Arturo Toscanini's Farewell

ARTURO TOSCANINI'S FAREWELL

The Maestro

In the early 1950s "Maestro" referred to only one conductor: Arturo Toscanini, the fiery sym-phony conductor whose pursuit of perfection without compromise, unparalleled musical intelligence, and mastery of scores astonished professional musicians throughout his long career. When he retired in 1954 at the age of eighty-seven he had been a professional musician and conductor for seventy-eight years and a key figure in the American music world since 1908, when he became conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

The NBC Symphony Orchestra

American audiences were so enamored of Toscanini that when he resigned as conductor of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra in 1937 at the age of seventy to return to his native city of Milan, NBC made him an irresistible offer. He was already the highest-paid symphony conductor in the world, and his records on the RCA Victor label sold more than those of any other classical musician. So NBC offered him the largest live audience a performer of serious music had ever known. They formed specifically for him an orchestra of internationally acclaimed musicians who performed weekly concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York City under the direction of the Maestro for live national radio broadcast. The broadcast reached two hundred stations, and Toscanini had absolute, unquestioned musical control. The cost over the seventeen years of the NBC Symphony's existence was more than fifteen million dollars.

Genius

At age eighty-seven Toscanini still managed to astonish musicians with his talent and intimidate them with his demanding standards. He tirelessly conducted three-and-a-half hour rehearsals without missing a note, and when the music did not please him, he yelled savagely, it was reported, "They play like that in hell—not in paradise." When soprano Herva Nelli came to rehearsals for a recording of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera with the NBC Symphony, she was confident, having performed the piece for years. Midway through the last act Toscanini stopped the music and scoldes the soprano for singing a B when she should have sung B-flat. She argued, pointing to her score, which clearly signified a B; the Maestro must be wrong, she insisted. In fact, the score was wrong, and no other conductor over the years had noticed the error.

The Farewell Concert

The most dramatic moment in Toscanini's career came on Sunday, 4 April 1954. It was the final broadcast of the NBC Symphony for the 1953-1954 season, and it took place less than two weeks after the Maestro's eighty-seventh birthday. Few in the audience knew that he had resigned and that this was his last broadcast with the NBC Symphony. The program was Tannhäuser, by Toscanini's favorite composer, Richard Wagner. At the beginning of the performancr he looked frail as he was assisted onto the Carnegie Hall stage, but he shook off his helpers and walked unassisted to the podium. He began brilliantly as ever; then, perhaps overcome by emotion, he and the orchestra faltered. He clutched the baton fiercely with his right hand and pressed his forehead with his left: Toscanini had forgotten the score. His protégé directed the radio engineers to cut the broadcast, and for thirty-eight seconds radio listeners heard only silence. Then Toscanini composed himself, organized the orchestra, and resumed the performance brilliantly enough to earn a standing ovation. But he would have none of it. He was in tears when he left the stage. He dropped his baton beside the podium and never returned.

Toscanini died in New York City on 16 January 1957, two months before his ninetieth birthday.

Sources:

"After Toscanini" Time, 63 (5 April 1954): 71;

George Marek, "87 Candles," Good Housekeeping, 138 (March 1954): 138;

"The Podium Stood Bare," Time, 43 (12 April 1954): 68;

Winthrop Sargeant, "The Maestro," New Yorker, (15 May 1954): 127-129.