The sort of repertoire
listed above is not commonly associated
with Toscanini so it’s good to hear
him in something different, and enterprising
of Guild to make these recordings available.
Both derive from Toscanini’s hour-long
radio broadcasts for NBC from Studio
8H and each disc contains a complete
concert. As is Guild’s custom, the interlinking
continuity announcements have been retained.
This is something I rather like as it
imparts a period feel but if you dislike
such intrusions, don’t be put off; all
the announcements are brief, none lasting
above 50 seconds.
For those unfamiliar
with this series, the recordings derive
from the collection of Richard Blaine
Gardner who was Toscanini’s engineer
and editor of choice at RCA Victor.
Gardner received the tapes from either
Toscanini himself or from the Maestro’s
son, Victor. Subsequently Gardner made
the recordings available to Richard
Caniell who oversaw their restoration.
Mr. Caniell says in a brief note accompanying
this release that it is uncertain whether
the present recordings derive from line-checks
or air-checks. His supposition is that
the 1942 concert is from an air-check
and that its companion derives from
a collector’s private disc recording.
In general, the CD transfers have been
well managed although inevitably some
surface noise is audible and some climaxes
sound a mite congested.
Apart from the Gershwin
items the other pieces may be as unfamiliar
to you as they were to me. Actually,
I had heard one of the non-standard
items before. The work by Loeffler is
included in a 1936 Barbirolli reading
in the New York Philharmonic’s substantial
set, An American Celebration.
I’m afraid I found it rather a bore
then and Toscanini’s account doesn’t
persuade me either. Loeffler, though
born in Alsace, spent some of his childhood
years in Ukraine (and in Hungary and
Switzerland also) before emigrating
to the USA in 1881. In this short symphonic
poem, composed in 1923, he depicts a
variety of things familiar to him from
his Ukrainian days including Russian
peasant songs, the Yourod’s Litany prayer,
fairy tales, dance songs and, at the
end, the death of Vasinka, an elderly
peasant storyteller. It’s pictorial
music and pleasant enough but not desperately
memorable, I think, though Toscanini
does what he can for it. In fairness
to the composer perhaps there is more
to this music than I have discerned
for it won first prize in 1924 at the
Chicago North Shore Festival. This success
led to it receiving a première
from the Chicago Symphony under Frederick
Stock and Stock revived it a few months
later. So three major conductors evidently
thought it worth an airing.
The Creston piece was
new to me but I found it as attractive
as those other works of his that have
come my way. Our editor, Rob Barnett,
who contributes the very useful liner
notes, is right to draw attention to
the importance that dance played in
Creston’s music. This short piece, first
heard in 1939, flaunts its dance inspiration.
It is a busy, even vehement piece for
full orchestra, founded on propulsive
rhythms, which are driven on by what
I take to be a large-ish percussion
section and an orchestral piano. The
assertive opening sounds a bit brash
in the acoustic of Studio 8H but maybe
the composer, who was present for the
performance, would not have been displeased.
Certainly he must have relished a virtuoso
conductor and orchestra expounding his
music.
The work by Morton
Gould, which I’d not previously heard,
was actually receiving its first performance,
in the presence of the composer, at
this concert. I’ve acquired several
other works by Gould in my collection
over the years but I’m bound to say
that in general, while I find them immaculately
crafted and pleasant to listen to none
of them has struck me as having a particularly
distinctive musical profile. A Lincoln
Portrait is no different.
The radio announcer
suggests that the structure of Gould’s
work might have been inspired by the
title of a biography of Lincoln, Prairie
Years, War Years. The piece begins
with evocative open-air music, not unlike
Copland in his Appalachian Spring
vein (here surface swishes are rather
intrusive, I’m afraid). Various American
folk songs are recollected. In the central
section, which is more robust, old war
songs are quoted in a marching band
style before, around 8’27" the
music slows again and more old American
songs are quoted, this time with more
vigour than at the very beginning before
a tranquil, string-dominated close which
seems to bring the music back full circle.
Though technically very assured it’s
all rather homespun and didn’t lodge
in my memory, I fear. Incidentally,
at 5’42", just where the central
section begins, there’s what, after
several hearings, I can only think is
a momentary dropout in the recording
but it only lasts for about a bar’s
length.
The highlight of this
concert must have been the performance
of the Gershwin Rhapsody. The
soloist was the young American virtuoso,
Earl Wild, just a few weeks shy of his
twenty-seventh birthday. Another celebrated
American musician was involved too,
for the announcer tells us that he has
spied the "smiling countenance"
of Benny Goodman in the ranks of the
orchestra. Apparently the Maestro himself
had invited him to play the first clarinet
part. Goodman launches the work stylishly
although there’s an unfortunate cracked
note right at the end of his solo. Actually,
I wonder if Goodman’s real value was
a bit more discreet? A bit later on
the rhythms around 3’47" are a
little foursquare, though the NBC brass,
like all good American brass players,
can bend the notes well enough, but
there in the background you can distinctly
hear Goodman’s idiomatically wailing
clarinet egging them on. Perhaps his
presence in the ranks fired the other
players.
It has to be said that
Toscanini’s rhythms can seem a little
plain but this, I suspect, may be less
to do with an unidiomatic approach from
him and more to do with the difficulties
of getting a full orchestra to swing.
We should remember that the work was
then only 18 years old so a performing
tradition was still being established.
By the late twentieth century the demands
of modern composers had made orchestral
musicians incomparably more flexible
but in the 1940s it can’t have been
easy for the NBC players, or any of
their peers, to switch from, say, Grieg
to Gershwin. It’s interesting to read
two contemporary critiques of this concert
that are reproduced in the booklet.
In the New York Times Olin Downes
avers, rather portentously, "the
Maestro might have spent his life with
the denizens of Tin Pan Alley for any
backwardness that he showed in his comprehension
of an apparent enthusiasm for the American
idiom." However, an anonymous reviewer
in Musical America in an evident
oblique reference to Toscanini commented
"Mr. Wild, wearing a Navy uniform,
all but stole the show with his spectacular
playing in those episodes that permitted
him to go his own (and Gershwin’s) way."
I’d certainly agree
that Wild gives a pretty fine performance.
However, despite his extravagantly gifted
pianism his reading here is not as spontaneous
as I’ve heard from others. This may
be indicative of a lack of rapport with
his conductor. Just as likely a cause,
however, is a lack of adequate rehearsal
time due to wartime contingencies. No
matter, he displays great virtuosity
with athletic fingerwork and rhythmic
flexibility. The romantic "big
tune" (at 10’38"), though
perhaps a touch broad for some tastes,
is given the full treatment by all concerned.
There’s more Gershwin
in the second concert and that programme
also contains a substantial rarity in
the shape of Festa das igrejas
by the Brazilian composer, Francesco
Mignone. This work, the Portuguese title
of which I think roughly translates
as "Festival of Churches"
was another recent composition at the
time, having been begun in 1939. The
announcer tells the audience that the
piece is a "Symphonic Impression
of four old Brazilian churches."
More than this I cannot tell you. However
the piece, which plays continuously
is a most effective one. It is colourful,
atmospheric and resourcefully orchestrated
for what sounds like a large band (including,
at the end, an organ; here a most egregious
and synthetic electric instrument is
used). There’s abundant rhythmic vitality
and, to borrow Rob Barnett’s felicitous
phrase several "voluptuous eruptions
of sound." Mr. Barnett is surely
right in pointing out in his notes the
similarities with Respighi (and how
appropriate, since Mignone was the son
of an Italian flautist and spent some
years studying in Italy.) The compositional
language is firmly tonal but dissonance
is employed to good effect. The most
substantial section of the piece (between
10’35" and 17’03"), depicting
what I take to be the third church,
is eerily reminiscent of the Aria from
Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras
No. 5. The work ends in an exuberant
riot of orchestral colour and syncopated
rhythms and here the link with Respighi
is especially pertinent. I wouldn’t
claim this work to be a masterpiece
by any means but I enjoyed it very much
and am glad to have made its acquaintance.
Toscanini and his musicians can be heard
to do it proud despite the sonic limitations.
Back to Gershwin for
the final item with Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
as soloist in the F major Concerto.
In the first movement (where surface
noise briefly obtrudes into Levant’s
first solo) the performance is good
(and Levant himself is excellent) but
here, more than in the Rhapsody I
missed a sense of verve and rhythmic
élan, especially in the
more up-tempo passages. The last degree
of freedom and of buoyancy in the rhythms
is lacking though conductor and soloist
drive the movement to an exciting conclusion.
The famous, evocative trumpet solo in
the slow movement (truly, music of The
City) is well done though I can’t escape
the feeling that other conductors might
have encouraged more ‘bending’ of the
notes. When he enters Levant is decisive
and the quicker central section, which
the soloist leads, has a good deal of
bounce. The finale is played for all
it’s worth and makes for a rousing conclusion.
No wonder the audience goes wild. This
wouldn’t be a first choice for this
concerto but it’s an enjoyable performance
with an excellent soloist in Oscar Levant.
At the risk of repeating myself, it’s
also of documentary importance as a
part of the establishment of the performance
tradition of this work, which had been
written as recently as 1925.
In summary, a fascinating
pair of CDs, showing one of the twentieth
century’s most celebrated conductors
in a less familiar light. The music
is uneven in quality but all is worth
hearing and the performances are of
the high standard you’d expect. The
recordings inevitably betray their age
but Mr. Caniell and his colleagues have
done their considerable best with them
and at no time does the recorded sound
mar enjoyment to any serious degree.
Documentation is up to Guild’s usual
high standards.
An issue which all
those interested in twentieth century
Americana should try to hear and which
will be self-recommending to acolytes
of Toscanini.
John Quinn
see also review
by Jonathan Woolf
NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini
