Toscanini Conducts Beethoven

On this CD:

1. Symphony No. 5 in C minor ("Fate") Op. 67
Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performed by Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Arturo Toscanini

2. Symphony No. 3 in E flat major ("Eroica"), Op. 55
Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performed by NBC Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Arturo Toscanini

Tracks:

Allegro Con Brio
Marcia Funebre, Adagio Assai
Scherzo, Allegro Vivace
Finale, Allegro Molto
Allegro Con Brio
Andante Con Moto
Allegro
Allegro

Product Description

Symphony No.3 in E-flat--Sept 1, 1945 Symphony No. 5 in C--May 8, 1945 The famous "Victory in Japan and Victory in Europe" performances. Orginally releases in 1992, completely remastered in 2007 by Aaron Z. Snyder with notes by Christopher Syment

Customer Reviews:

Toscanini in Highly Intense Performances - Even for Him!.......2007-06-30

These gripping performances in improved sound give Toscanini's wartime way with the heroic Beethoven symphonies 3 and 5. Here you have a chance to catch something of the genuine visceral impact Toscanini in full flight creates.
Toscanini responded to the ground-breaking nature of these works quite differently than other conductors, turning ever more to a personal confrontation - ala Jacob wrestling with the angel - with the fiercely bound compositional Gordian knots binding the works' drama; away from the work's extroverted and expansive architecture, their effusive and optimistic sentimental lyricism. Although there will always be those who just out and out cannot handle this conductor's drive and passion, I personally find it revelatory, and one of the joys of collecting records. One hears a great artist (Toscanini) struggling with the richness of the music, its extraordinary concentration. Toscanini challenges the listener to follow his vision of these works, arrived at after many decades of performance, and most closely allied to the late quartets. Toscanini the string player here frequently calls to mind the intellectual force of Beethoven's late masterpiece, The Grosse Fugue. Compared to most readings Toscanini's with their inescapable logical impetus seem almost like Black Holes - unswervingly inward-looking, relentless and unflinching in organization.
There is a strong element of the experimentor, a term perhaps more needed in discussions of Toscanini. These performances form part of a life-long recherche: to dismiss such playing as perfunctory or too fast is more than an injustice, it's a blunder.

If you appreciate Toscanini this CD offers some of his most profound and exploratory readings. Buy it before it disappears!

CELEBRATING WAR'S END.......2006-03-27

First, there needs to be a correction: these performances are from 1945 (May 18th for Beethoven's 5th & September 1st for the 3rd), celebrating VE and VJ Day respectively. Both are quite good and reccommended. I am familiar with the 1933 NY Phil. performance of the 5th, and give the edge to that. However, the 1939 broadcast of the 5th and the 1953 broadcast of the 3rd are the finest performances I know of. Kleiber (both father and son) have great propulsion in the first movement of the 5th but don't carry thru the other three. As to the "Eroica", only George Szell comes close (very) to holding you from start to finish.

Two legendary concert performances!.......2005-11-15

The Fifth Symphony was recorded on April 9 1933. The date is extremely important. His febrile temperament looks like the delicate and unstable state of the things in the world. The Italian Master travels constant and eagerly. And despite the genius blossoms, illuminating the score in every one of his musical tours, he is son of his Age and the dark shadows that waggle on the world do not announce limpid horizons. This reading express eloquently this supreme conviction. Beethoven 's personality added with this universal patrimony as the Fifth Symphony represents, has constituted much more than a simple device of artistic expression. The eighty per cent of the mankind still is far to understand the richness and the whole significance of this mythic work. The fierceness and sharp dissonances, the visible contrast between the verticality (fate) and horizontality ( the human will) are confronted over and over, and it is precisely the triumph of the will (in the Greek meaning) what it confers this Symphony its enviable and supreme place.

The Eroica recorded in 1939, remains possibly as my favorite interpretation of all the previous or later versions of the Italian Master. It is loaded of such visceral and mercurial conviction and steeled dignity in the Funeral March; filled with sublime expressiveness and energy that must be included between the supreme versions ever made about this colossal and milestone work.

So there is more than a reason to acquire this invaluable historic document. There must not be any single doubt about it.

Finally I would like to finish with the final statement written by Fürtwangler to a friend in a letter:

"Will it be that Beethoven failed to us, or on the contrary were we who failed to him?"

Average customer rating:

Toscanini Conducts Beethoven Sym. 9

Manufacturer: Music & Arts Program
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Quartets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Toscanini Conducts Beethoven Symphonies 3 & Overtures

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Toscanini Conducts Beethoven Symphonies 3 & Overtures
NBC Symphony Orchestra , Leonore 3 Overture , and Coriolan Overture
Manufacturer: Music & Arts Program
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Average customer rating:

Toscanini Conducts Beethoven

Manufacturer: Music & Arts Program
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Arturo Toscanini Conducts Beethoven, Vol. 4, Symphony No. 9 : "Choral"

Average customer rating:

Arturo Toscanini Conducts Beethoven, Vol. 4, Symphony No. 9 : "Choral"
Arturo Toscanini , NBC Symphony Orchestra , and Eileen Farrell
Manufacturer: Dante Records Lys
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000HZI0
Release Date: 1999-01-19

Toscanini conducts Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

Average customer rating:

OK
Good but not Great
A Mystical Experience

Toscanini conducts Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

Manufacturer: Grammofono 2000
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Masses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Milanov, Zinka | Divas | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Kyrie
Missa Solemnis, Op. 123: Gloria
Missa Solemnis, Op. 123: Credo
Missa Solemnis, Op. 123: Sanctus
Missa Solemnis, Op. 123: Agnus Dei

Customer Reviews:

OK.......2000-12-04

This was a fine, though uninspired performance. For Toscanini fans it is a must but for the rest of us it isn't really worth having. This was at one point (maybe by Dutton Labs?), teamed up with the Schubert 8th on another CD (almost identical cover),though the audio quality here is somewhat superior.

Good but not Great.......2000-12-04

The performances here are not without emotion. There's a tight, nervous intensity in the Schubert (though balmy and itchy in comparison to Carl Schuricht's metaphysical pyrotechnics!).

The Beethoven, though, is bloated and flat and this is one score which needs a lean, athletic approach and one where I'd thought Toscanini would have excelled. Unfortunately the music never quite gets off the ground.

A Mystical Experience.......1999-12-05

This 1940 performance of the "Missa Solemnis" found Toscanini in a particularly expansive mood, phrasing with great breadth in tempos which, for him, were surprisingly slow. Within this context, the NBC Symphony plays with warmth and depth, the Westminster Choir sings superbly, and the vocal quartet of Milanov, Castagna, Bjorling and Kipnis sound as if they had been singing this music together for years. The overall effect casts a hypnotic spell on the listener that does not let up throughout the entire performance. And, in addition, the recorded sound is warm and natural, not the usual "boxy" sonics heard in most of Toscanini's RCA recordings. This is one performance for the millennium!

Average customer rating:

Arturo Toscanini Conducts
Rossini , R. Strauss , Beethoven , and Toscanini
Manufacturer: Guild
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000076DUO
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Arturo Toscanini Conducts the Orchestra of La Scala, Milan

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Arturo Toscanini Conducts the Orchestra of La Scala, Milan

Manufacturer: Music & Arts Program
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Romantic (c.1820-1910) | Historical Periods | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

German | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000007TS6
Release Date: 1998-07-21

Tracks:

Egmont Overture Op. 15
I. Adagio Molto/Allegro Con Brio
II. Andante Cantabile Con Moto
III. Menuetto/Trio. Allegro Molto E Vivace
IV. Adagio/Allegro Molto E Vivace
Sehr Massig Bewegt
Act III
Andante Maestoso/Allegro

Tracks:

I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo Un Poco Maestoso
II. Molto Vivace/Presto
III. Adagio Molto E Cantible/Andante Moderato/Andante/Adagio
IV. Presto/Allegro, Ma Non Troppo/Vivace/Adagio Cantible/Allegro

Arturo Toscanini Conducts Beethoven Symphony No. 9

Average customer rating:

Arturo Toscanini Conducts Beethoven Symphony No. 9

Manufacturer: Music & Arts Program
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Average customer rating:

Unbelievable Fidelity From a Great 1938 Broadcast!

Arturo Toscanini Conducts Beethoven

Manufacturer: Music & Arts Program
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000001OJK
Release Date: 1993-11-01

Customer Reviews:

Unbelievable Fidelity From a Great 1938 Broadcast!.......1998-09-16

5 stars, the best possible rating, to this magnificent production from Music & Arts! This is an absolutely PURIST production from in-house master disks, of an excellent interpretation of the Ninth Symphony, the first of several later ones given by Toscanini with the orchestra.

Critics prefer the 1939 broadcast, but I have always enjoyed this one, since hearing it for the first time in the early 1980s. It fits "halfway" between the monumental 1936 Philharmonic- Symphony public concerts (a milestone in his decade with the orchestra) and the brilliance and surface polish of the incomparable 1939 Beethoven cycle: there is something of the grandiosity of the earlier Philharmonic reading, and less of the spit-and-polish, almost Prussian, precision of the broadcast of Dec. 2, 1939 (available in gratuitous and poor "fake stereo" in a Grammophono transfer, which needlessly adds echo and rechanneling to a very solid original recording.)

The last track is the Dec. 6, 1953 broadcast of the Coriolan Overture (which opened the program containing the live "Eroica" performance that is on an authorized commercial RCA/BMG Toscanini Collection CD.) The sound here is more brilliant and rich, taken down in the warm ambience of Carnegie Hall, but it must be said that it IS inferior to the super fidelity of the RCA Eroica of '53: the source for this Music & Arts release is PROBABLY an amateur off-air FM aircheck tape made in the New York area. There is some hiss, and one notes the "squeak" near the quiet end of the overture, which probably prevented consideration of release by the Maestro. The interpretation is blazingly intense, but still much more expansive (as well as being more deeply felt) than the commercial 78 rpm recording of June 1, 1945 (on RCA/BMG CD), which seems a bit "over the top" in near-frenzy and passion.

Do NOT miss this release! Get it before some shoddy Italian import bootlegs it with horrible fake stereophonic echo and mushy Cedar processing.

Music Review: