Ludwig van Beethoven: The 9 Symphonies - Arturo Toscanini / NBC Symphony Orchestra
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Free Music Notes for Ludwig van Beethoven: The 9 Symphonies - Arturo Toscanini / NBC Symphony Orchestra
Free Music Review: my two cents
Hit: 3 Stars
I'm writing this mostly to off-set a somewhat fanatical fan of Toscanini's that seems to think what he (and a few of countless reviewers) experiences as the "best" beethoven cycle.
Considering the fact that these days there are still conductors appreciated by current reviewers, and assuming reviewers these days aren't vastly inferior to those that lived around Toscanini's day, this appears to tell us that Toscanini, while good in his own right, has lost some of his conductoral relevance that made him the cr?me de la cr?me back in his day.
Which i believe is directly related to the questions of whether or not you would want to buy this set today.
Let me try to clarify that.
To my (admittedly untrained) ear, when i listen to Toscanini's performances, they sound like how i could perform them with just a minimum of training.. (please forgive me for my somewhat hyperbolic way of putting this, but it's mostly for the sake of the argument)
I wouldn't have to be a beethoven scholar to "interpret" his writing.
This is not to say Toscanini doesn't conduct better, but my point is that you don't really need to study the man behind the music to come up with a fairly uninspired reading of notes, which is how i perceive this recording.
Now, while toscanini might have arrived at the idea of conducting it faithfully *because* he studied Beethoven, nowadays, recordings like this one are everywhere, and as such, the norm.. which leads to my concluding he won't be able to surprise you anymore.
When i listen to just the intros of his 5th, 7th and 9th, all i hear is an orchestra playing without any lyricism beyond what they're reading off the paper.
Now, it may be true that I've gotten used to Furtw?ngler's very expressive way of conducting (the War years recordings), but when i listen to the fast way Toscanini conducts, i don't *feel* anything..
And while i know that Beethoven routinely made fun of people after smaller audience performances (the high society) because they got carried away by his music, with people crying at the ordeal they feel they experienced through the music, but doesn't that imply that Beethoven, when conducting, put feeling into his music by conducting it the way he felt it should be conducted?
And, consequently, that his way of conducting would probably be different from Tosca's, since i have yet to discover any *real* dramatic buildup towards any sort of climax other than what's already been written into the music?
Sure, there is dramatic buildup and tension in the music itself, but if conductors were only allowed to perform it as the notes required, after 2 or 3 listening-throughs, and 2 or 3 conductors, you won't be able to be surprised at *any* of the Macro-level stuff that's in the piece, even if you might still discover a few new details every time you hear it.
My point is, mostly, that a conductor is there to interpret the sheets any way he likes, to a point.
And when Toscanini does it his way, that's his good right.
But it is *not* necessary to say that his way is the "only" way, from which all contemporary conducting derived, because that is just not the case.
Particularly because a contemporary of Toscanini, Furtw?ngler, was just as admired for his (very different) conducting style, and it only really depended on what 'camp' the critic was in to hear which of the 2 conductors was best.
This even though Furt was ignored for a long time because of false Nazi collaboration allegations that were particularly bad in the US, where Toscanini conducted and had his following.
In conclusion, when you want to have a set that probably changed the "standard performance" we hear today to a mirror image of itself, get this.
If you want to have a historically accurate collection of all great cycles and conductors, get this.
But if you really want to have a recording that moves you, don't buy this set.. Because i feel it won't do that.
Also, don't get the standard von Karajan stuff that everyone that doesn't hate him these days recommends, but try ASIN B00001W09Z,
and listen to the 9th recorded there without doing anything, preferably with your eyes closed, or just sitting in a chair doing nothing but listening to the music, and let it move you.
Free Music Review: THE Maestro's Beethoven
Hit: 5 Stars
The controversey about Toscanini just will not go away, nor is it likely to abate anytime soon. Contemporary music critics ran out of superlatives in their reviews of Toscanini's performances, and found his style so convincing and powerful they soon referred to him as THE Maestro, as if there were no others. Indeed, Toscanini had few peers during his long, outstanding career. This is somewhat harder to discern for modern listeners, who have been brought up listening to two generations of conductors who have mostly all been heavily influenced by Toscanini and the revolution in interpretation and performance he wrought.
Two myths about Toscaninini persist: the first, by his supporters, that he was a literally faithful interpreter; the second, by his critics, that he conducted everything too fast.
Neither of these myths is exactly true, but there is little point in refuting them in detail here.
The current take on Toscanini is that his recorded legacy does not support his reputation, since it consists mostly of recordings from when the maestro was already well into his 70's and 80's and had lost his creative spark. Peter Guttmann notes that by this time, Toscanini tended to regard all music as an abstraction and tended to seek maximum efficiency in performance, rather than inspired interpretaion. Very well, if that is so, it works remarkable WONDERS on Beethoven.
The first remarkable quality of any Toscanini performance is its rythymic DRIVE. This led his critics to charge that Toscanini took things too fast. What he really did was to seek what he considered to be a CORRECT tempo in every movement, one which he could inflect or adjust subtly as needed, rather than alter radically, as many other conductors did, and do to this day. This gives the music an unmatched sense of flow, and forward propulsion which serves the purpose of Beethoven remarkably well.
These performances are always going somewhere, and getting there with a purpose you can feel. One suspects that Beethoven would approve.
The other quality that sets Toscanini apart is his remarkable clarity of line, both horizontal (melody) and vertical (harmony).
This again sets up a flow to the music, a sense that every phrase flows inevitably from the one preceeding it and inevitably into the next one, that few other conductors can sustain for an entire performance. Toscanini's painstaking adjustments of orchestral balances and colors are legendary. Nowhere is that more evident than in the recording of the 7th Symphony in this set. Although the sound is only hi-fi mono, you hear the separation and definition of the orchestral sections BETTER than you do on most subsequent stereo recordings by other conductors. Nothing gets lost or assimilated in the tuttis, you hear EVERYTHING.
Finally, these are among the most DURABLE performances of these symphonies you are likely to hear. Others may contain more romance, poetry or passion, but these shine as well as they did when they were recorded half a century ago, and repeated listenings do not dim their lustre or bore you with familiarity.
Toscanini's genius was to have faith in the genius of Beethoven.
He knew that if you played these scores judiciously, with taste and absolute commitment, that the genius of Beethoven would emerge in full radiance, and dazzle the listener all by itself.
Free Music Review: excellent performance with surprisingly good sound
Hit: 5 Stars
This is an excellent performance. Although a bargain price, I thought it a little risky because sound can be an issue on 50 year old recordings but RCA deserves praise.
Toscanini conducts the cycle of nine symphonies and RCA presents them in order 1 to 9 and packaging them compactly on 5 CDs in cardboard sleeves. You get 5 CDs in the space it takes for one jewel-box double CD if that is of concern.
The Toscanini peformances are my favorite Beethoven symphonic cycles so far. My 1977 DG von Karajan with BPO seems to drag in spots. The Delta/LaserLight release with Farencsik and Hungarian Phil is better but not this good (especially the 9th). I am not a Beethoven expert but when choosing box sets, there is some risk of getting bored in some slow movements such as the second movement of Eroica. Plus, people are picky about the singers' pitch and vibrato in the last movement of the 9th.
All 9 symphonies in this Toscanini collection sounded golden at first listening from start to finish. Beethoven style preference can be in the ear of the beholder so not everyone likes the same recordings.
But, Beethoven fans or just fans of great music should do themselves a favor and check out this Toscanini release. You may find you play it frequently and don't even notice any sound quality problems.