Arturo Toscanini conducted Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass for the first and the last time in the occasion of the first and the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death respectively. Between the recital at the Teatro alla Scala on January, 27th, 1902, and the live broadcast of the concert given at the Carnegie Hall on the same day of 1951, Toscanini had conducted twenty-seven further performances of this same work - mainly in Milan and in New York, but also in Salzburg, London, Lucerna and Buenos Aires. In the last years, many of such performances were recorded and broadcasted. After the conduction at the debut, 31-years-old Toscanini, together with the chorus master Aristide Venturi and the President of the Concert Society of Turin, Giuseppe Depanis, paid a visit to Verdi, who had prolonged his winter stay in Genova. In the following years, Toscanini used to remember that, as he was playing the piano for Verdi, at a certain point he had slackened the tempo, even if the score did not bear such indication. Verdi congratulated with him, and the conductor answered: “Maestro! If only you knew how much this troubled me! Why have you not indicated the rallentando on the score?” “Had I written it - Verdi answered - a bad musician would have stressed it; but, in case of a good musician, he would have felt, just the way you did. There was no need of writing it”. It was a legacy Toscanini would have remembered all his life long.
When he was a child, Toscanini sang in a performance of Cherubini's c minor Requiem, but he conducted it infrequently. In fact, the 1950 broadcast from Studio 8-H that is presented here may be Toscanini's first and last "go" at this work as a conductor. Once this broadcast was over, perhaps there was nowhere else to go but down. Then again, this isn't a very challenging or rewarding requiem for the conductor. The Cherubini Requiem -- this is the one for mixed chorus, as opposed to the D minor one for men’s chorus -- is a large-scale (the Offertorium alone runs some sixteen minutes), formally “classical” setting of the liturgical Requiem Mass, dramatizing its emotions with an operatic breadth
and sweep. There are some imaginative strokes: after a peremptory fanfare
and gong crash, the choral entry in the Dies Irae is anxious and hushed,
gradually building in volume and fervor. Toscanini’s performance is
astonishing: this may have been his only performance of the piece, yet he
brings it as sure-handed a sense of shape and structure as if it were
standard repertoire. From the beseeching start of the Kyrie, every episode
draws your interest -- by the end, you’re convinced it’s a masterpiece. Of
special note is Toscanini’s care over textures, playing off the moving
orchestra lines against the sustained, homophonic choral parts. |
