Search - Toscanini, NBC Symphony Orchestra :: 1944-The Red Cross Concert

Fans of Fiorello LaGuardia Should Not MISS This!

09/16/1998

(1 out of 5 stars)

"If your greatest pleasure in auditing this CD would be the enjoyment of Mayor LaGuardia spending ten minutes or so emceeing a fund- raising auction, then this is JUST the release for you!For the rest of us who would like to enjoy the music, and the interpretations of Toscanini, the commercial authorized BMG/RCA recordings offer immeasurably more satisfying musical and technical quality than this hoary old relic. This is NOT a radio broadcast, but a recording on acetate disk of a public event held at Madison Square Garden to raise money for the American war effort. If you were there, you will want this disk set! If not, get the OWI film recording of "Hymn of the Nations", coupled with Verdi's Requiem, and the various Wagner compilations, on the RCA/BMG commercial Toscanini Collection CDs. The sound here is quite dim, distant, and undetailed: the antithesis of the occasionally claustrophobic Studio 8-H close-in balances, but here, TOO distant and indistinct. The Wagner readings, for all their power, simply lack the impact that is generated by the commercial recordings, or the live fifties' broadcasts (available in excerpts on Fonit-Cetra CDs.)And, WHY, OH WHY, does Enterprise seem to think that fake stereo can help such a recording? It only damages what clarity and definition are present in the original single-channel archival disks."