945 and March 1946.
It is fortunate that all three
performances (plus the commercial
recording) have been preserved,
since they show substantial changes.
In particular, those dating from 1938
and 1940 are characterised by a
greater breadth and majesty than the
final renditions, in which the
melodic lines are free of the
straitjacketing which at times afflicts
the commercial recording -
magnificent though that is in some
movements...
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