Toscanini’s Philadelphia Story a Revelatory One

RCA’s massive “Toscanini Collection”--compact-disc reissues of all the recordings made by the Italian conductor for that label between the late-1920s and his retirement in 1954--reaches Vol. 70 this month. It does so with products not of his lengthy association with the NBC Symphony but of his brief fling with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1941 and 1942.

The tale that hangs thereby centers on two names: Toscanini and Stokowski, dominant conductors of their day and polar opposites in interpretive style. Toscanini, as the popular perception has it, was the tough-minded realist and literalist, the anti-Romantic, the man guided only by the composer’s score. Stokowski, conversely, was regarded as the flamboyant Romantic, the “interpreter” who put his personal stamp on everything he touched.

The orchestras over whom each held total sway reflect this polarity: Toscanini’s NBC Symphony lean-toned and punctilious, Stokowski’s Philadelphia lush, rainbow-hued.

Through events dictated by the commercial considerations inherent in their working for the same recording company, these unlikely bedfellows swapped podia for a time and jointly directed the NBC Symphony, an orchestra created in 1938 specifically for Toscanini. It was a battle from the start. Ultimately the Italian prevailed, resuming sole leadership of the NBC Symphony while Stokowski left to pursue musical activities related to the war effort.

The many recordings Stokowski made with the Philadelphia Orchestra are currently in reissue limbo, his few with the NBC Symphony forgotten.

The Toscanini-NBC Symphony collaborations, on the other hand, are omnipresent. Those with Philadelphia, which Toscanini claimed not to like (they were made with somebody else’s orchestra, after all) and withheld from widespread public scrutiny during his lifetime, are with us now. And they are revelatory (RCA Victor 60328, four mid-priced CDs).

Much of what seems formula Toscanini in the NBC Symphony recordings--performances that are excessively clipped and rushed, monochromatic in expression, sonically dry (the last quality partially the fault of NBC’s notorious recording studio 8H)--is barely in evidence here.

Most impressive is Schubert’s “Great” C-major Symphony, led with the swagger, crispness and rhythmic consistency--not merely speed and tautness of inflection--that came to be recognized as authentically Schubertian only with recent examination of the composer’s manuscript, to which Toscanini could not have had access.

From this superbly executed and spaciously recorded (in Philadelphia’s Academy of Music) performance, one perceives Toscanini’s ability to see through Romantic distortions while still conveying a Romantic spirit.

The present version of Debussy’s “La Mer,” always a Toscanini showpiece, is almost Stokowskian in its lushness--not so much of sound as of spirit. It would be difficult to find another instance of Toscanini’s tempos being so flexible or his dynamic palette so varied and subtle.

The same program contains a snappy, colorful Debussy “Iberia” and Respighi’s “Feste Romane,” less hectoring than the later NBC performance. Still, the Respighi score remains vulgar beyond redemption and really not much fun except as the sort of sonic spectacular unrealizable before the advent of stereo.

Elsewhere in the Philadelphia set one can admire the clarity of line conductor and orchestra bring to such abused schmaltzers as Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony and Richard Strauss’ “Tod und Verklarung.”

Those who have never tired of these scores may, however, find these interpretations heartless. One listener would voice just such an objection to the brutally efficient reading of Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” score included here.

Another label, another orchestra and an even earlier Toscanini are heard in Keith Hardwick’s handsome transfers from what were once supposed to be hopelessly noisy 78s. The recordings were made during live performances with the BBC Symphony in the Queen’s Hall, London, between 1935 and 1938 (EMI/Angel References 63044, mid-price).

The program comprises Wagner’s “Parsifal” Prelude and “Good Friday” music, the Funeral March from “‘Gotterdammerung,” and his youthful “Faust” Overture as well as another atmospheric “La Mer,” more hard-edged than the Philadelphia version, less so than the NBC performance included in an earlier volume of the RCA collection.

There is warmth and power in all these interpretations, as well as vestiges of the string portamento of an earlier era, an expressive device Toscanini was to banish from his American performances.

The previously unissued Sibelius Second Symphony, also with the BBC Symphony and from a fiercely dramatic, if rather unyielding live performance in 1938, offers poor value for the money, its 39 minutes occupying an entire CD.

Sir Thomas Beecham’s warm-hearted but by no means soft-boned reading, from a 1954 BBC Symphony broadcast and on mid-priced EMI/Angel (633399), contains another work of equal length and at least equal musical worth, Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony.