TOSCANINI Brahms: The 1948 Cycle (1948) - Pristine PABX044

In the summer of 2007, having recently developed the basic techniques behind Pristine’s XR remastering system, and also recently received an exceptional donation of several hundred tape reels, I set to work remastering the 1948 broadcast performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, as played by Vladimir Horowitz with Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

The release was well-received:

“The two Horowitz performances I truly loved were his 1930 Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3, a relatively weak piece which he makes sparkle and sing, probably because he had recently coached it with the composer himself and because the conductor was the great Albert Coates, and the 1943 Red Cross concert performance of the Tchaikovsky First with Toscanini. That 1943 Tchaikovsky sings and flows in a way that the May 1941 recording cannot even begin to equal.

Now I’ve added a third performance to that brief list: this February 1948 concert version of the Brahms Second. It bears the same resemblance to the April 1940 recording of the work as the 1943 Tchaikovsky does to its 1941 counterpart. It’s not so much a matter of tempo as of phrasing, of tension and release in all the right spots, where the studio recording was all about tension without much release. Even in the piano’s first entrance, which is supposed to sound relaxed and warm, Horowitz in 1940 jumps the beat and cranks up the volume. Here, in this 1948 concert version, he does not.

And the difference doesn’t stop there. Toscanini, obviously inspired, brings the first movement to new dramatic heights without overreaching or compressing the tempo too much. The electrical charge that both men put into the music is palpable; one can easily envision the NBC audience sitting on the edge of their seats. At the end of the movement, though directed not to applaud in the printed program, the audience breaks into a convulsive frenzy …

This performance has, of course, surfaced on CD before, but it is safe to say that Pristine Classical’s remastering is by far the best. Though there is still a bad moment in the middle of the first movement, undoubtedly the result of a permanently damaged acetate, the sound is generally full and vibrant. Restoration engineer Andrew Rose has also managed to bring a fullness of tone out of Horowitz’s Steinway missing from the studio recording. After hearing this performance, I feel I can safely discard all my other recordings of the work, save the similarly excellent 1929 reading by Arthur Rubinstein, playing with Albert Coates and the London Symphony.” – Fanfare magazine, 2008

That was quite a while ago. In 2011 I returned to the recording with newly-available pitch stabilisation software to make further improvements to it. Now, 12 years later, I’m afraid that release is now rendered completely obsolete. Thanks to access to previously unheard, immaculate source material this recording leaps into an entirely new dimension, as do the rest of the recording in this series. Toscanini’s Twelfth NBC season, regarded as perhaps his finest with the orchestra, began on 23 October, 1948, with the first of a six-programme Brahms cycle, of which the first broadcast featured the 2nd Piano Concerto with Horowitz. This first volume of that cycle brings you the first two broadcasts in full – the lengthy introductions and final applause and pay-offs are unedited but tracked separately should you wish to skip them.

You’re hearing the programmes as they might have sounded in the control room – and in far better sound quality than was available to radio listeners in 1948. In fact, that XR remastering has almost certainly rendered the sound quality better than those 1948 sound booths could have managed – conveying instead something far closer to the sound heard by the studio audiences than ever before. Truly a special treat – and with two more volumes to come, one that I am sure will prove essential listening for many over months and years to come.

Andrew Rose

TOSCANINI CONCERT AGAIN IS TELECAST

Making His Third Appearance on Medium, Conductor Leads Fourth Brahms Program

Arturo Toscanini went before the television cameras for the third time yesterday when his regular Saturday concert with the NBC Symphony was both telecast and broadcast from studio 8-H in Radio City. The program was the fourth of eight he is devoting to the works of Brahms.

The problems of the cameramen were reduced during part of the program, for the second selection was the Liebeslieder Waltzes, in which they did not have to capture a whole orchestra. The work was performed by a chorus of only seventeen singers, with Arthur Balsam and Joseph Kahn at two pianos.

In this there were interesting double images, the handsome conductor being seen in close-up while the chorus was seen on a smaller scale in a dimmer exposure that gave the illusion of showing behind and through his head. And throughout there was a studied attempt to relate the camera work with the music.

But the conviction was deepened in one watcher that concerts should be heard and not seen. The images on the screen fought for the mind's attention and generally won out over the ears that were trying to concentrate on the music's sound. And the images certainly succeeded in shifting the emphasis from the music to the performers.

This stress on performers rather than on music is one of the things bedeviling music in this country. If television concerts catch on, it is sure to be accelerated. The likelihood of wide popularity, though, is still to be determined.

Because there were only three cameras in stationary positions and they were obliged to pick up their shots under concert conditions, yesterday's program on the television screen seemed like an inferior motion picture.

The big work was the concerto in A minor for violin and 'cello. This allowed for a good opening. During the brief orchestral introduction Mr. Toscanini was seen in close-up. Then Frank Miller, the 'cellist, began alone and the cameras switched to him. When Mischa Mischakoff, the violinist, came in, the camera turned on him alone with the whole orchestra not being shown till its turn came after the two long solos.

But after this one grew tired of the switching back and forth from a limited number of shots at fixed distances. It was good to return to the studio for the closing Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor, where the orchestra could he heard in its full splendor and the eyes were no longer limited to a small rectangular screen.

R. P., The New York Times, Sunday November 14, 1948

TOSCANINI ENDS CYCLE
Leads 6th Concert in Brahms Series With NBC Symphony

Arturo Toscanini last night gave the sixth and final concert in the Brahms cycle he has been conducting this season with the NBC Symphony. The program, which ran from 6:30 to 7:30, was given in Studio 8-H, which was filled to its 1,200 capacity.

"Gesang der Parzen" opened the broadcast. Thirty-seven men and twenty-six women from the Robert Shaw Chorale sang the six-part chorus with the orchestra. Then Mr. Toscanini led the Fourth Symphony. Next week he will conduct works by Mozart, Dvorak and Wagner.

The New York Times, Sunday November 28, 1948

This final volume in our Toscanini 1948 Brahms Cycle series brings you the fifth and sixth concerts in their entirety. In addition to excellent readings of the Third and Fourth Symphonies, together with the Variations on a Theme by Haydn, there was an unusual addition to the Toscanini repertoire in the performance on 27 November of the Gesang der Parzen, or "Song of the Fates". It's unique in the conductor's broadcast and recorded canon: a work composed in the summer of 1882 and first performed in Basel, Switzerland, it's a setting for 6-part chorus and orchestra of Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris. Writing about Toscanini's Brahms performances in "Arturo Toscanini, The NBC Years", Mortimer H. Frank was enthusiastic in his praise:

"The sole NBC performance of Gesang der Parzen is Toscanini’s only American presentation of the work and possibly the only one he conducted. Written for chorus and orchestra, it remains to this day a relatively unknown score, and Toscanini’s inclusion of it in his 1948 Brahms cycle stands as one of his most imaginative strokes of programming. At the time of the performance, no recording of the work had been made. Toscanini’s reading—in its rock-steady rhythm, colorful orchestral transparency, and sensitivity to the harmonic richness characteristic of Brahms—suggests that the work deserves more frequent performances. As reproduced in the RCA CD transfer, the sound is especially good for its vintage. Here is one of many examples typifying a little-acknowledged side of Toscanini’s repertory: its inclusion of forgotten works worthy of resurrection."

As with the previous volumes of this series, I was able to use near-mint source discs for this production, and the sound quality captured on these direct-cut discs is nothing less than superb for recordings made over 75 years ago. There was some light surface noise on the fifth programme discs, though nothing too intrusive, whilst the sixth programme was especially clean and clear.

Andrew Rose