It is one of those curious twists of cosmic fate that Arturo Toscanini and Wilhelm Furtwängler, arguably the two most famous orchestral conductors of their time, both had the curtains unwillingly pulled upon their careers in the same year. The latter would die in Baden-Baden in November 1954 after a brief bout of pneumonia. Just a few months prior across the Atlantic, his rival (and grudging admirer) stood before an orchestra for the final time. Though he would live on for another few years, the frailty of the octogenarian Toscanini’s faculties could no longer bear the stresses of a career that had lasted nearly seven decades: Longer than the entire lifespans of a number of his contemporaries and rivals.
He had, in fact, been convinced to return from retirement to head the then newly formed NBC Symphony—a formidable task at any age, but especially for a man nearing 70. Toscanini met the challenge with his characteristic drive and determination; and, as recordings gratefully preserve, the musical results evinced a vigor that betray nothing of his age.
As the early 1950s wore on, however, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the partnership between conductor and orchestra could not go on much longer. For one thing, there was the increasing unprofitability of maintaining a full-size symphony orchestra year after year, not to mention the dwindling of the radio audience at the dawn of mass television—although David Sarnoff’s personal admiration for Toscanini staved off the machinations of NBC’s board of directors. More dire was the physical state of Toscanini himself.
Though he was capable of summoning reserves of willpower that steeled him through increasing frailty for the sake of music, there was no escaping mortality’s inexorable grasp. Toscanini had already suffered the devastating blow of his wife Carla’s death in 1951. In those final months of his career, the remorseless grinding of time upon his body was becoming impossible to ignore.
“I am not well, and nobody believes me, the asses, but I’m not the same as I was. . .,” he wrote to a friend in 1953. “All in all, a poor unhappy man—and [NBC has] had the bad taste to force me to accept another year of concerts. . . I’m old, very old, and can’t stand it anymore!”
More than “bad taste,” it was Toscanini’s concern for the well-being of his musicians, who would certainly be (and were) disbanded upon his retirement that goaded him into conducting one more season.
A few months later in January 1954 while rehearsing Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera for broadcast performances, the conductor was terrified to discover that the words of this opera he had loved since boyhood were suddenly eluding his memory. Age forced him to act decisively.
On the morning of March 25, 1954—his 87th birthday—Toscanini affixed his shaky signature to his letter of resignation from the NBC Symphony (likely drafted by his son Walter): “And now the sad time has come when I must reluctantly lay aside my baton and say goodbye to my orchestra.”
His final concert—all Wagner—shortly thereafter on April 4 was of a piece with the somewhat ramshackle mood of the occasion, the program being a relatively late switch for the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requeim which Toscanini had originally intended as his farewell. Given the events that transpired during this performance and its rehearsals, it is not surprising that it has become one of the most talked about in Toscanini’s career.
The rehearsals themselves were marked by several lapses in the conductor’s memory, stoking the fire of his infamous temper. Things soon came to a head and he finally stormed off in a rage. The situation was concerning enough to NBC that they had clandestinely notified Erich Leinsdorf, then music director of the Rochester Philharmonic, to stand ready in the event of a Toscanini no-show at the concert. It proved a false alarm—the Maestro would show up to his final concert after all.
Confusion was in the air on that Sunday. While the audience filled into Carnegie Hall, NBC distributed leaflets with copies of Toscanini’s resignation letter (and network general manager Sarnoff’s reply) to members of the press, listeners in attendance and tuned into the radio were not informed. Finally the curtain rose. Toscanini and the NBC Symphony began with the Act I prelude to Lohengrin, followed by the “Waldweben” from Siegfried. The conductor failed to indicate changes in meter, but the orchestra stayed on its toes, expertly navigating through the score on its own. Continuing were the “Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt” and “Trauermarsch” from Götterdämmerung, which were dispatched smoothly. Then came the Paris version of the overture to Tannhäuser—a performance which has since become the stuff of legends.
During the “Bacchanale,” Toscanini momentarily lost track of what he was conducting. He turned pale, stopped conducting, and covered his eyes with his left hand. For a moment the ensemble slipped, unsure of what was occurring, until cellist Frank Miller began cueing entrances for his fellow players, restoring unanimity, and guiding Toscanini back into the performance. But in the moments while this was being sorted out, panic had ensued in the NBC control room. Aghast at what was happening, Guido Cantelli insisted to the radio personnel to take the concert off the air, which they promptly did. While the announcer feigned technical difficulties, the opening of the Brahms First Symphony had incongruously been interpolated.
Despite the rough seas, both orchestra and conductor had made it to shore, finishing the piece together. Toscanini was furious with himself, nearly stomping off until Miller reminded him that there was still the prelude to Meistersinger left to play. He nodded wordlessly, motioned the upbeat, and launched into the work, only to abruptly leave while the orchestra was in mid-tutti at the coda, ignoring the clamoring of his audience to return for a bow.
Hearing the concert today nearly 70 years later, one can hardly hear anything of the black legend that has since swirled around it. Toscanini’s late recordings can sometimes sound dry, unyielding, much too tight. None of that is discernible in this performance. Instead one finds here a sense of measure and poise, of shaping each phrase breath by breath that is often missing in the conductor’s contemporaneous recordings. Even the notorious Tannhäuser performance has a chamber-like intimacy and beguiling luminescence which reveals little of the troubles which had nearly unraveled it. Samuel Chotzinoff would later relate that “the men stopped playing and the house was engulfed in terrible silence” when Toscanini suffered his memory lapse. Aside from a brief spell of ensemble unease, the recording evinces nothing of that. What comes through instead is the NBC Symphony’s professionalism (as well as sincere affection for their conductor) in ensuring the maintenance of order.
The fact that the broadcast has been preserved in decent early stereo only adds to the value of this document. Perhaps nowhere else can a listener more vividly hear the spectrum of color that Toscanini could draw from an orchestra.
It is a performance that in many ways is unique in Toscanini’s discography. At times it even prefigures the much later work of Carlo Maria Giulini and Claudio Abbado. With typical self-deprecation Toscanini would later remark of it: “I conducted as if it had been a dream. It almost seemed to me that I wasn’t there.” Whether humility or humiliation provoked these words, his presence is unmistakable throughout this performance. We hear not the infallible musical demigod of American consumer mythologizing, but the vulnerable, imperfect man and artist who in his final years struggled against the dying of the light; and drew from within himself one last time to fashion beauty that defies the tragic impermanence of our existence.
(This essay was commissioned by ATS in Japan for inclusion in their reissue of this broadcast.)
