Search - Toscanini, Philadelphia Orchestra :: Toscanini Collection

Another perspective on Toscanini.

12/08/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Music lovers who appreciate the work of some of the C20th great conductors and who can tolerate 60 year old recorded sound will find much to enjoy in this 4 CD set. It comprises recordings made during 1941-1942 when New York lost Toscanini briefly to Philadelphia. The Philadelphie Orchestra, long trained by Stokowski, took well to Toscanini's discipline, and the recording venue was preferable the studio Toscanini preferred in New York. Recordings totalling about five hours were made, but they suffered so much damage that it seemed unlikely that they could ever be issued. There were rumours that Toscanini's son was trying to fit all the pieces together, jig-saw like, that surivived of the Schubert 9th Symphony recording. Modern processing and re-mastering techniques eventually achieved the near impossible, and modern listeners can now enjoy the performances with ease.The efforts were worthwhile, inasmuch as we are able to hear the work of the great conductor with different orchestral forces than the ones he usually led, and in better sound than he usually obtained elswhere at the time. All critics and reviewers agree that the Schubert and Tchaikovsky symphonies found here receive the best performances to survive from Toscanini's recorded legacy. The Mendelssohn/Berlioz CD also preserves some exquisite sound textures, even if the marerial might be likened to spun gold rather than the spun silk that other conductors achieve. The Richard Strauss tone poem receives a strong, taught performace also. So there is much here to treasure. In boxed format, it offers everything at a cheaper rate than if the CDs are purchased separately."

Toscanini's Philadelphia recordings

Robert E. Nylund | Ft. Wayne, Indiana United States | 02/14/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What a joy it was to finally hear Arturo Toscanini's 1941-42 recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra. A labor of love went into producing relatively clean recordings from masters that had been defective. Something had gone terribly wrong many years ago and it was believed, by producer Charles O'Connell, that the recordings could never be issued. The signal-to-noise ratios were unacceptable; surface noise was louder than usual. O'Connell believed that wartime restrictions on recording materials may have been part of the problem.



Furthermore, a musicians' union recording ban made it impossible to redo the damaged masters; by the time the ban had ended, the Philadelphia Orchestra had left RCA Victor for Columbia and, presumably, RCA did not want to promote an orchestra that was no longer under contract. The decision was made to record all of the music with the NBC Symphony.



It wasn't until 1963 that RCA Victor finally issued one of the recordings, Schubert's "Symphony No. 9 in C." A lot of work had gone into the process, but the results were clearly worth it. Here was an exciting, even dramatic, spirited performance that clearly rivaled Toscanini's magnificent 1953 recording of the same music with the NBC Symphony. One could also enjoy the brilliant playing by the Philadelphia musicians, a wonderful testament to the years of refinement by Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy. Toscanini brought his own unique qualities to the performance, however, and there is far greater variety in the playing than in many of the recordings the Philadelphia Orchestra made with Stokowski and Ormandy.



In 1977, RCA was able to release the other Philadelphia Orchestra recordings, again spending many, many hours of editing and electronic doctoring. All of these incredible recordings were finally available and one can marvel at the performances. They were all recorded in the historic Academy of Music in Philadelphia, where so many performances and recordings were made over the years. Ormandy decided to record elsewhere after the hall was remodeled in the 1950's and in recent years the orchestra has played and recorded in its own new concert hall.



One clearly recognizes the lush strings of the Philadelphia Orchestra plus the brilliant acoustics of the Academy of Music, before it was remodeled and somewhat acoustically deadened (as can be detected in surviving off-the-air recordings from broadcasts). Here is the added ingredients of the inspired, imaginative conducting of Arturo Toscanini, yet another tribute to perhaps the greatest conductor of the last century.

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