- The term maestro means a "master" or "teacher"
in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. In English it refers to a distinguished
musician or noted figure in any artistic field. Most often, however, it's
a term of respect for an eminent conductor of classical music. For this
writer, the term applies to one great man above all others, and this year
commemorates the 50th anniversary of his death - the incomparable Arturo
Toscanini whose anti-fascism enhanced his musical prominence and is the
reason for this article.
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- Here's what former New York Times music critic Olin Downes
once wrote about him: "Toscanini (had) unparalleled qualities as an
interpreter. (His performances showed) profound intuition, abnormal concentration
(and) consuming sincerity which make them what they are, and without a
precise equivalent in any other conductor of which we know....People marvel
at such physical as well as artistic capacity. Toscanini is a physical
and mental phenomenon....(The) supreme....spirit of the sovereign artist....sustains
him....Watch him as he walks slowly to the podium and mounts the stand.
Then see what happens the instant he faces the orchestra, scoreless....taking
command immediately with imperious authority and elan. A rock-ribbed steadfastness
of tempo emanates from the baton....as the music ebbs and flows from this
extraordinary blend of control and release.....Toscanini (is) like the
invincible titan and warrior of the faith. (He's) the great master, the
ageless hero....the incorruptible and consummate artist (creating) art
(that is) greater than man himself....And it is this....which makes his
fellow-man his debtor."
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- The Maestro was born in Parma, Italy March 25, 1867.
He began his musical career as a cellist and debuted at age 19 as a conductor
in Rio de Janeiro in 1886 when he was unexpectedly called on to substitute
for the regular music director. Amazingly, he led the orchestra and cast
in Verdi's classic Aida from memory without ever before having done it.
It changed his life and the operatic and symphonic world.
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- Toscanini was considered by many critics and fellow musicians
the greatest conductor of his era, or any other, that lasted nearly seven
decades from 1886 to his retirement in 1954 at age 86. His perfectionism
was demanding and extraordinary and was aided by his phenomenal memory.
He conducted all his concerts without scores, remembering every nuance
of every note of every performance until once late in his life his memory
faltered on April 4, 1954 at age 86. In mid-performance, he stopped conducting
live on-air. He covered his eyes and the orchestra, so dependent on his
leadership, at first fell silent. With help, he managed to finish the
concert with the well-rehearsed orchestra leading their Maestro who led
them for so many years. Before the concert's end, Toscanini dropped his
baton and left the stage. He never conducted in public again.
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- Toscanini's musical genius had an enormously enriching
influence on many, including this writer. It began a lifelong love for
the classics that remains to this day and is still enjoyed in a large collection
of old but very serviceable LP recordings of his operas and symphonic works.
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- The first ever bought is still the one most cherished
- his classic 1946 recording of Puccini's La Boheme with a distinguished
cast. It was performed live to a worldwide audience on NBC Radio on two
successive Sundays beginning 50 years and two days after he premiered it
in the Regio Opera House in Turin, Italy for his friend and composer Giacomo
Puccini. In the recorded performance, as in some others, Toscanini can
be heard humming at several dramatic moments and at one stunning point
sighing in an expression of deep emotion. Some critics said it detracted
from the performance. Others, and this writer, felt it enriched the listening
experience, making it special by glorifying and highlighting it. It made
a lasting impact on listeners still remaining for this one over 60 years
later.
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- Toscanini was more than a great music master. He was
also uncompromisingly anti-fascist at a time of Mussolini's rise to power
in his native Italy in the 1920s followed by Hitler in 1930s Germany.
Though non-political overall, throughout that period and during WW II,
he was distinguished for his views as a symbol of freedom and humanity
when so little of it existed at a time of global war on three continents.
More on that below.
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- Throughout the late 19th century, Toscanini slowly built
his reputation conducting in various concert halls throughout Italy. He
directed the premiere performances of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in 1892 and
La Boheme in 1896. He also directed the Italian premieres of Wagner's
Gotterdammerung in 1895 and Siegfried in 1899 at the famed La Scala opera
house that first began operating two years after the United States declared
its independence from the British Crown. During his illustrious career,
he conducted throughout Europe, North and South America and became the
principal conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1908, remaining
there until 1915. In 1926, he debuted with the New York Philharmonic,
became its co-conductor in 1927 and its principal music director in 1929.
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- While on tour in Bologna, Italy in 1931, he was assaulted
by fascist thugs for his views, authorities temporarily confiscated his
passport, and the Fascist party surrounded his Milan home with carabinieri.
During the same period, he was constantly attacked by the Fascist press
for his uncompromising views. As a result, Toscanini refused thereafter
to conduct in Italy during Mussolini's reign.
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- In 1933, he withdrew from Bayreuth after Hitler became
German Chancellor in January that year. He even sent Hitler a personal
telegram stating his views to which the German dictator responded by banning
further sale or performance of his recordings. That same year his daughter,
Wanda, married famed concert pianist Vladimir Horowitz who performed on-stage
and in recordings many times with his renowned father-in-law. In the 1930s,
Toscanini resigned from the New York Philharmonic to lead the Vienna Philmarmonic,
later withdrawing from the Salzburg Festival in 1938 protesting Hitler's
Anschluss takeover of Austria in March that year.
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- Beginning with his first concert on Christmas Day, 1937,
he began his association with the NBC Symphony, many of whose recordings
this writer has and treasures as classics. Company president David Sarnoff
created the orchestra expressly for the Maestro as an inducement for him
to return to New York. He did and remained the orchestra's conductor until
his retirement in 1954.
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- Many critics and classical musicians regard the 1937
- 1954 17 year era as the golden age of symphonic music in America when
Arturo Toscanini led the NBC Symphony throughout the period. His weekly
concerts were held in NBC's famed Studio 8-H in New York's Rockefeller
Center until the fall of 1950 when they were moved to Carnegie Hall for
its superior acoustics.
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- A personal note: Live Sunday evening concerts were broadcast
worldwide on NBC Radio, including 10 televised in the US from 1948 - 1952.
They were held around the dinner hour in the 1940s and early 1950s. My
mother introduced me to them. She played classical piano, listened when
able, as did I as a young boy. It began a lifetime love for the classics
and the Maestro's incomparable performances that touched everyone hearing
them. Toscanini's uncompromising standards of excellence and relentless
quest for perfection had a profound effect on his listeners. I'm one of
them any time I choose from my large collection of his recordings. They
preserve his music forever that's as powerful and moving now as when first
performed.
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- One other personal note: My mother's love of great music
was matched by her passion for learning. She pursued it and received her
well-deserved degree along with her son in the same class of 1956, seven
months before Toscanini's death. It was the first time a mother and son
ever graduated together in the 320 year history of the oldest higher institution
of learning in the country. June 14, 1956 was her day. Her son just went
along for the ride.
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- Toscanini the Anti-Fascist
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- As a conductor and anti-fascist, Toscanini was uncompromising.
This section covers the political philosophy of a non-political man who
was fiercely democratic. It emerged when the Maestro publicly denounced
Benito Mussolini after he led his National Fascist Party's march on Rome
in October, 1922 declaring himself Il Duce or supreme leader. Toscanini
thereafter refused to play the Fascist anthem Giovanezza he didn't consider
fit music and wanted nothing to do with the Fascist dictator.
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- When Italian King Emmanuel III declared himself Emperor
of conquered Ethiopia in 1936, Toscanini wrote: "Cursed Rome. Mussolini,
the Emperor-King, and the Pope. Pigs, all of them." In a letter
to Berlin in 1941, he wrote: "You are too poisoned by the atmosphere
that surrounds you, you are all living now too much amid shame and dishonor,
without showing any sign of rebellion, to be able to value people like
me, who have remained and will remain above the mud, not to give it a worse
name, that is drowning the Italians."
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- Earlier in 1938, he wrote: "I've never been and
will never be involved in politics; that is, I became involved only once
in '19, and for Mussolini and I repented....I've never taken part in Societies,
either political or artistic....I've always believed only an individual
can be a gentleman....Everyone ought to express his own opinion honestly
and courageously, then dictators, criminals, wouldn't last so long."
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- In February, 1941 Toscanini intervened on behalf of fellow
Italian and anti-fascist, Claudio Alcorso. He'd been arrested because of
his nationality in allied Australia in July, 1940 and held for what became
a bitter three and a half year confinement. It was because Australia judged
Italians during the war the way the US viewed Japanese Americans. It
made Alcorso believe "a dogmatic mentality was not the sole prerogative
of German and Italian Fascists." Toscanini's efforts failed despite
repeated efforts, though Alcorso was finally freed after Mussolini and
his Fascist party fell in 1943.
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- While Mussolini ruled as Italy's dictator, the Maestro
refused to perform in his native country including at the famed Milan La
Scala opera house. He publicly stated: "Never! I refuse to turn La
Scala into a market place for Fascist demonstrations. They have the square
outside and also the Galleria nearby for that, but while I conduct the
Scala orchestra, it will remain the home of opera and never will it become
a propaganda platform." Mussolini gave his brazen response: "Never
will my feet cross the threshold of La Scala until Toscanini, the anti-Fascist,
goes from there. How dare he refuse to play Giovanezza (the Fascist anthem)?"
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- Toscanini condemned Mussolini for his comments telling
La Scala's directors: "I will conduct Giovanezza never and for nobody!"
He stood resolute by his word. He deplored dictatorships and never played
in Czarist or Stalinist Russia as well. He was an implacable enemy of
tyranny. In Weimar pre-Hitler Germany, he was the first non-German to
appear at the Wagner Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, but refused to return in
1933 after Hitler came to power. He denounced the Nazi's treatment of
Jewish musicians in protest. He also refused to conduct at Austria's Salzburg
Festival because noted Jewish conductor Bruno Walter's performances there
weren't broadcast in Germany. Later in 1938 and 1939, he conducted, without
compensation, at a Lucerne, Switzerland festival with an orchestra entirely
composed of musicians who'd fled German persecution.
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- During WW II, Toscanini said: "Italy will certainly
have a revolution as a result of the current war; the Allies will either
favor and help it, or hinder it. The Allies' attitude will determine whether
the revolution will, or will not, result in an orderly democratic government...."
If he were still living, Toscanini would be outspoken about today's world
and the ugliness Washington injects in it. He'd denounce fascism's rise
in America and the power of wealth and privilege driving it. He was a
democrat and patriot whose influential views had weight.
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- Today the Mastro would be in the artistic forefront leading
the struggle for the same freedoms he believed in when fascism earlier
engulfed Europe, Asia and North Africa in its greatest of all wars. In
words and stunning music, he'd be in the lead to prevent it happening again
so the spirit of equity, social justice and peace on earth could prevail
for all above the darkness of tyranny now threatening everyone in the age
of George Bush's America.
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- Toscanini conducted his last concert on April 4, 1954
as mentioned above. Always one to surprise (as he did two and a half months
earlier choosing Un Ballo in maschera over Rigoletto for his final opera
performance), he eschewed his native Italy and chose an all-Wagner program
for the occasion. He died of a stroke at age 89 on January 16, 1957. His
extraordinary music and democratic spirit are sorely missed but not forgotten.
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- Throughout the year, many Toscanini commemorative concerts
and events were and are still being held in the US, his native Italy and
elsewhere. Most notable was the New York Public Library's showcase exhibition
of rare Library material on the Maestro's legacy that ran from February
21 through May 25, 2007. It was called Arturo Toscanini: Homage to the
Maestro. It included rare rehearsal and performance recordings and unique
documents on Toscanini's multifaceted persona. Among items on exhibit were
photographs, annotated scores, letters, and many seldom ever seen unpublished
materials donated by the Toscanini family to the Library's Music Division.
Through these and other documents, the Maestro's memory, spirit and music
remains alive.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
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- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com
Saturdays at noon US central time.
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