tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post8193485148025349591..comments2024-03-23T11:40:13.092-05:00Comments on Musical Assumptions: This Was ToscaniniElaine Finehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-23341690642531716692021-08-11T08:08:31.362-05:002021-08-11T08:08:31.362-05:00Years ago my friend Seymour Barab gave me a memoir...Years ago my friend Seymour Barab gave me a memoir called Dangerous Harmonies written by Harold Coletta, who was a violist in the NBC Symphony. Colletta was Italian, and was very close with Toscanini's chauffer, who told him stories about Toscanini's personal life that were quite different from Antek's account. Toscanini's chauffer was on call at all hours of the night. I can't find the physical book (I believe I gave it to my father because I thought he would enjoy reading it), but I did write a blog post about it: <br /><br />https://musicalassumptions.blogspot.com/2014/06/dangerous-harmonies-memoir-of-harold.html<br /><br />And my friend's mother, who is no longer alive, and was very attractive when she was a young woman, had to physically run away from him once. Another friend who, as a boy, sang in a chorus with the NBC Symphony told me that he saw Toscanini backstage watching "the fights" on a television in his dressing room.<br /><br />I think that we, as human beings, see and hear the world through various forms of protective eyewear! I know that recordings I once considered distasteful (musically speaking) because of "rules" I happened to be following at a particular time seem to have gotten better over time because of changes that have happened in the widening of my world.<br /><br />Before reading this memoir I thought of Toscanini as a man mostly through Coletta's memoir, and I'm glad to have my view opened up a bit. Elaine Finehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-74909685233011336512021-08-10T16:16:41.860-05:002021-08-10T16:16:41.860-05:00What is more open to a wide swath of human behavio...What is more open to a wide swath of human behaviors and interactions than the act of music-making? An example of musiking near one end of the spectrum (for labeling convenience I call it the left-end) is the interactions of friends gathered together to play recreational chamber music; working together with gentleness and collegiality to sound out a score. An example at the other end (the right-end) is the professional symphony orchestra of a generation close to our own that had the misfortune to be ruled by the tyrannical conductor. In between these two opposites is a multitude of shades and hues. <br /><br />Alas that Toscanini is to me an example of a musician occupying the far-right end of that immense span. This opinion has been with me for most of my musical life, but was solidified to a conviction recently when I heard audio clips of his rantings during rehearsal. Perhaps it is true that some of the musicians in his orchestra loved him. But in pointing that out, it neglects those who were victims of his abuse. That he vigorously opposed Fascism is admirable. Still the question should not be swept aside: how many lives were ruined by being in his orchestras? <br /><br />The problem with hearing a finished and fine musical performance is that we hear only that. We don’t hear the moments of radiance or the hell that went into the making of it. Having no knowledge of the process is certainly a blessing. Being “blissfully ignorant” we are allowed to listen to the end results with edification or pleasure. But if we do have knowledge of the proceedings, then should we let that color our aesthetic response to what we hear? It is a difficult question; one that I have grappled with for a long time. Approaching (slowly, I hope!) the finale of my own particular span, though, I’m starting to formulate an answer.<br /><br />“Only by sheer accident” writes Lytton Strachey in Portraits in Miniature, “when some particular drop from the ocean of empty water is slipped under the microscope….do we perceive for an amazed moment or two the universe of serried and violent sensations that lie concealed so perfectly in the transparency of oblivion.”<br /><br />Alas that those audio clips of Toscanini hurling invective and abuse at other human beings survived. Those dreadful artifacts are Strachey’s “particular drops.” It is those tears that make it difficult for me to have the memory of that particular musician, and the performances he made, be a blessing.<br /><br />Jonathan Brodie<br />gushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09387821546790957206noreply@blogger.com