Toscanini about Colleagues

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

[Freudboy]

Actually, it is true that the NY Phil audiences preferred Furtwaengler over Toscanini, but the management eased him out in favor of Toscanini. How much Toscanini had to do with this I have no idea, but it is interesting that the same thing happened to Gustav Mahler when he and Toscanini were at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1936, Furtwaengler was ready to head hte NY Phil, but the Nazis planted a false story that he was being restored to Chief of the Berlin Opera, poisoning Furtwaengler's image.

[dziady1 stalker]

So you call it “coming off as an ignorant ass” when others indulge in your own favourite hobby of hurling insults at musicians.

The expressions used by Toscanini are not unlike those which you employ regularly to denigrate outstanding artists. The big difference is that you, unlike Toscanini, ARE an ignorant ass.

[spacebln]

Toscanini was definitively not the greatest conductor. If he had been the greatest, he would have been principal conductor of the leading orchestras in the world. Instead he was principal of NBC SO. And even his frequent work with the NewYork Philharmonic Orchestra from 1926 on was only due to the fact that Wilhelm Furtwängler, who in those early days was already the No.1 conductor worldwide, did not want to become head over NY Philharmonic. So they picked second choice Toscanini....how arrogant

[dziady1]

This makes Toscanini come off as an ignorant ass -he was good but vastly over rated.

[Gerard Carter]

Good theatre.