Toscanini about Beethoven and Wagner

Toscanini in his own words.
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), arguably the greatest and most famous conductor in history, was paradoxically one of the most private. He never granted interviews, left diaries or journals of any kind. But during the last years of his life, his son Walter secretly recorded 150 hours of intimate conversations that Toscanini shared with friends and family who visited his home. TOSCANINI: In His Own Words, is based on these tapes which remained vaulted for more than 50 years. Recreated conversations reveal aspects of the Maestro never seen before. Subjects such as his loves, opinions about colleagues, his clashes with Mussolini and Hitler, his personal memories of Verdi, Puccini, Furtwangler, Stokowski, as well as his greatest joys and causes of his endemic sadness are all part of his frank conversation. Interwoven throughout the film are many of Toscanini's greatest musical performances.

• Category

  Music

[alainwilliam]

yes i know it's a actor that takes the role of TOSCANINI but the world had been sade by the maestro and registered by his son on a tape recorder-I was sad that Toscanini didn't speak has BACH for the greatest composer

[ditogam]

You are absolutely right !!!

[alainwilliam]

But maestro you have forgoten BACH !

[ditogam]

In this movie he did not talk about Bach, but he speaks about Verdi, Puccini, Aida, his Love and Colleagues and so on. I have uploaded them.

[Kievest]

Thank you for satisfying our yearning souls for knowledge, understanding

and some measure of intimacy with

this titanic force in the history of music!

Your marvelous video is as dramatic

as any opera, as moving and compel-

ling! How wonderful to see the human

in this iconic figure as he moves from

marble statue to "clown." An amazing

contribution! Bravo!

[Amy Bellinger]

Cool to think that my lifetime overlaps with his, whose life overlapped with Verdi.

[valdengo1]

....looks like the REAL TOSCANINI on tape has never been released.......it is always an actor, a shadow of Toscanin...an impostori

[FabioPBarbieri]

Toscanini was not very familiar with Bach, because he learned to conduct at a time when the music people wanted to hear began with Haydn. But he is reported to have said that Bach's Mass in B was better than Beethoven's Missa Solemnis; considering what he thought of Beethoven (and how well he performed the MS), this is astonishing, and leaves us aching for an AT-conducted Mass in B or Matthaeus-Passion.

[DanielConcerto]

For people who still are confused - this is not maestro Toscanini in the video but Barry Jackson, the actor and his colleagues in the 2009 dramatized documentary.

2:16 ''The Pope doesn't understand who should be called a Saint, the Pope and those imbeciles don't understand anything''

Assuming the recordings are valid, I wonder whether it's only a derivative of an artist's imagination and emotional experiences or an insight impossible to grasp for many.

[MichaelHansenFUN]

Arturo Toscanini died in 1957 IS THAT HIM?

[Jose Martín Iborra]

Toscanini, la musica habla, con su prodigiosa batuta, Genial.

[xdiesp]

this can't be his voice, surely he could speak italian well: this one speaks in accented american, and is unable to speak actual italian

[AfroPoli]

Revering titans is for idiots and fascists.

[AfroPoli]

Yes, because idiots like you never die out. There will always be a enough lemmings to follow him.

[Victrolamarc]

Toscanini was A giant,a great titan,a genius.

I revere his great work on recordings.

He understood Wagner,Beethoven,Bach,Brahms,M­ozart,far better than you.

[Victrolamarc]

You are an idiot-Toscanini and his legacy will live long after you have left this earth.