Sibelius, Jean: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 43; Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49;
The Swan of Tuonela, Op. 22, No. 3; Finlandia, Op. 26.
Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
RCA
Victor Gold Seal 09026-60294-2 (Mono).
From RCA Arturo Toscanini Collection,
Vol. 21.
There are those who would stay away from this disc because of the relative age of these recordings (the Second Symphony, Pohjola's Daughter and The Swan of Tuonela in the early 1940s, and the most recent - Finlandia - in 1952). With the exception of the Finlandia, most people would stay away from the other recordings on the grounds that they were pre-high fidelity. And they would be wrong.
More so than any other label, RCA has re-released many wonderful recordings from the 78 r.p.m. era. My personal favourites are the Grieg Piano Concerto with Rubinstein/Ormandy/Philadelphia (09026-61883-2) from 1942, the Toscanini New York Philharmonic Recordings from his tenure as musical director (3 discs, 60329-2-RG) and Sergei Rachmaninoff: The Complete Recordings (10 discs, 09026-61625-2) , recorded between the 1920s and 1940s. On these, and many other releases, the performances are beautiful, powerful, unique. As for the quality of the recordings, they sound like CDs that have the full frequency and dynamic range of....well, 78 records.
This is not the case with this wonderful omnibus of Sibelius recordings by legendary Italian maestro, Arturo Toscanini and the orchestra which was assembled just so that he could conduct it, the NBC Symphony. The reason why so many of the 78 records from the 1940s sound so primitive is not because they are pre-high fidelity. In fact, it was RCA's own Sarnoff Laboratories that developed the advancement of high fidelity, which set the standard for the motion picture industry. Hi-fi greatly made for more realistic soundtrack recording, with its increased dynamic range and widened frequency range that allowed for greater intermingling of music, sound effects and dialogue. Nonetheless, it met stiff resistance from the musicians' unions, who feared that using hi-fi on records would draw audiences away from the concert halls, and keep the public in their living rooms.
These are among the few rare experimental hi-fidelity recordings made by RCA during the 1940s, but - due to the unions' contract - were never released to the general public as records. Housed in the collection of the Library of Congress for decades, they have now been painstakingly remastered by BMG as part of the Arturo Toscanini Collection on compact disc.
Considering that the pieces recorded during the 1940s came from lacquer masters (you can hear faint surface scratches which seem to indicate that the recordings were made at 45 r.p.m., rather than the standard 78 r.p.m. format). From a live NBC broadcast of December 7, 1940, this recording powerfully captures the immediacy of Studio 8-H's famed acoustics.
The reason the Second is one of my favourite pieces of all time is because two performances not only never sound alike, any two sound like different pieces of music altogether. Even this Toscanini interpretation comes across radically different from his 1938 recording with the BBC Symphony (EMI CDH-7-63307-2). The only thing in common between the two is tempo, and in his NBC recording - as with so many others - Toscanini here, too, defies common wisdom by getting faster the older he got, rather than slower, as do most other performers.
From
the opening chords of the Second Symphony, there is only one word that
can describe Toscanini's reading of the lightning-quick first movement:
driven. In the allegretto, there is so much going on, with the opening
phrased simply and eloquently by a wind trio, echoed by the lower brass.
This opening theme is broken down into separate strands which are stated
and re-stated in a frenzied ostinato by various combinations of
lower strings, brass and woodwinds to an imperceptibly quickening tempo.
Finally, the incessant repetition of the theme grows to a fortissimo
as the solo trumpet and timpani drive the theme to its climax over
the pulse of the lower strings and the trill of the clarinets and oboes.
All throughout Toscanini's performance, though, his quick tempi never add
up to sloppy execution, as they do with lesser conductors. Brilliantly,
Toscanini never loses the tight rein he has on the NBC, evidenced in the
uniform strings and the tight woodwinds, despite driving them off the metronome.
Nor does he sacrifice dynamics or the subtlety of Sibelius' orchestrations;
solo instrumentalists as well as the various orchestral sections coalesce,
merge, collide and separate with masterful facility, all the while never
losing sight of the composer's powerful musical statement.
In the second movement, Tempo andante, ma rubato, the NBC is as equally powerful and understated. Although Toscanini handles this at a tempo a shade too rapid for my liking, he maintains the integrity of the movement throughout. While not as reflective as, say, a performance by an Ormandy or Koussevitzky, Toscanini's rendering of this movement nonetheless comes across as suspenseful, moving and eloquent.
The third movement (vivacissimo) and the Finale: Allegro moderato once again display the maestro's unique ability to handle such a difficult and enigmatic piece. While Toscanini's interpretation is majestic, it never comes across as self-consciously virtuosic. His reading of the symphony, as well as the NBC's nearly flawless playing (a squeak from a clarinet in the final bars of the finale suggests a split reed) are communicated with such naturalness and finality that leads one to think that "this is the way this symphony was meant to be heard."
The two tone poems in the central part of the disc, Pohjola's Daughter (from the same concert as the Second Symphony) and The Swan of Tuonela (from an NBC broadcast of August 27, 1944) also establish Toscanini as a dedicated (if selective) Sibelian. Toscanini was never one to treat tone poems as mere "light classics," which is fortunate, given the dark and ethereal beauty of these two pieces. Through Toscanini's baton, the NBC brings to these pieces the sense of loneliness, delicacy, exaltation and sadness that the composer intended in these retellings of Finnish runic legends. The added emphasis that Toscanini places on the tremolo of the strings in The Swan of Tuonela shows Sibelius at his impressionistic best; you can almost hear the lapping of the water under the swan as he glides through the black river waters. The English horn is bittersweet and melancholic, and one can immediately sense the fragility and isolation of the swan.
This excellent disc ends with Toscanini's rousing rendition of Finlandia (recorded August 5, 1952 in Carnegie Hall). Another of Toscanini's unique talents was to take a "war horse" such as this and play it with gusto, without making it sound hackneyed. The opening chords on the brass almost pounce out at you from the speakers. Although I prefer vinyl to what I consider to be tinny-sounding remasterings, this CD version of Toscanini's Finlandia has a full, vibrant sound which brings out nuances and subtleties, which are not quite as audible in the original LP release (from Toscanini Plays Your Favorites, RCA Victor Red Seal LM-1834). The low rasp of the bassoon and the thunderous timpani send chills right down my spine!
If there is any one Sibelius disc that you should own, it should still be Ormandy and the Philadelphia playing the 2nd and 7th symphonies (Sony SBK-53509). But this one by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra definitely comes a close second.
