TOSCANINI’S LONDON CAREER

Did you know that Arturo Toscanini, the greatest conductor of his era, had a rather active career in London in the 1930s? Additionally, he made a visit to London in 1952 to lead the Philharmonia Orchestra in a two-concert cycle of the major orchestral works of Brahms.

 Toscanini made his first visit to London in 1930. He was leading the New York Philharmonic on its first tour of Europe following his assumption of its leadership in 1929. Although no recordings exist of that visit, it came shortly after the Maestro’s first recording sessions with the Orchestra. The reception by the audiences for these first appearances was very interesting. Critics found the playing of the Philharmonic to be phenomenal, and Toscanini’s interpretations magnificent, except for his performance of the Elgar Enigma Variations. The critic of the Times claimed that Toscanini’s ideas were “too definite for a satisfying reading of Elgar” whose “elusive quality” was lost in “this highly organized interpretation”.

  Until Toscanini arrived, the English had never heard an orchestra of the quality of the New York Philharmonic. In short order, two world class ensembles were created; the BBC Symphony, led by the superb Adrian Boult, and Sir Thomas Beecham, not being able to come to terms with the BBC, created the London Philharmonic. After decades of being an orchestral wasteland, London, by the mid 30s, on the basis of recordings, had two of the world’s finest orchestras. Toscanini was repeatedly invited, and in 1935, made his debut with the BBC Symphony. He was supposed to return in 1936, but the BBC indicated that his fee would be cut, so he didn’t show up that year. Beginning in 1937 he returned each season through 1939.

 The BBC appearances produced a number of recordings for the HMV Company. These are important for a number of reasons. Toscanini had, in 1936, left the Philharmonic, and returned in 1937 to lead the newly created NBC Symphony. The first recordings for NBC were abysmal sounding, and the British engineers, in contrast, gave him state of the art sonics. Another reason for the importance of these recordings is the quality of playing of the BBC Symphony. It was imbued by then with European traditions, like the use of string portamenti, that Toscanini had pretty much eschewed in his work in the United States. The English woodwinds had a sound that displayed more character of tone than their American counterparts. For the Maestro, working with this Orchestra was almost a vacation, and the performances were much more relaxed than recordings show him to be doing at NBC in New York.

 What’s available, where can it be found, and why should listeners seek it all out? A fine anthology of all the studio BBC recordings has been issued on the Biddulph label (WHL 008/9) in excellent sound, transferred by one of the masters of shellac restoration, Mark Obert-Thorn. On two well-filled discs, you find Beethoven’s Symphonies 1,4, and 6, and various overtures by Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, and Brahms. Additionally, there is the Weber Invitation To the Dance, admittedly of no great consequence, as it was superceded by a finer NBC account of the early 50s. A number of these performances are unique in the Toscanini discography. There is the only recording he made of the Rossini Scala di Seta Overture, and it is on a par with his 1936 New York Philharmonic Italian In Algiers Overture, and the 1953 William Tell, which is to say, the finest Rossini Overture recordings EVER made by anyone, even with their sonic limitations! The Beethoven Symphonies are freer and more relaxed than their later NBC counterparts, and are full of little woodwind and string phrasings not found later on. The Mozart Magic Flute Overture is very special. Toscanini had a devil of a time with Mozart, which under his baton often sounded stiff and mechanical, and definitely TOO FAST. Listen to one his performances of the Minuets from the late Symphonies to hear what I mean. His 1948 recording of the 39^th Symphony is the single worst Mozart performance I’ve ever heard from a great conductor! Here, by contrast, all is relaxed and light as a feather as it breezes along effervescently to its dazzling conclusion.

 While the Biddulph set contains all the studio recordings with the BBC, EMI issued a number of CDs in the 1980s that contain broadcasts of some of the concerts Toscanini led with the BBC Symphony. These discs are now out of print, but they occasionally turn up in used CD bins. I imagine that casual listeners bought the discs because they said “Toscanini”, then were put off by the less than high fidelity sound they contained. While the sound certainly isn’t “high fidelity”, the performances beg our tolerance of the sonics. They are all from 1935-1938, and with only one exception, they are live. Two of the discs contain transcendent performances unequalled by Toscanini later on. EMI CDH-7-69783-2 has a Brahms 4^th which is so free in its rubati and well sprinkled with string portamenti that it could be mistaken for a recording by Furtwangler or Stokowski. On EMI CDH-7-63044-2 is a performance of the Prelude and Good Friday Spell from Wagner’s Parsifal. This was done in the era when Toscanini was making appearances at Bayreuth, and Salzburg doing complete opera performances. His Bayreuth Parsifal was judged as the slowest (and most beautiful) ever done at the Festival, and his BBC performance is likely in the same vein as the Bayreuth. As much as I love the 1949 NBC studio recording, it pales next to this magnificent achievement. On the same disc is a wonderful Siegfried’s Funeral Music, and the Faust Overture. Debussy’s La Mer is also included. The same La Mer performance appears coupled with Elgar’s Enigma Variations on EMI CDH-7-69784-2. This Enigma was met with qualified critical praise just as the 1930 New York Philharmonic performance was. Listening to it now, it strikes me as very close in spirit to Elgar’s own recording, and even the wild Sir Hamilton Harty reading of the same era. The English critics just couldn’t stand to allow that any non-Englishman could understand Elgar’s musical language as well as they could. EMI CDH-7-63307-2 is devoted to the Sibelius Symphony No. 2. It’s interesting to hear The Maestro’s way with Sibelius, and I’ve always felt that his 1952 Finlandia is the greatest recording ever made of the piece, but this performance is a little too fast and stiff for my taste.

 In 1993 Testament CD, which licenses its material from EMI, issued a Brahms 2^nd Symphony, along with a Rossini Semiramide Overture and two excerpts from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (SBT 1015). The Brahms is an outstanding example of Toscanini’s more relaxed way with this composer, and the Rossini is similar to the great 1936 New York Philharmonic recording. The Mendelssohn is the umpteenth performance of Toscanini’s issued on disc, and is the equal, but not the superior of The Maestro’s late 1940s recordings. By the way, all the Toscanini BBC concerts, with the exception of a run out to Oxford, took place in Queen’s Hall, London, a hall that was destroyed in the Blitz of the Battle of Britain.

 In the late 70s or early 80s, Angel Records issued a three LP box on their Seraphim label containing a lot of the studio BBC recordings that are on the Biddulph set, but with two additions that have never appeared anywhere else to my knowledge, and have never been issued on CD. A studio recording of the Beethoven Prometheus Overture, and a Beethoven 7^th that is the finest Toscanini performance of the work I know, even finer, AND better recorded than the legendary 1936 New York Philharmonic set.

 Toscanini’s final appearance in London took place in 1952. He had heard the six year old Philharmonia Orchestra while it was on tour of Italy and was very impressed with the ensemble. He let it be known that he was interested in conducting it, and arrangements were quickly concluded for a series of concerts. Circumstances compressed the original plans, but in October he led two concerts comprising the four Brahms Symphonies, the Tragic Overture, and the Haydn Variations. An excellent CD set on Arkadia (CDHP 524.3) has sonics that are adequate to demonstrate that these were performances of a lifetime. In every case they are superior to their NBC counterparts of 1951-1953. Whenever I want to lift myself out of some doldrum, I can put on this CD of the First Symphony, and just the introduction is a guaranteed bad mood breaker! NO OTHER recording of this Symphony even comes close to the thrill of this opening.  Early in 2000, Testament Recordings issued the original Walter Legge tapes of the Philharmonia Brahms concerts in the best sound ever.  The set is a bit pricey, but the improvement in sonics over even the Arkadia edition is well worth the investment.  In fact , they are the best examples of what Toscanini performances REALLY sounded like that I have ever heard.

 We are truly blessed in this age of “silver discs” to be able to relive this very special relationship between the greatest conductor of the first half of our Century, and two London orchestras that were, at the time, the best in England, and ranking ensembles in the world.

 NOTE: I want to thank Steven Reveyoso, of A Classical Record in New York City, for his assistance in the research for this article. Without the contribution of his great knowledge and outstanding resources, this document could not have been written.

 © Captain Classics

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