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Spoiler alert! More on Toscanini

Posted by TGR (A) on April 30, 2015 at 08:25:13

In Reply to: Great thoughts... posted by Dman on April 30, 2015 at 05:50:09:

I recently listened to the Toscanini set, something I had been remiss about doing. I found a copy for the whopping total of $0.99.....not perfect, but $0.99?

I don't know if you have ever seen this book, but for the bicentennial (1970, of course), the late High Fidelity surveyed the available (at least generally available recordings in the US) of Beethoven....it almost seems naïve now - there were maybe 12 or 14 compete Beethoven sets surveyed. Paul Henry Lang had the assignment to review the symphonies. You can find used copies of this at Amazon, by the way. I wore out my original one, and recently got a new (to me) one that way. Interesting period reading.

At any rate, the Toscanini set was included, and after listening to the set, I think he fairly captured what is on the records, so that would give an even better idea than my capsule. The sound is highly variable, ranging from pretty OK in many cases to what sounds like a poor air-check in the 5th (an otherwise magnificent performance). I had the sense that this set of records did not always represent Toscanini at his best. The Pastorale doesn't really come off, for example. Lang says, correctly, that Toscanini misjudges the climax in the last movement.

Many of the symphonies are magnificent - for me, nobody has captured the essence of the 7th better than Toscanini - but his 36 NYPO recording is even better. The 5th is superb, but marred by poor sound. His 9th is really too fast, and doesn't allow the music to breathe, IMO (and many others hold this view as well). The 8th symphony is done extremely well, too.

Anyway, there are recordings that anyone with an interest in Beethoven need to hear, and this is certainly one. I would also include a smattering of Furtwangler in this, even though I despise his way with Beethoven. I have 3 recordings of his 9th.....as David Byrne asked "How did I get here?"

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