Ludwig van Beethoven Symphonies Toscanini
Let's first get the quality of the audio out of the way. These recordings were made around 1950, and even after improved mastering, the monaural sound is below that of a contemporary digital recording or for that matter the Living Stereo analog recordings that RCA was making just 10 years later. Anyone who wants sonically brilliant recordings of the Beethoven symphonies should try a different set. There are many other quite good sets available, on both digital and analog recordings and in different performing styles.
The reason to get this set is to hear Toscanini conduct and, specifically, to hear how he approached these foundational works late in his career. To my own non-expert ears, Toscanini fully earned his reputation as perhaps the greatest conductor of his time. He had precise control of his musicians' playing. He communicated a real feel for the nuances of the music. Yes, his tempos were much faster than was common at the time or that was fashionable for Beethoven performances for two decades or so after his death. Toscanini took what he called an "objective" approach to the music, which seems to have meant among other things observing Beethoven's own tempo markings. Toscanini's reputation seems to have fallen after his death for such reasons.
But fashions change. The period instrument and "historically informed performance" movement that took off in the late 1970s or so eventually led to conductors again taking Beethoven's own tempo markings seriously and observing them in performance. New and influential recordings of the Beethoven symphony cycle were released including those of the British conductors John Eliot Gardiner and Roger Norrington. They proved that faster tempos restored a drive and thrill to the music that could get lost in more stately performances, some of which, in comparison, began sounding ponderous and dull.
As this Toscanini Beethoven cycle shows, Toscanini understood that decades earlier. And these performances are thrilling, as well as intelligent and insightful. If you can get over the quality of the sound (which, really, isn't that bad), these recordings are fine simply to enjoy Beethoven's music, and they also are helpful in understanding why Toscanini was the important conductor that he was, through much of the twentieth century.
I grew up on these performances, and it's difficult for me to hear other attempts without the cold wind of criticism blowing. Nevertheless, as an adult, I've listened to them again and again in the context of other recordings and have come to something more reasonable than pure adulation. First, the sound is definitely not as good as even the most ordinary recordings of today. That's a technical matter solely. If, and it's a mighty big if, you are capable of listening beyond the sound to the music, then there simply aren't other Beethoven symphony performances that are in the same league as these. The NBC Symphony Orchestra was the most astonishing virtuoso orchestra ever assembled. If you doubt that at all, just listen to them release a sound. Many orchestras these days (though not then) can make a unified attack, but a unified release is something you just don't hear. Balances are a constant miracle as the music progresses. Toscanini was NOT a slave to the score (compare score and recording of the 9th, for example, where Toscanini reorchestrated whole sections of the last movement in order to get a greater clarity of sound (he did the same in his performances of Debussy's La Mer), and his much touted speed is many times actually a little slower than that of other conductors--it just sounds faster because it has such astonishing clarity. One can easily disagree with Toscanini's late-in-life, slam-bang approach to most music (his Brahms leaves me cold, for example) but in these overplayed and over-recorded Beethoven symphonies, there are few conductors that approach Toscanini, and none that match him. If you are serious about these compositions, this is a set that bears up under repeated scrutiny. Oh heck, I'll give it ten stars.
BalasHapusRCA/BMG have reissued these recordings numerous times since their initial LP release. To the best of my knowledge, they've never been out of print. The sound on various incarnations has varied, from the clean but compressed mono originals, fake stereo reissues in the 1960s, to at least four CD issues. In 1997, RCA totally reorganized and inventoried its massive vaults, which had been in disarray for decades. As a result, many original sources which had been declared "lost" were now "found." This new remastering is strikingly improved sonically over all earlier issues. Utilizing the best technology now available, RCA has also done the right thing by hiring a musician - conductor Ed Houser - rather than whiz-bang technicians to supervise the remastering. The NBC Symphony Orchestra now sounds better than ever before, with smoother strings, fuller winds, increased dynamic range, and less blotting out during fortissimos.
BalasHapusPerhaps no conductor of the 20th Century has been as misunderstood as Arturo Toscanini, as evidenced by the critical backlash with which he was assailed in the years following his death. That criticism was partly in reaction to the equally unbalanced adulation heaped upon him during his lifetime. I remember once mentioning to an acquaintance my admiration for Toscanini's Beethoven and Brahms, and he shot back, "He conducts everything too fast!" In fact, in comparison with other recordings and broadcasts of his era, Toscanini's conducting was not generally faster than average. In relation to TODAY'S phlegmatic tempos, however, Toscanini's pacing is definitely brisk. But what most people are hearing as fast is, in fact, Toscanini's characteristic rhythmic vitality and, occasionally, drive, which brings the faster movements to sparkling life. (The finale to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is an example: the tempo is not unusually fast, but it SEEMS faster than normal because of the precise articulation and clarity.) Likewise, the slow movements are never dragged, and glow with Italianate warmth.
It is worth noting that RCA has made one major change in this reissue of Beethoven Symphonies: the 1949 studio recording of the "Eroica," heard in previous complete sets has been replaced by the 1953 live Carnegie Hall version. RCA does not credit the liner notes, but they are reprints of Mortimer H. Frank's excellent notes originally written for the early 1990s CD release.
RCA has so far only released Toscanini's core repertoire with the NBC Symphony--but they are more than welcome additions to the catalogue. The Maestro's recordings with the New Your Philharmonic, and The Philadelphia Orchestra should also be remastered, post-haste.
Follow up: Toscanini's Philly recordings have been remastered and issued Arturo Toscanini: The Complete Philadelphia Orchestra Recordings 1941-42. Get them, you won't regret it.
Not that anyone's been waiting for it, but this apology comes 40 years late. In the `60s I bought the old Victrola LP set of these recordings because they were cheap and even a kid who knew nothing about classical music had heard of The Maestro. Soon after though I was seduced by Furtwangler and long believed he brought greater depth to these works. By comparison Toscanini seemed a ruthless martinet. Such perceptions were not uncommon among my generation. The Furtwangler revival, particularly in the U.S., was a youth movement of the '60s and '70s. Baby Boomers found the German conductor unbuttoned and spiritual and rebelled against their parents' icon, the hidebound disciplinarian Toscanini. But now, listening to these excellent (and, once again, ridiculously inexpensive) transfers -- listening past my prejudices -- has been a humbling, exalting experience. Take the Pastoral, hardly thought to be a Toscanini specialty, even in his gentler BBC recording. With the NBC Symphony there's no sentimentality, no nature painting or communing with the infinite. Instead we're given Beethoven the classicist, the architect and also, indeed, the tone poet. Thanks to Toscanini and his disciples I've come to realize that Beethoven composed before Wagner and Bruckner and that late romantic renderings diminish the music. Just one more thing: many Maestro Mavens insist his 1939 cycle, not to mention some still earlier individual performances, are even better than these because in the `30s Toscanini was more flexible and relaxed and employed more rubato. I disagree. Toscanini continued to the end to refine and purify his art. These recordings remain a cornerstone of any collection.
BalasHapusThe 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.
BalasHapusTwo 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.
Stated simply, this is the grandest cycle of Beethoven symphonies available.Don't let other reviewers make you think that the sound is terrible.It is not.I am very picky about what I listen to,and the minor imperfections in this set cannot come close to comparing with the positive aspects.This set has (in my opinion the best version of the 1st and 8th I have ever heard).I hope all that purchase this set get one tenth of the enjoyment out of it that I have.
BalasHapusThis 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.
BalasHapusToscanini 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.