 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2020-12-11 14:58
I heard/read somewhere that Toscanini was largely responsible for the transition in attitudes toward scores from “Do whatever you want - change dynamics, tempo, rearrange, re-orchestrate, cut, add, etc.” to “Play exactly what is written, exactly the way it’s written.” Is there any truth to this?
- Matthew Simington
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-12-11 15:53
As far anyone can tell, yes.
Toscanini was amongst a generation of great conductors that had a "superstar" status. In a biography of Herbert von Karajan, it was stated that as a youth Karajan would bicycle large distances to hear performances of Toscanini. It was further mentioned that Karajan admired Toscanini's adherence to the score shunning syrupy changes to tempo. It should be noted that George Szell may have been the best example of the "strict" camp. Many of the other conductors of that period had a reputation for being more interpretive such as Leopold Stokowski (arguably the best example of that type of conductor) who would even change the scores to "improve" instrumentation and even the music itself (ever hear of the Philadelphia sound? That was Stokowski having the first flute often double the first violin part to add a "shimmering" effect).
That said though, printed music no matter how riddled with instruction is only a starting place (as said best by Anne-Sophie Mutter). One can say that any decent, musical rendering is by nature interpretive.
These days (pre-Covid of course) there are many examples of bland, lifeless performances (caused in part by money issues forcing more performances and less rehearsal time) rendered at the alter of accuracy. Give me a Karajan or Celibidache ANY day.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: Clarimellonet
Date: 2020-12-11 21:14
It can be quite enlightening to compare multiple Toscanini recordings of the same work to hear how his style became more streamlined and metronomic - though I dislike that term - over the years. Here are two recordings of the Donizetti Don Pasquale overture, one with La Scala from from the early 1920s, and one with NBC from 1943.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylxcFlDF-wI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rslqfEtj9n0
Aside from the obvious differences in overall tempo, there are slightly different but equally natural shifts in tempo before the allegro, all placed to emphasize dissonances and prolong harmonic changes as would have been expected from singers and orchestras performing in the bel canto style. Though not as much as in some of there other recordings, the strings in the La Scala recording are still using a fair bit of portamento to connect wider intervals and this elision of the rhythm also contributes to a sense of weightlessness and suspension of time in a way that doesn't come through quite as readily in the NBC recording. I also find the placement of downbeats in the march section of the La Scala recording in the basses to allow the top voices to "spring" off of beat 1 more easily, as if the whole bar is in 1 rather than 2.
Of course, this is all in the vein of bel canto Italian opera which has a long performance practice history of internal rubato and elasticity of tempo. What I find most interesting about these two Toscanini recordings is that there is a very clear transparency in the orchestra, once could almost write out every part including inner voices without too much trouble. I suspect that antiphonal placement of the violins is a major contributing factor that that transparency.
On the extreme end of the rubato and "syrupy" tempo changes of course is the Mengelberg Mahler 4 with the Concertgebouw orchestra from 1939. The rit in the first movement is exaggerated by today's standards, but would been perfectly acceptable at the time, and indeed Mengelberg's conductor's score has annotations from his conversations with Mahler concerning the tempo flexibility. Interestingly, piano rolls of Mahler playing some of his own music including the last movement of the 4th Symphony show the same elasticity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J18wFaVjbPw
Similarly, the Mahler 5 Adagietto as conducted by Mengelberg in 1926 shows not only the tempo flexibilty but flexibility of timing in terms of lining up parts to create even more of a sense of tension. Again, Mengelberg's annotations seem to indicate this was a style of interpretation sanctioned by Mahler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HQpJdORX6w
It's not surprising that a less flexible approach to tempo came about in the 20th century with the music of Stravinsky demanding rhythmic precision, nor is it surprising that the effects of more modern 20th century compositions coupled with more emphasis of quantity of recordings and marketable output meant that some of the subtleties with regards to tempo elasticity of the 19th century were somewhat abandoned. I think Toscanini's career very much followed and in some ways influenced the music trends of the time, but even in his 1954 final rehearsal for his last concert as director of NBC, you can still hear shades of push and pull in his Wagner. Maybe not as much as before, but it's still there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=820kL58MOWk
~Thomas
Thomas Carroll
Historical Clarinets and Chalumeaux
http://carrollclarinet.com
lotzofgrenser@gmail.com
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2020-12-16 11:37
Thanks.
It makes sense that 20th c. interpretations would become more “mechanistic”.
I thought the idea about literalism was interesting, whether he was responsible or not, because there seems to have been some kind of conscious popular “canonization” of culture during the postwar period, where art music became more about “masterworks” than current works. That was also when the related “Great Books” idea got going, and when the “New Criticism” was popular. Both focused on the text, apart from historical or other considerations - like strict interpretation of a score.
- Matthew Simington
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