1936 Photo TOSCANINI Inaugural PALESTINE ORCHESTRA 1st CONCERT Walter ZADEK

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1936 Photo TOSCANINI Inaugural PALESTINE ORCHESTRA 1st CONCERT Walter ZADEK:
$345.00

DESCRIPTION : Up for sale is a VERY RARE and mostly SOUGHT AFTER memorabilia artifact . It\'s an ORIGINAL REAL CANDID PHOTO of the renowned conductor ARTURO TOSCANINI which was made in December 1936 in Eretz Israel ( Then also refered to as Palestine ) during the INAUGURALCONCERT- FESTIVAL OPENINGof the PALESTINE ORCHESTRA ( Laterto become the IPO ) which took place in December 26th 1936 in the concert hallof the Levant Fair in Tel Aviv - Eretz Israel ( Then also sometimes refered toas Palestine ). ( With later such concerts in Jerusalem andHaifa ) . ARTURO TOSCANINI , Being a co-founder together withviolinist BRONISLAW HUBERMAN was the conductor .The PALESTINE ORCHESTRAunder the baton of TOSCANINIplayed pieces byROSSINI , BRAHMS ,SCHUBERT , FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY and CARL MARIA VON WEBER . The ORIGINAL CANDID PHOTO depicts TOSCANINI conducting the Palestine Orchestra. The ARTISTIC PHOTO was made by one of the finest acclaimed JEWISH ERETZ ISRAELI PHOTOGRAPHERS named WALTER ZADEK . The photo is an original silver gelatine photo , Made by WALTER ZADEK in 1936 , Definitely not a standard press or publicity photo , But a unique one of its kind REAL PHOTO , Printed by ZADEK in his studio , Stamped on verso \" FOTO WALTER ZADEK - TEL AVIV P.O.B 4013\" . Original WALTER ZADEK photos are extremely SOUGHT AFTER , A photo with such fascinating photographed object like TOSCANINI in action creates a genuinly ONE OF ITS KIND ITEM. Silver gelatine photo . Photographer WALTER ZADEK . Size around 5 x 7 \". Used. Verygood condition. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) Photograph will be sent inside a protective envelope .
PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal .SHIPPMENT :SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $19 .Will be sent inside a protective envelope . Handling within 3-5 days after payment. Estimated Int\'l duration around 14 days.

Walter Zadek 1900 – 1992 Israeli photographer born inBerlin, Germany. He escaped Nazi Germany 1933 after being imprisoned in Spandauprison for a month. That same year in December he came to Israel following hisescape through Holland and Belgium. OnMay 8, 1939 Walter Zadek founded the Association of professional photographersin Israel together with world renown photographer Helmar Lerski. Zadek portrayed historical events in the Landof Israel, the Arab riots, British Mandate period and the creation of kibbutzimwith its youth immigration. Walter Zadek was a photographer who was born in1900. Several works by the artist have been sold at sale, including \'Womanon a swing, Palestine\' sold at Swann sale Galleries \'Photographs\' in 2002.The artist died in 1992. Er ist so alt wie das Jahrhundert.„Toilettenjahrgang“, sagt er, „ich entstamme dem Jahrgang Null Null“ – so wiees früher an den Pissoirs zu lesen war –, „1900“. Ein Gesicht wie ein Weiser.Früher war es umrahmt von einem schneeweißen Schifferbart. StrahlendblaueAugen, kräftige Hände – „der Kopf eines Intellektuellen und die Hände einesBauern“, so hat ihn der Schriftsteller Alfred Kantorowicz einmalcharakterisiert. Walter Zadek legt die Hände übereinander, lächelt in sichhinein. Er ist einer der Vertriebenen und Vergessenen. Durch das Exil zumunbeschriebenen Blatt erklärt. Dabei hatte er einmal, Ende der zwanziger Jahre,vor der Weltwirtschaftskrise, zu den bestbezahlten Redakteuren Deutschlandsgehört. Er war so gut bezahlt, daß er vom BerlinerTageblau entlassen wurde wie viele andere – zu teuer für dieVerleger, hieß es. Heute lebt Zadek ein halbes Jahr – im europäischen Winter –in Israel, das andere halbe Jahr in der Bundesrepublik (wenn es in Israel zuheiß ist für sein Herz). In Frankfurt trifft man ihn in einer dunklenErdgeschoßwohnung, umgeben von Regalreihen, die quer in dem großen Raum stehen:Exilliteratur, Erstausgaben, versteht sich! Judaika, fremdsprachige Literatur,ein einziges Raritätenkabinett! „Mein Laden“, erklärt der alte Mann und ergänzt:„Damit finanziere ich meine Reisen.“In einer winzigen Ecke ist seinArbeitsplatz: ein überhäufter Schreibtisch, ein Stuhl davor. Auch tagsüber istLampenlicht nötig. Er setzt sich, kramt umständlich, findet etwas – undgarantiert fällt ihm eine Geschichte dazu ein. Und ist er wieder allein,hämmert er, mit einem Finger, auf seiner Reiseschreibmaschine herum, verfaßt,noch heute, Aufsätze für jüdische Zeitschriften, eine Rede für Schüler oderauch mal ein Vorwort für ein Buch.Er hat Frieden geschlossen mit derWirklichkeit und wird doch nicht müde, menschlichen Utopien nachzuträumen,davon zu sprechen und zu schreiben. Er fühle sich belastet, sagt er, „belastetmit der Erbmasse einer sozialistischen Verwandtschaft und der Widerborstigkeitgegen jegliche Obrigkeit“. Eduard Bernstein, der revisionistische Theoretikerder Sozialdemokratie, war sein Onkel; Familienfreund August Bebel soll KleinWalter so manches Mal auf seinen Armen getragen haben; Karl Kautsky und KurtEisner gehörten zum väterlichen Freundeskreis. Ignaz Zadek war 25 Jahre langsozialdemokratischer Stadtverordneter im Berliner Stadtparlament. UndArmenarzt, Publizist und Herausgeber einer zu Zeiten von Bismarcks Sozialistengesetz. 73jährig ist der Vater 1931gestorben.Walter Zadek wird in Kreuzberg groß, um die Oranienstraße – aber erfühlt sich fremd in der proletarischen Gemeinschaft der Spartakus-Jugend.Bürgerliche Werte sind ihm vertrauter, eine klassische Bildung etwa oder dieLesekränzchen, die seine Mutter veranstaltet. Doch auch das selbstgerechteWesen der wohlhabenden Jugendlichen in der zionistischen Bewegung stößt ihnab.Früh lehnt er sich gegen jede Form von Obrigkeit auf, ist in der Schule alsaufrührerisches Element verschrien, „fliegt“ zweimal. Über zehn Jahre später,1930, beschreibt er seinen „Haß gegen einen Schuldirektor“ – in Ossietzkys Weltbühne: „Ich kennediesen scharfen und doch freundlichen Blick. Diese Augen eines Machtmenschen,die nur deshalb gütig scheinen, weil sie einem Unantastbaren gehören, demnichts geschehen kann – während er selbst in jeder Sekunde andre zu vernichtenvermag. Er lächelt, weil er sich überlegen weiß.“Dann der Erste Weltkrieg –„von vierzehn bis achtzehn. Da war ich vierzehn bis achtzehn.“ Der besorgteVater schreibt ihn rechtzeitig kriegsuntauglich – so entgeht Walter Zadek denSchlachtfeldern. Und stellt heute, noch immer leicht verwundert, fest: „Es gibttatsächlich in meinem Leben ein Fatum. Ich bin niemals in einem Krieg gewesen“,nachdenklich wiegt er den Kopf, setzt dann hinzu: „Obwohl ich viele Kriegezeitlich miterlebt habe – ich habe niemals ein Gewehr abgeschossen, außer ineiner Schießbude.“Als in München die Räterepublik niedergeworfen wird, landeter im Gefängnis. Ein Mißverständnis. Er wird in einer Wohnung festgenommen, inder sich Eugen Leviné, geistiger Führer der Räterepublik, versteckt gehaltenhatte. Und in Zadeks Adreßbuch finden sich verdächtige Namen: Liebknecht undLandauer. „Aber es stand nicht Karl Liebknecht da“, erklärt Zadek, „sondernSonja Liebknecht. Und Landauer war nicht Gustav Landauer, der niedergemachtwurde, sondern es war Carl Landauer, ein Nationalökonom, der dann eineProfessur übernahm.“Zadek wird abgeschoben. Er findet sich als Mittelloser inPreußen wieder und müht sich erfolglos als Student der Nationalökonomie. Erbeginnt eine Lehre als Buchhändler und schreibt nebenbei Buchbesprechungen undFeuilletons. „Ich hatte immer einen Hang zum Buch“, sagt er. Doch dasKaufmännische im Umgang mit den geliebten Büchern stößt ihn ab – er will zurZeitung und kehrt deshalb zurück in seine Heimatstadt.Leben ist Zufall. WalterZadek trifft Hermann Ullstein, einen der Verlegerbrüder, im überfüllten Zugzwischen Wien und Berlin. Er spricht ihn an, fragt nach einer Anstellung undwird so „Sitzredakteur“ beim Uhu,dem gerade gegründeten Unterhaltungsmagazin. Sitzredakteur – einkleines Licht also, wie er gleich hinzufügt; aber auch derjenige, der insGefängnis müßte, ginge ein Prozeß gegen das Blatt einmal daneben.Kurt Tucholskyist für kurze Zeit sein Vorgesetzter. „Er war“, erinnert sich Zadek, „soweitich ihn kennengelernt habe, eher scheu – scheu und schüchtern. Ein kleines,dickes Männchen“, Zadek fährt sich mit der Hand über den Mund, spitzt dieLippen, „mit einem sehr empfindsamen Mündchen, nicht sonst sehr wirkend.“ Nachsechs Monaten wird Zadek wieder entlassen. Ein Jahr später ist er bei Mosses Berliner Tageblatt, derführenden liberalen Tageszeitung der Weimarer Republik. Er wird Ressortchefbeim legendären Theodor Wolff. Redigiert einmal, zweimal, dreimal pro Wocheganze Seiten, Feuilletonseiten zumeist, auf der dritten Seite plaziert,komponiert zu einem bestimmten Thema. Schriftsteller wie Heinrich und ThomasMann, Lion Feuchtwanger oder Max Herrmann-Neiße arbeiten für ihn, ebensoDirektoren, Professoren, Fachleute. Die „Zadek-Seiten“ werden zum BegriffAufeiner Seite ist, im Juli 1926, „von sieben neuen Berufen“ die Rede. Ein kurzerArtikel stellt den „Ideeur“ vor; „lies: Idee-ör“, hilft eine Klammer nach. Eineironische Lobrede auf den „Mann mit dem ewig dampfenden, gelenkigen Gehirn, derMann der sprudelnden, mühelosen, geölten Assoziationen, die im Nu vom Nordpoldes Gehirns zum Südpol überspringen, ein Ideenüberkarnikel mit unerschöpflichenWürfen, beileibe kein Phantast, sondern ein Mann der praktischen Phantasie(...), ein naher Verwandter des ‚verkommenen Genies‘.“„Und dieser Ideeur warHerr Zadek“, erzählt der alte Mann amüsiert, „der Mensch, der dafür bezahltwird, daß er Ideen hat und diese von anderen ausführen läßt.“1929 ist Schluß.Es ist die Zeit der großen Wirtschaftskrise und stetig steigenderArbeitslosigkeit, und auch Zadek verliert erneut seine Arbeit. Gegen alle gutenRatschläge gründet er eine eigene Zeitungskorrespondenz und beliefert mitseiner „Zentralredaktion für deutsche Zeitungen (ZdZ)“ über achtzig Blätter,bis in die hinterste Provinz hinein.Seine Wirkung ist größer als zuvor. Alleindie Räume seiner Redaktion sind nicht jedermanns Geschmack – es ist eine kleineMietwohnung in der bekanntberüchtigten Künstlerkolonie am Breitenbachplatz, derals „Roter Block“ verschrieenen Wohninsel für Schriftsteller, Schauspieler undKünstler. Auch mit der Auswahl seines Materials macht er sich bei den Nazisunbeliebt. Bei einer der ersten großangelegten Razzien im März 1933 wird er ausseiner Wohnung herausgeprügelt, steht plötzlich als Rädelsführer da, istnamentlich erwähnt in der Nazipresse. Nun weiß er, was es heißt, als Jude inDeutschland zu leben.Wie durch ein Wunder kommt Zadek einen Monat später freiund flieht auf Schmugglerpfaden aus Deutschland. Ende 1933 erreicht er das„Gelobte Land“. Und dokumentiert, nun als Photoreporter, den AufbauPalästinas.Seine Träume zerplatzen. Die junge Kibbuz-Gemeinschaft mitsozialistischem Anspruch entpuppt sich für ihn als kapitalistische Gesellschaftmit Ungerechtigkeit, Betrug und Cliquenwirtschaft. Er wird zum Einsiedler: „Ichverkehrte kaum noch mit anderen“, erzählt er lakonisch. „Ich verlor den Drang,mich weiter in der mir fremden Landessprache zu vervollkommnen. Der eigentlicheKnacks kam jedoch erst jetzt, durch den Bankrott des menschlichen Anstandes imExil. Ich wollte einfach nicht mehr Mitbürger sein.“Die Heimatlosigkeit wirdzur Existenz des Exilanten. Und er ergänzt, daß all dies verschuldet wurde durchdie Herrschaft der deutschen Faschisten: „Es gab ja in Deutschland eine völligeUmkehrung der Rechtsbegriffe: Recht ist, was dem Staate nützt. Und wenn es dasgrößte Unrecht ist.“Es klingt wie ein Vortrag, doch Zadek will nicht belehren.Er erzählt viel lieber, spitzt dann zu: „Das Leben innerhalb Deutschlands,voller Lüge, voller Betrug, wo der Mensch, der jemand andern denunzierte, einenEhrenposten bekam, wo derjenige, der am sadistischsten vorging, eineRangerhöhung bekam, diese Barbarei aus Deutschland, die ja überall bekanntwurde, wirkte sich auf die ganze Welt aus. Eine Verrohung der Welt ist dieFolge, eine der Folgen des Nationalsozialismus.“ Er sagt das langsam undgewählt, nicht voller Haß, sondern wohlüberlegt und in druckreifem Deutsch. Einer,der weise geworden ist, doch nicht leise. Neunzig Jahre ist er jetztgeworden.Ein biblisches Alter, sagt man, und doch steckt Zadek weiterhin vollerPläne und Ideen, möchte demnächst, zum Herbst hoffentlich, sein drittes Bucherleben, das nun seine Tätigkeit beim BerlinerTageblatt dokumentiert. Und sucht, unbeirrt, den Widerspruch,möchte kritisieren und provozieren und die Jugend, vor allem die, erreichen inReden und Vorträgen. Vielleicht sitzt er ja auch in diesem Frühjahr, imdeutschen Frühjahr, erneut für ein paar Monate in Frankfurt, in seinerErdgeschoßwohnung am Börneplatz, dem ehemaligen Zentrum jüdischen Lebens. Kahlist der Platz heute, gesichtslos und dabei so enthüllend in seinermenschverlassenen Hektik. Dokumentiert sich nicht grade hier, in diesemHöllenlärm, in diesen Verkehrsschneisen und funktionstüchtigen, kalten Fassadender Wiederaufbaujahre, seine ewige Heimatlosigkeit?Zadek hebt die Schultern undantwortet mit einem Zitat von Arnold Zweig: „Mit beiden Beinen fest in derLuft.“ Und beim Abschied ergänzt er: „Wenn ich überhaupt Heimatgefühle habe,dann sind es die zu meiner Frau, mit der ich“, und nun schlägt doch derBerliner Tonfall durch, „fuffzich Jahre zusammenlebe.“ Arturo Toscanini March 25, 1867 – January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor.He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century,renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail andsonority, and his photographic memory.He was at various times the music director of La ScalaMilan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937-54), and thisled to his becoming a household name (especially in the United States) throughhis radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic andsymphonic repertoire Biography Early years Toscaniniwas born in Parma,Emilia-Romagna, and won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where hestudied the cello. He joined the orchestra of an opera company, with which hetoured South America in 1886. While presenting Aida in Rio deJaneiro, Leopoldo Miguez, the locally hired conductor,reached the summit of a two-month escalating conflict with the performers dueto his rather poor command of the work, to the point that the singers went onstrike and forced the company\'s general manager to seek a substitute conductor.Carlo Superti and Aristide Venturi tried unsuccessfully to finish the work. Indesperation, the singers suggested the name of their assistant Chorus Master,who knew the whole opera from memory. Although he had no conducting experience,Toscanini was eventually convinced by the musicians to take up the baton at9:15pm, and led a performance of the two-and-a-half hour opera. Thepublic was taken by surprise, at first by the youth and sheer aplomb of thisunknown conductor, then by his solid mastery. The result was astoundingacclaim. For the rest of that season Toscanini conducted eighteen operas, allwith absolute success. Thus began his career as a conductor, at age 19.Uponreturning to Italy, Toscanini set out on a dual path for some time. Hecontinued to conduct, his first appearance in Italy being at the TeatroCarignano in Turin,on November 4, 1886in the world premiere of the revised version of AlfredoCatalani\'s Edmea (it had had its premiere in its originalform at La Scala,Milan, on February 27, of that year). This was the beginning of Toscanini\'slifelong friendship and championing of Catalani; he even named his first daughterWally after the heroine of Catalani\'s opera La Wally.However, he also returned to his chair in the cello section, and participatedas cellist in the world premiere of Verdi\'sOtello(La Scala,Milan, 1887) under the composer\'s supervision. Verdi, who habitually complainedthat conductors never seemed interested in directing his scores the way he hadwritten them, was impressed by reports from Arrigo Boitoabout Toscanini\'s ability to interpret his scores. The composer was alsoimpressed when Toscanini consulted him personally about the Te Deum, suggestingan allargandowhere it was not set out in the score. Verdi said that he had left it out forfear that \"certain interpreters would have exaggerated the marking\".National and international fame Gradually theyoung musician\'s reputation as an operatic conductor of unusual authority andskill supplanted his cello career. In the following decade he consolidated hiscareer in Italy, entrusted with the world premieres of Puccini\'sLa bohèmeand Leoncavallo\'s Pagliacci.In 1896, Toscanini conducted his first symphonic concert (in Turin, with works by Schubert,Brahms,Tchaikovsky, and Wagner).He exhibited a considerable capacity for hard work: in 1898 he conducted 43concerts in TurinBy 1898 he was principal conductor at La Scala, where he remained until 1908,returning as Music Director, 1921–1929. He took the Scala Orchestra to theUnited States on a concert tour in 1920/21; it was during that tour thatToscanini made his first recordings (for the Victor Talking Machine Company).Outside Europe, he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1908–1915) aswell as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra(1926–1936). He toured Europe with the New York Philharmonic in 1930; he andthe musicians were acclaimed by critics and audiences wherever they went.Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to appear at Bayreuth (1930–1931), and the New YorkPhilharmonic was the first non-German orchestra to play there. In the 1930s heconducted at the Salzburg Festival (1934–1937) and at theinaugural concert in 1936 of the Palestine Orchestra (later renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in Tel Aviv,and later performed with them in Jerusalem,Haifa,Cairoand Alexandria.During his engagement with the New York Philharmonic, Hans Lange,the son of the last Master of the Sultan\'s Music in Istanbul,who was later to become conductor at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and thelegendary founder of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra as aprofessional ensemble, was his concert master. Duringhis career, Toscanini worked with such legendary artists as Enrico Caruso,FeodorChaliapin, Ezio Pinza, JussiBjörling, and Geraldine Farrar. Although he also worked withWagnerian heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, he would not work withMelchior\'s frequent partner KirstenFlagstad after her political sympathies became suspect during WorldWar II; it was Helen Traubel who sang with Melchior instead ofFlagstad at the Toscanini concerts. Departure fromItaly to the United States In 1919, Toscanini ran unsuccessfully as aFascist parliamentary candidate in Milan. He had been called \"the greatestconductor in the world\" by Fascist leader BenitoMussolini. However, he became disillusioned with fascism andrepeatedly defied the Italian dictator after the latter\'s ascent to power in1922. He refused to display Mussolini\'s photograph or conduct the Fascistanthem Giovinezzaat La Scala.He raged to a friend, \"If I were capable of killing a man, I would killMussolini.\"Ata memorial concert for Italian composer GiuseppeMartucci on May 14, 1931 at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna,he was ordered to begin by playing Giovinezza but he refused even thoughthe fascist foreign minister GaleazzoCiano was present in the audience. Afterwards he was, in his ownwords, \"attacked, injured and repeatedly hit in the face\" by a groupof blackshirts.Mussolini, incensed by the conductor\'s refusal, had his phone tapped,placed him under constant surveillance and took away his passport. Thepassport was returned only after a world outcry over Toscanini\'s treatment.On the outbreak of the Second World War, Toscanini left Italy. He would returnseven years later to conduct a concert at the restored La ScalaOpera House, which was destroyed by bombs during the war. NBC Symphony Toscanini returned to the UnitedStates where the NBC Symphony Orchestra was created for himin 1937. He conducted his first NBC broadcast concert on December 25, 1937, in NBC Studio 8-H in New York City\'s Rockefeller Center.The acoustics of the specially built studio were very dry; some remodeling in1939 added a bit more reverberation. (In 1950, the studio was further remodeledfor television productions; today it is used by NBC for Saturday Night Live. In 1980, it was usedby Zubin Mehtaand the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a series of special televised NBC concertscalled \"Live From Studio 8H\", the first one being a tribute toToscanini, punctuated by clips from his television concerts.) The NBCbroadcasts were preserved on large transcription discs, recorded at both 78-rpmand 33-1/3 rpm, until NBC began using magnetic tape in 1947. NBC used specialRCA high fidelity microphones both for the broadcasts and for recording them;these microphones can be seen in some photographs of Toscanini and theorchestra. Some of Toscanini\'s recording sessions for RCA Victor were masteredon sound film in a process developed about 1941, as detailed by RCA producerCharles O\'Connell in his memoirs, On and Off The Record. In addition,hundreds of hours of Toscanini\'s rehearsals with the NBC were preserved and arenow housed in the Toscanini Legacy archive at The New York Public Library. Toscanini wasoften criticized for neglecting American music; however, on November 5, 1938,he conducted the world premieres of two orchestral works by Samuel Barber,Adagio for Strings and Essay for Orchestra.The performance received significant critical acclaim.In 1945, he led the orchestra in recording sessions of the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Groféin Carnegie Hall(supervised by Grofé) and An American in Paris by GeorgeGershwin in NBC\'s Studio 8-H. Both works had earlier been performedin broadcast concerts. He also conducted broadcast performances of Copland\'sEl Salón México; Gershwin\'s Rhapsody inBlue with soloists Earl Wildand Benny Goodmanand Piano Concerto in F with pianist Oscar Levant;and music by other American composers, including marches of John PhilipSousa. He even wrote his own orchestral arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner, which wasincorporated into the NBC Symphony\'s performances of Verdi\'s Hymn of theNations. (Earlier, while music director of the New York Philharmonic, heconducted music by Abram Chasins, BernardWagenaar, and Howard Hanson.) In 1940, Toscanini took theorchestra on a \"goodwill\" tour of South America. Later that year,Toscanini had a disagreement with NBC management over their use of hismusicians in other NBC broadcasts. This, among other reasons, resulted in aletter which Toscanini wrote on March 10, 1941 to RCA\'s David Sarnoff. Hestated that he now wished \"to withdraw from the militant scene ofArt\" and thus declined to sign a new contract for the up-coming winterseason, but left the door open for an eventual return \"if my state ofmind, health and rest will be improved enough\". So LeopoldStokowski was engaged on a three-year contract instead and served asthe NBC Symphony\'s music director from 1941 until 1944. Toscanini\'s state ofmind soon underwent a change and he returned as Stokowski\'s co-conductor forthe latter\'s second and third seasons resuming full control in 1944. One of themore remarkable broadcasts was in July 1942, when Toscanini conducted theAmerican premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich\'s Symphony No. 7. Due to World War II, thescore was microfilmed in the Soviet Union and brought by courier to the UnitedStates. Stokowski had previously given the US premieres of Shostakovich\'s 1st,3rd and 6th Symphonies in Philadelphia, and in December 1941 urged NBC toobtain the score of the 7th as he wanted to conduct its premiere as well. ButToscanini coveted this for himself and there were a number of remarkableletters between the two conductors (reproduced by Harvey Sachs in hisbiography) before Stokowski agreed to let Toscanini have the privilege ofconducting the first performance. Unfortunately for New York listeners, a majorthunderstorm virtually obliterated the NBC radio signals there, but theperformance was heard elsewhere and preserved on transcription discs.It was later issued by RCA Victor in the 1967 centennial boxed set tribute toToscanini, which included a number of NBC broadcasts never released on discs.In Testimony Shostakovich himself expressed adislike for the performance, after he heard a recording of the broadcast. InToscanini\'s later years the conductor expressed dislike for the work andamazement that he had actually conducted it. Inthe summer of 1950, Toscanini led the orchestra on an extensivetranscontinental tour. It was during that tour that the well-known photographof Toscanini riding the ski lift at Sun Valley,Idaho was taken. Toscanini and the musicians traveled on a specialtrain chartered by NBC. The NBC concerts continued in Studio 8-H until the fallof 1950. They were then held in Carnegie Hall, where many of the orchestra\'srecording sessions had been held, due to the dry acoustics of Studio 8-H. Thefinal broadcast performance, an all-Wagnerprogram, took place on April 4, 1954, in Carnegie Hall. During this concertToscanini suffered a memory lapse reportedly caused by a transient ischemic attack, although somehave attributed the lapse to having been secretly informed that NBC intended toend the broadcasts and disband the NBC orchestra.He neverconducted live in public again. That June, he participated in his finalrecording sessions, remaking portions of two Verdi operas so they could becommercially released. Toscanini was 87 years old when he retired. After hisretirement, the NBC Symphony was reorganized as the Symphony of the Air, making regularperformances and recordings, until it was disbanded in 1963. It was heard onelast time (as the NBC Symphony Orchestra) in the 1963 telecast of Gian-Carlo Menotti\'s Christmas opera fortelevision, Amahl and the Night Visitors. Onradio, Toscanini conducted seven complete operas, including La bohème,La traviata,and Otello,all of which were eventually released on records and CD, thus enabling themodern listening public to have at least some idea of what an opera conductedby Toscanini sounded like. Last years With thehelp of his son Walter, Toscanini spent his remaining years editing tapes andtranscriptions of his performances with the NBC Symphony. The\"approved\" recordings were issued by RCA Victor, which also hasissued his recordings with the La Scala Orchestra, the New York PhilharmonicOrchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–39) and the Philharmonia Orchestra (1952) were issuedby EMI. Various companies have issued recordings on compact discs of a numberof broadcasts and concerts that he did not officially approve. Among these are stereophonicrecordings of his last two NBC broadcast concerts. Sachs and other biographershave documented the numerous conductors, singers, and musicians who visitedToscanini during his retirement. He was a big fan of early television,especially boxing and wrestling telecasts, as well as comedy programs.Toscanini died on January 16, 1957 at the age of 89 at his home in the Riverdalesection of the Bronxin New York City. His body was returned to Italy and was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan. His epitaphis taken from one account of his remarks concluding the 1926 premiere of Puccini\'sunfinished Turandot:\"Qui finisce l\'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto\"(\"Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died\").During his funeral service, Leyla Gencer sang an aria from Verdi\'s Requiem.In his will, he left his baton to his protégée Herva Nelli,who sang in the broadcasts of Otello, Aïda, Falstaff, theVerdi Requiem, and Un ballo in maschera. Toscanini was posthumouslyawarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awardin 1987. Personal life Toscanini married CarlaDe Martini on June 21, 1897, when she was not yet 20 years old. Their firstchild, Walter, was born on March 19, 1898. A daughter, Wally, was born onJanuary 16, 1900. Carla gave birth to another boy, Giorgio, in September 1901,but he died of diphtheria on June 10, 1906. Then, that same year, Carla gavebirth to their second daughter, Wanda.Toscanini worked with many great singers and musicians throughout his career,but few impressed him as much as VladimirHorowitz. They worked together a number of times and recorded Brahms\'second piano concerto and Tchaikovsky\'s first piano concerto withthe NBC Symphony for RCA. Horowitz also became close to Toscanini and hisfamily. In 1933, Wanda Toscanini married Horowitz, with the conductor\'sblessings and warnings. It was Wanda\'s daughter, Sonia, who was oncephotographed by Life playing with the conductor. DuringWorld War II, Toscanini lived in Wave Hill, a historic home in Riverdale. Despitethe reported infidelities revealed in Toscanini\'s letters documented by HarveySachs, he remained married to Carla until she died on June 23, 1951. Innovations At La Scala, which had what wasthen the most modern stage lighting system installed in 1901 and an orchestralpit installed in 1907, Toscanini pushed through reforms in the performance ofopera. He insisted on dimming the house-lights during performances. As hisbiographer Harvey Sachs wrote: \"He believed that aperformance could not be artistically successful unless unity of intention wasfirst established among all the components: singers, orchestra, chorus,staging, sets, and costumes.\" Toscanini favored the traditional orchestralseating plan with the first violins and cellos on the left, the violas on thenear right, and the second violins on the far right. PremieresToscanini conducted the world premieres of many operas, four of whichhave become part of the standard operatic repertoire: Pagliacci,La bohème,La fanciulla del West and Turandot;he took an active role in Alfano\'s completion of Puccini\'s Turandot.He also conducted the first Italian performances of Siegfried,Götterdämmerung, Salome,Pelléas et Mélisande, and Euryanthe,as well as the South American premieres of Tristan und Isolde and MadamaButterfly and the North American premiere of Boris Godunov. He also conducted theworld premiere of Samuel Barber\'s most famous work, the Adagio for Strings. Operatic premieres Edmea (revised version) by AlfredoCatalani – Turin,November 4, 1886 Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo – Milan, May 21, 1892 GuglielmoSwarten by Gnaga – Rome, November 15, 1892 Savitri by Natale Canti –Bologna, December 1, 1894 Emma Liona by Antonio Lozzi – Venice, May 24,1895 La bohème by Giacomo Puccini – Turin, February 1, 1896 Forzad\'Amore by Arturo Buzzi-Peccia – Turin, March 6, 1897 LaCamargo by Enrico De Leva – Turin, March 2, 1898 Anton by CesareGaleotii – Milan, December 17, 1900 Zaza by Leoncavallo – Milan,November 10, 1900 Le Maschere by PietroMascagni – Milan, January 17, 1901 Mosè by Don LorenzoPerosi – Milan, November 16, 1901 Germania by Alberto Franchetti – Milan, March 11, 1902 Oceanaby Antonio Smareglia – Milan, January 22, 1903 Cassandra by VittorioGnecchi – Bologna, December 5, 1905 Gloria by FrancescoCilea – Milan, April 15, 1907 La fanciulla del West byPuccini – New York, December 10, 1910 Madame Sans-Gène by UmbertoGiordano – New York, January 25, 1915 Debora e Jaele by Ildebrando Pizzetti – Milan, December 16, 1922 Neroneby Arrigo Boito(completed by Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini) – Milan, May 1, 1924 LaCena delle Beffe by Giordano – Milan, December 20, 1924 I Cavalieri diEkebu by Riccardo Zandonai – Milan, March 7, 1925 Turandotby Puccini – Milan, April 25, 1926 Fra Gherado by Pizzetti – Milan, May16, 1928 Il Reby Giordano – Milan, January 12, 1929 Orchestralpremieres Adagio for Strings and First Essay for Orchestraby Samuel Barber– NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York, November5, 1938 Western Suite by ElieSiegmeister – NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York, November 1945. Recorded legacy See also: Arturo Toscanini discographyOverview Toscanini made his first recordings inDecember 1920 with the La Scala Orchestra in the Trinity Church studio of the Victor Talking Machine Companyin Camden, New Jersey and his last with the NBCSymphony Orchestra in June 1954 in Carnegie Hall. His entire catalog ofcommercial recordings was issued by RCA Victor,save for two single-sided recordings for Brunswick in 1926 (his first by theelectrical process) with the New York Philharmonic Orchestraand a series of excellent recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1939 forEMI\'s HMV label (which wasRCA Victor\'s European affiliate). Toscanini also recorded with the New YorkPhilharmonic in Carnegie Hall for RCA Victor in 1929 and 1936. He made a seriesof long unissued recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra for RCA Victor inPhiladelphia\'s Academy of Music in 1941 and 1942. All of the commerciallyissued RCA Victor and HMV recordings have been digitally re-mastered andreleased on compact disc. There are also recorded concertswith various European orchestras, especially with La ScalaOrchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In April 2012, RCA Red Sealreleased a new 84 CD boxed set reissue of Toscanini\'s complete RCA Victorrecordings and original HMV recordings with the BBC Symphony. Hearing Toscanini In some of his recordings,Toscanini can be heard singing or humming. This is especially audible in RCA\'srecording of La Bohème, recorded during broadcastconcerts in NBC Studio 8-H in 1946. Tenor Jan Peercelater said that Toscanini\'s deep involvement in the performances helped him toachieve the necessary emotions, especially in the final moments of the operawhen the beloved Mimi (played by LiciaAlbanese) is dying. During the \"Tuba mirum\" section of theJanuary 1951 live recording of Verdi\'s Requiem,Toscanini can be heard on the disc shouting as the brass blares. In hisrecording of Richard Strauss\' Death and Transfiguration, Toscaninisighed loudly near the end of the music; RCA Victor left this in the releasedrecording. Specialties He was especially famousfor his performances of Beethoven, Brahms,Wagner,RichardStrauss, Debussy and his own compatriots Rossini,Verdi,Boitoand Puccini. He made many recordings, especiallytowards the end of his career, which are still in print. In addition, there aremany recordings available of his broadcast performances, as well as hisremarkable rehearsals with the NBC Symphony. CharlesO\'Connell on Toscanini Charles O\'Connell, who produced many ofToscanini\'s RCA Victor recordings in the 1930s and early 1940s, said that RCAquickly decided to record the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, wheneverpossible, after being disappointed with the dull-sounding early recordings inStudio 8-H in 1938 and 1939. (Nevertheless, there were a few recording sessionsin Studio 8-H as late as June 1950, probably because of improvements to theacoustics in 1939, including installation of an acoustical shell.) O\'Connell,and others, often complained that Toscanini was little interested in recordingand, as Harvey Sachs wrote, Toscanini was frequently disappointed that themicrophones failed to pick up everything he heard during the recordingsessions. O\'Connell even complained of Toscanini\'s failure to cooperate withRCA during the sessions. Toscanini himself was often disappointed that the78-rpm discs failed to fully capture all of the instruments in the orchestra;those fortunate to attend Toscanini\'s concerts later said the NBC stringsection was especially outstanding. Philadelphia Orchestra recordings O\'Connell alsoextensively documented RCA\'s technical problems with the Philadelphia Orchestrarecordings of 1941/42, which required extensive electronic editing before theycould be released (well after Toscanini\'s death, beginning in 1963, with therest following in the 1970s). Harvey Sachs also recounts that the masters weredamaged, possibly due to the use of somewhat inferior materials imposed bywartime restrictions. Unfortunately, a Musicians Union recording ban from 1942to 1944 prevented immediate retakes; by the time the ban ended, thePhiladelphia Orchestra had left RCA Victor for ColumbiaRecords and RCA apparently was hesitant to promote the orchestra anyfurther. Eventually, Toscanini recorded all of the same music with the NBCSymphony. In 1968, the Philadelphia Orchestra returned to RCA and the companywas more favorable toward issuing all of the discs. As for the historicrecordings, even on the CD versions, first released in 1991, some of the sideshave considerable surface noise and some distortion, especially during thelouder passages. The best sounding of the recordings is the SchubertSymphony No. 9 (The \"Great\"),which had been restored by RCA first (in 1963) and issued on LP. RCA finallyreleased the rest of the recordings in 1977 and, as Sachs noted, by that timesome of the masters may have deteriorated further. Nevertheless, despite theoccasional problems, the entire set is an impressive document of Toscanini\'scollaboration with the Philadelphia musicians. A 2006 RCA reissue, makes moreeffective use of digital processing in an attempt to produce better sound.Longtime Philadelphia director Eugene Ormandy expressed his appreciation forwhat Toscanini achieved with the orchestra. Highfidelity and stereo In the late 1940s when magnetic tapereplaced direct wax disc recording and high fidelity long playing records wereintroduced, the conductor said he was much happier making recordings. Sachswrote that an Italian journalist, Raffaele Calzini, said Toscanini told him,\"My son Walter sent me the test pressing of the [Beethoven] Ninth from America; I want to hear andcheck how it came out, and possibly to correct it. These long-playing recordsoften make me happy.\" NBChad recorded all of Toscanini\'s broadcast performances on transcription discsfrom the start of the broadcasts in 1937. The use of high fidelity sound filmwas common for recording sessions, as early as 1941. By 1948, when RCA beganusing magnetic tape on a regular basis, high fidelity became the norm forToscanini\'s, and all other commercial recordings. With RCA\'s experiments instereo in early 1954, stereo tapes were made of Toscanini\'s final two broadcastconcerts, as well as the rehearsals, as documented by Samuel Antek in ThisWas Toscanini. The microphones were placed relatively close to theorchestra and with limited separation, so the stereo effects were not asdramatic as the commercial \"Living Stereo\" recordings which RCAVictor began to make about the same time with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The twoToscanini concerts recorded in stereo have been issued on LP and CD and havealso been offered for download in digitally enhanced sound by PristineClassical, a company which produces digitally enhanced versions of olderclassical recordings. One more example of Toscanini and the NBC Symphony instereo now also exists. It is of the January 27, 1951 concert devoted to theVerdi Requiem, previously recorded and released in high-fidelitymonophonic sound by RCA Victor. Recently a separate recording of the sameperformance, using a different microphone in a different location, was acquiredby PristineAudio. Using modern digital technology the company constructed astereophonic version of the performance from the two recordings which it madeavailable in 2009. The company calls this an example of \"accidentalstereo\". Notable recordings Among his mostcritically acclaimed recordings are the following (with the NBC Symphony unless otherwise shown):(Many of these were never released officially during Toscanini\'s lifetime) Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 \"Eroica\" (1953;also 1939 and 1949 recordings) Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 \"Pastoral\" (1952)Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 (1936, Philharmonic-Symphony of New York)Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 (1952 and 1938) (only the1952 recording was released officially) Beethoven, Missa Solemnis, (1953 and 1940 NBCbroadcast) (Only the 1953 version was released officially.) Berlioz,Roméo et Juliette (1947 NBC broadcast)(only excerpts released during Toscanini\'s lifetime) Brahms,Symphony No. 1 (1941) Brahms, Symphony No. 2 (1952 and February 1948broadcast) Brahms, Symphony No. 4 (1951 and 1948 broadcast) Brahms,Four Symphonies, Tragic Overture and Haydn Variations, 1952, Philharmonia Orchestra, London (his onlyappearances with that orchestra, produced by Walter Legge).Debussy,La mer (1950 and 1940 broadcast; only the1950 version was released officially) Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 \"From the New World\"(1953) Mendelssohn, Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night\'s Dream,(NBC 1947, studio and broadcast versions; Philadelphia 1941); Scherzo, New YorkPhilharmonic, (1929) Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 4 \"Italian\", (1954,exists in two versions: one as approved by Toscanini with excerpts from therehearsals, and the unedited broadcast) Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 5 \"Reformation\",(1942 broadcast, 1953 studio recording. The 1953 version is the one officiallyreleased.) Puccini, La bohème(1946 broadcast) Mozart, DieZauberflöte (1937, SalzburgFestival; poor sound) Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (1938, 1948and 1953 broadcast, studio recording 1953, all of them in the versionorchestrated by Maurice Ravel. The studio recording fromJanuary 1953 is the only one to have been officially released.) Schubert,Symphony No. 9 (Philadelphia, 1941; NBC1947 and 1953) Tchaikovsky, Piano concerto No. 1 in B flat minor,Op. 23, Vladimir Horowitz and NBC Symphony, (live recording of April25, 1943 War Bondsbenefit concert at Carnegie Hall, first issued in 1959 on LP by RCA Victor) Verdi,Requiem (1940 NBC broadcast; and 1951studio recording) Verdi, Un ballo in maschera (1954 NBCbroadcast)Verdi, Falstaff (1937, SalzburgFestival with restored sound on the Andante label; 1950 NBCbroadcast) Verdi, Rigoletto (Act IV only, 1944; from World War II Red Crossbenefit concert held in Madison Square Garden, with the combinedforces of the New York Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony; the entire concert,complete with an saleing of one of Toscanini\'s batons, was released on anunofficial recording in 1995) Verdi, Otello(1947 NBC broadcast) Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg(1937, Salzburg Festival; original Selenophonesound-on-film recording restored on Andante.) Rarities Thereare many pieces which Toscanini never recorded in the studio; among these, someof the most interesting surviving recordings (off-the-air) include: MeyerbeerOverture to Dinorah (1938, on Testament) Stravinsky,Suite from Petrushka(1940, on RCA Victor) Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3\"Scottish\" (1941, on Testament) FranzSchubert, Symphony No. 2 (1940, on Testament) Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 7\"Leningrad\" (1942, on RCA Victor) Vasily Kalinnikov,Symphony No. 1 (1943, on Testament) Schumann,Symphony No. 2 (1946, on Testament) Boito,scenes from Mefistofele and Nerone,La Scala,Milan, 1948 – Boito Memorial Concert. Mussorgsky,Prelude to Khovanshchina (1953) Rehearsals and broadcasts Many hundreds of hours ofToscanini\'s rehearsals were recorded. Some of these have circulated in limitededition recordings. Many broadcast recordings with orchestras other than theNBC have also survived, including: The New York Philharmonic from 1933–36,1942, and 1945; The BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1935–1939; The Lucerne FestivalOrchestra; and broadcasts from the Salzburg Festival in the late 1930s.Documents of Toscanini\'s guest appearances with the La ScalaOrchestra from 1946 until 1952 include a live recording of Verdi\'s Requiemwith the young Renata Tebaldi. Toscanini\'s ten NBC Symphonytelecasts from 1948 until 1952 were preserved in kinescopefilms of the live broadcasts. These films, issued by RCA on VHS tape and laserdisc and on DVD by Testament, provide unique video documentation of thepassionate yet restrained podium technique for which he was well known. Recording guide A guide to Toscanini\'s recordingcareer can be found in Mortimer H. Frank\'s \"From the Pit to the Podium:Toscanini in America\" in International Classical Record Collector(1998, 15 8–21) and Christopher Dyment\'s \"Toscanini\'s EuropeanInheritance\" in International Classical Record Collector (1998, 1522–8). Frank and Dyment also discuss Maestro Toscanini\'s performance history inthe 50th anniversary issue of Classic Record Collector (2006, 47) Frank with\'Toscanini – Myth and Reality\' (10–14) and Dyment \'A Whirlwind in London\'(15–21) This issue also contains interviews with people who performed withToscanini – Jon Tolansky \'Licia Albanese – Maestro and Me\' (22–6) and \'AMesmerising Beat: John Tolansky talks to some of those who worked with ArturoToscanini, to discover some of the secrets of his hold over singers, orchestrasand audiences.\' (34–7). There is also a feature article on Toscanini\'sinterpretation of Brahms\'s First Symphony – Norman C. Nelson, \'First AmongEquals [...] Toscanini\'s interpretation of Brahms\'s First Symphony in thecontext of others\' (28–33) The Arturo Toscanini SocietyIn 1969, Clyde J. Key acted on a dream he had of meeting Toscanini bystarting the Arturo Toscanini Society to release a number of\"unapproved\" live performances by Toscanini. As Time Magazinereported, Key scoured the U.S. and Europe for off-the-air transcriptions ofToscanini broadcasts, acquiring almost 5,000 transcriptions (all transferred totape) of previously unreleased material—a complete catalogue of broadcasts bythe Maestro between 1933 and 1954. It included about 50 concerts that were neverbroadcast, but which were recorded surreptitiously by engineers supposedlytesting their equipment. A private, nonprofit club based in Dumas, Texas, itoffered members five or six LPs annually for a $25-a-year membership fee. Key\'sfirst package offering included Brahms\' German Requiem, Haydn\'s Symphonies Nos. 88and 104, and Richard Strauss\' EinHeldenleben, all NBC Symphony broadcasts dating from the late1930s or early 1940s. In 1970, the Society releases included Sibelius\'Symphony No. 4, Mendelssohn\'s \"Scottish\" Symphony,dating from the same NBC period; and a Rossini-Verdi-Puccini LP emanating fromthe post-War reopening of La Scala on May 11, 1946 with the Maestro conducting.That same year it released a Beethoven bicentennial set that included the 1935 MissaSolemnis with the Philharmonic and LPs of the 1948 televised concert of theninth symphony taken from an FM radio transcription, complete with Ben Grauer\'scomments. (In the early 1990s, the kinescopes of these and the other televisedconcerts were released by RCA with soundtracks dubbed in from the NBC radiotranscriptions; in 2006, they were re-released by Testament on DVD.) Additionalreleases included a number of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the New YorkPhilharmonic during the 1930s, a performance of Mozart\'s PianoConcerto No. 27 on February 20, 1936, at which Rudolf Serkinmade his New York debut, and one of the most celebrated underground Toscaninirecordings of all, the legendary 1940 broadcast version of Beethoven\'sMissa Solemnis, which has bettersoloists (Zinka Milanov, Jussi Bjoerling, both in their prime) and a morepowerful style than the 1953 RCA studio recording, although the microphoneplacement was kinder to the soloists in 1953. Because the Arturo ToscaniniSociety was nonprofit, Key said he believed he had successfully bypassed bothcopyright restrictions and the maze of contractual ties between RCA and theMaestro\'s family. However, RCA\'s attorneys were soon looking into the matter tosee if they agreed. As long as it stayed small, the Society appeared to offerlittle real competition to RCA. But classical-LP profits were low enough evenin 1970, and piracy by fly-by-night firms so prevalent within the industry (anestimated $100 million in tape sales for 1969 alone), that even a benevolentbuccaneer outfit like the Arturo Toscanini Society had to be looked at twicebefore it could be tolerated. Magazineand newspaper reports subsequently detailed legal action taken against Key andthe Society, presumably after some of the LPs began to appear in retail stores.Toscanini fans and record collectors were dismayed because, although Toscaninihad not approved the release of these performances in every case, many of themwere found to be further proof of the greatness of the Maestro\'s musicaltalents. One outstanding example of a remarkable performance not approved bythe Maestro was his December 1948 NBC broadcast of Dvořák\'s Symphonic Variations, released on anLP by the Society. (A kinescope of the same performance, from the televisionsimulcast, has been released on VHS and laser disc by RCA/BMG and on DVD byTestament.) There was speculation that, the Toscanini family itself, prodded byhis daughter Wanda, sought to defend the Maestro\'s original decisions, mademostly during his last years, on what should be released. Walter Toscaninilater admitted that his father likely rejected performances that weresatisfactory. Whatever the real reasons, the Arturo Toscanini Society was forcedto disband and cease releasing any further recordings. TelevisionArturo Toscanini was one of the first conductors to make extendedappearances on live television. Between 1948 and 1952, heconducted ten concerts telecast on NBC, including a two-part concertperformance of Verdi\'s complete opera Aida starring Herva Nelliand RichardTucker, and the first complete telecast of Beethoven\'s Ninth Symphony. All of these were simulcaston radio. These concerts were all shown only once during that four-year span,but they were preserved on kinescopes. Thetelecasts began on March 20, 1948, with an all-Wagnerprogram, including the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin;the overture and bacchanale from Tannhäuser; \"Forest Murmurs\" fromSiegfried; \"Dawn and Siegfried\'s RhineJourney\" from Götterdämmerung; and \"The Ride of theValkyries\" from Die Walküre. On the very same day that thisconcert was telecast live, conductor EugeneOrmandy also made his live television concert debut with thePhiladelphia Orchestra.They performed Weber\'s overture to DerFreischutz and Rachmaninoff\'sSymphony no. 1, which had been recently rediscovered.The Ormandy concert was telecast by rival network CBS, but the schedules werearranged so that the two programs would not interfere with one another. Lessthan a month after the first Toscanini televised concert, a performance by theconductor of Beethoven\'s Ninth Symphony was telecast on April 3, 1948. OnNovember 13, 1948, there was an all-Brahmsprogram, including the Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra in A minor(Mischa Mischakoff, violin; Frank Miller, cello); Liebeslieder-Walzer,Op. 52 (with two pianists and a small chorus); and Hungarian Dance No. 1 inG minor. On December 3, 1948, Toscanini conducted Mozart\'s Symphony No. 40 in G minor; Dvořák\'s Symphonic Variations; andWagner\'s original overture to Tannhäuser. There were two Toscaninitelecasts in 1949, both devoted to the concert performance of Verdi\'s Aida from studio 8H.Acts I and II were telecast on March 26 and III and IV on April 2. Portions ofthe audio were rerecorded in June 1954 for the commercial release on LPrecords. As the video shows, the soloists were placed close to Toscanini, infront of the orchestra, while the robed members of the Robert Shaw Chorale were on risers behind theorchestra. There were no Toscanini telecasts in 1950, but they resumed from Carnegie Hallon November 3, 1951, with Weber\'s overture to Euryantheand Brahms\' Symphony No. 1. On December 29, 1951,there was another all-Wagner program that included the two excerpts from Siegfriedand Die Walküre featured on the March 1948telecast, plus the Prelude to Act II of Lohengrin;the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde; and \"Siegfried\'sDeath and Funeral Music\" from Götterdämmerung. On March 15, 1952,Toscanini conducted the Symphonic Interlude from Franck\'sRédemption; Sibelius\'s En Saga;Debussy\'s\"Nuages\" and \"Fetes\" from Nocturnes;and the overture of Rossini\'s William Tell. The final live Toscaninitelecast, on March 22, 1952, included Beethoven\'s Symphony No. 5, and Respighi\'sThe Pines ofRome. The NBC cameras were often left on Toscanini for extendedperiods, documenting not only his baton techniques but his deep involvement inthe music. At the end of a piece, Toscanini generally nodded rather than bowedand exited the stage quickly. Although NBC continued to broadcast the orchestraon radio until April 1954, telecasts were abandoned after March 1952. As partof a restoration project initiated by the Toscanini family in the late 1980s, thekinescopes were fully restored and issued by RCA on VHS and laser discbeginning in 1989. The audio portion of the sound was taken, not from the noisykinescopes, but from 33-1/3 rpm 16-inch transcription disc and high fidelityaudio tape recordings made simultaneously by RCA technicians during thetelevised concerts. The hi-fi audio was synchronized with the kinescope videofor the home video release. Original introductions by NBC\'s longtime announcer Ben Grauerwere replaced with new commentary by MartinBookspan. The entire group of Toscanini videos has since beenreissued by Testament on DVD, with further improvements to the sound. Film In December 1943, Toscanini made a 31-minute filmfor the United States Office of War Information called Hymn of the Nations, directed by AlexanderHammid. It was mostly filmed in NBC\'s Studio 8-H and consists ofToscanini conducting the NBC Symphony in a performance of Verdi\'s Overture to LaForza del Destino and Verdi\'s \"Hymn of the Nations\" (Innodelle nazioni), which contains national anthems of England, France, andItaly (the World War I allied nations), to which Toscanini added the Soviet\"Internationale\" and \"The Star Spangled Banner\". Tenor Jan Peerceand the Westminster Choir performed in the latter work and the film wasnarrated by Burgess Meredith. Thefilm was released by RCA/BMG on DVD in 2004. By this time the\"Internationale\" had been cut from the 1943 film, but the complete\"Hymn of the Nations\" can still be heard in all releases of the audiorecording of the film issued by RCA.Hymn of the Nations was nominated for a 1944 Academy Awardfor Best Documentary ShortToscanini: TheMaestro is a 1985 documentary made for cable television. Thefilm features archival footage of the conductor and interviews with musicianswho worked with him. This film was released on VHS and in 2004 on the same DVDwith Hymn of the Nations. Toscanini is the subject of the 1988fictionalized biography Il giovane Toscanini (Young Toscanini), starringC. ThomasHowell and Dame ElizabethTaylor, and directed by FrancoZeffirelli.It received scathing reviews and was never officially released in the UnitedStates. The film is a fictional recounting of the events that led up toToscanini making his conducting debut in Rio de Janeiro in 1886. Althoughnearly all of the plot is embellished, the events surrounding the sudden andunexpected conducting debut are based on fact. Acclaimand criticism Throughout his career, Toscanini was virtually idolized bythe critics (a notable exception being VirgilThomson), as well as by most fellow musicians and the public alike.He enjoyed the kind of consistent critical acclaim during his life that fewother musicians have had. He was featured three times on the cover of Timemagazine, in 1926, 1934, and again in 1948. In the magazine\'s history, he isthe only conductor to have been so honored March 25, 1989, the United States Postal Service issued a 25cent postage stamp in his honor. While online critics such as Peter Gutmann have dismissed much of whatwas written about Toscanini during his lifetime as \"adoring puffery\",it neverthleless remains a fact that composers and others who worked with theMaestro readily acknowledged what they felt was his greatness, and audiointerviews containing the praise of such luminaries as Aaron Coplandstill exist.Over the past thirty years or so, however, as a newgeneration has appeared, there has been an increasing amount of revisionist criticismdirected at Toscanini. These critics contend that Toscanini was ultimately adetriment to American music rather than an asset because of the tremendousmarketing of him by RCA as the greatest conductor of all time and hispreference to perform mostly older European music. According to Harvey Sachs,Mortimer Frank, and B. H. Haggin, this criticism can be traced tothe lack of focus on Toscanini as a conductor rather than his legacy. Frank, inhis recent book Toscanini: The NBC Years, rejects this revisionism quitestrongly,and cites the author JosephHorowitz (author of Understanding Toscanini) as perhaps themost extreme of these critics. Frank writes that this revisionism has unfairlyinfluenced younger listeners and critics, who may have not heard as many ofToscanini\'s performances as older listeners, and as a result, Toscanini\'sreputation, extraordinarily high in the years that he was active, has suffereda decline. Conversely, Joseph Horowitz contends that those who keep theToscanini legend alive are members of a \"Toscanini cult\", an idea notaltogether refuted by Frank, but not embraced by him, either. Some contemporarycritics, particularly Virgil Thomson, also took Toscanini to task for notpaying enough attention to the \"modern repertoire\" (i.e., 20th-centurycomposers, of which Thomson was one). It may be speculated, knowing Toscanini\'santipathy toward much 20th-century music, that perhaps Thomson had a feelingthat the conductor would never have played any of his (Thomson\'s) music, andthat perhaps because of this, Thomson bore a resentment against him. DuringToscanini\'s middle years, however, such now widely accepted composers as RichardStrauss and Claude Debussy, whose music the conductor heldin very high regard, were considered to be radical and modern. Toscanini alsoperformed excerpts from Igor Stravinsky\'s Petrouchka, and three of GeorgeGershwin\'s most famous works, Rhapsody inBlue, An American in Paris, and the Piano Concerto in F, though hisperformances of these last three works have been criticized as not being\"jazzy\" enough. Another criticism leveled at Toscanini stems from theconstricted sound quality that comes from many of his recordings, notably thosemade in NBC\'s Studio 8-H. Studio 8-H was foremost aradio and later a television studio, not a true concert hall. Its dry acousticslacking in much reverberation, while ideal for broadcasting, were unsuited forsymphonic concerts and opera. However, it is widely believed that Toscaninifavored it because its close miking enabled listeners to hear everyinstrumental strand in the orchestra clearly, something that the conductorstrongly believed in. Toscaninihas also been criticized for lack of nuance and metronomic(rhythmically too rigid) performances: \"Others attacked the conductor onthe ground that he was a slave to the metronome. They said that his beat wasinexorable, that his rhythms were rigid, that he was an enemy of Italian songand a wrecker of the art of bel canto.\"When he was young as a conductor,it was complained of Toscanini that he held the tempo and rhythm of the musicfirmly to its course and that it had the mechanical exactitude of a metronome.[...]\"—The Maestro: The Life Of Arturo Toscanini (1951) by Howard TaubmanOthers state (and there is some evidence from the recordings) that Toscanini\'stempos, quite flowing in his earlier recordings, became stricter as hegot older, although this is not to be taken as a literally true statement. His1953 recording of Pictures at an Exhibition, forinstance, and his 1950 La Mer,are considered masterpieces by many. The ToscaniniLegacy Beginning in 1963, NBC Radio broadcast a weekly series ofprograms entitled Toscanini: The Man Behind The Legend, commemoratingToscanini\'s years with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The show, hosted by NBCannouncer Ben Grauer, who had also hosted many of the original Toscaninibroadcasts, featured interviews with members of the conductor\'s family, as wellas musicians of the NBC Symphony, David Sarnoff, and noted classical musicianswho had worked with the conductor, such as Giovanni Martinelli. It spotlighted partial orcomplete rebroadcasts of many of Toscanini\'s recordings. The program ran for atleast three years, and did not feature any of the revisionist commentary aboutthe conductor one finds so often today in magazines such as American Record Guide. The series wasrebroadcast by PBSradio in the late 1970s. In 1986, The New York Public Library for thePerforming Arts purchased the bulk of Toscanini\'s papers, scores andsound recordings from his heirs. Named The Toscanini Legacy, this vastcollection contains thousands of letters, programs and various documents, over1,800 scores and more than 400 hours of sound recordings. A finding aidsfor the scores and sound recordings is available on the library\'swebsite. In house finding aids are available for other parts of the collection.The Library also has many other collections that have Toscanini materials inthem, such as the Bruno Walterpapers, the Fiorello H.La Guardia papers, and a collection of material from RoseBampton. The Palestine Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1936 under the leadership of BronislawHuberman. Huberman, a violinist, at first envisioned an international centerfor the arts, but instead focused on developing a critically acclaimed symphonyorchestra. Conditions in Europe had become such that the orchestra could serveas a haven for persecuted Jewish musicians. Many immigration certificatesbecame available, as the orchestra could provide employment for the refugees.The new immigrants themselves provided fresh talent and energy for culturalpursuits in the yishuv. While Huberman continued to work on behalf of theorchestra, Arturo Toscanini agreed to become its first conductor. He was quickto help establish the orchestra\'s reputation. In addition to drawing talentedmusicians to the orchestra itself, many other chamber orchestras and groupsformed throughout the yishuv. In 1948, the orchestra changed its name tothe IsraelPhilarmonic Orhestra.