Arturo Toscanini: The man behind the legend; Marcia Davenport

Toscanini the man behind the legend. This is Ben Grauer saying welcome to Toscanini. The man behind the legend. NBC special commemorative series about the life and music of Otto Tuscany. Tonight we will present music of Tchaikovsky and Mozart. And recall the anniversary of the first appearance of Maestro Toscanini with the NBC symphony orchestra on Christmas night. Twenty six years ago. At intermission we'll be talking with a noted author and friend of Maestro Marsha Davenport and our program begins now as we hear

the obit your miniature. The modish and the Waltz of the flowers from the Nutcracker Suite of Tricot with the NBC Symphony under the baton of Otto Toscanini. And.

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Music from the Nutcracker Suite of Tchaikovsky performed by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of a total Toscanini opening music on tonight's broadcast of Toscanini. The man behind the legend as is our custom each week we continue to examine the legend of Otto Toscanini through the words and memories of those who are associated with him. Tonight it's our unusual privilege to have with this is the noted author and friend of Maestro Marsha Davenport Matia it's especially wonderful to have you with us on this particular broadcast marking as it does the twenty sixth anniversary of maestros first appearance with the NBC symphony. You were in Studio 8H on that Christmas night of 1937 weren't you. Of course. That. And many many other very dear associations with Christmas. Many had Christmas dinner on Christmas night. And Christmas wasn't quite such a thing in the US going to

any family live as New Year's Eve as with all Italians couple done though is the big thing. And in the very last year of my sister's life I was there for dinner on Christmas night and one week later on New Year's Eve and both times I sat next to him. And Christmas night he seemed less well to me than he did on New Year's Eve. But on you you see 1957 that was the last time I saw him. When did you first meet him. I first met Maestro on the 22nd of December nineteen hundred and nine. 9 which is 54 years ago now. Well as a little girl obviously I was six years old. And this occasion was the afternoon of the dress rehearsal of a fail which she did for the first time at the Metropolitan. I must have been some connection with your Mother of God things of course but

she wasn't so fayn then she had just made her own debut with the metropolitan a couple of weeks before us or little more than three weeks before. But this was the first time she had ever sung with my sister. And it was a small part but also the amount of notice that went to her singing of this part was quite out of proportion of the smallness of the part. But I being such a small child was out of the question for me to go to the performance which was in the evening. So she had me taken to the dress rehearsal in the afternoon. And this was the first time that I saw Maestro both at work and afterwards because I met him afterwards in her dressing room and after my eyes the came in to tell her she had done well and he came in of course in those days he was obviously in his 40s and I know remember exactly what he looked like he had more hit than he had laid and his hair receded later there was more hair on the front of his head with a silvery already. It was grating.

Yes but his mustache which in those days was very you know what exaggerated and turned up and I waxed with sharp points. His moustache was coal black. And indeed the Mistah still look diabolical to me and I laid it when I used to sit in his lap and touch the points of them was. And they'd be hard they were done with mustache wax. And this fascinated me. But I remember his eyes vividly because of course he had those extraordinary eyes which now that I know in retrospect physically they had that sort of dimming over the brown color which was very characteristic of him. And when he wasn't focusing them they appeared to be not very bright. But when he had a when he was focusing his eyes and making a point and looking at you they were penetrating and shop and they danced and he that afternoon was in wonderful spirits because the rehearsal would go on and he was pleased. And my mother was very young in the beginning and he was already in chanted with

her and taking a great interest in her and he came sort of dancing in doing this with his hands the way he used to do it in a certain place in the Fidelio but you're not at that at that at that that I was like Have I mean he came in very on the on the tips of his toes and full of compliments for my mother. And there I was this little child sitting on the couch in the corner and she said this is my little girl words to that effect and he made a tremendous fuss over me and that was my first meeting. You had the full range there in the first in everything but you had the diabolical you had it works right. And and this immense loving kindness in the bases for this tender and and woa wonderful human relationship which which was the basis of my knowledge of him and then musically as this went on and on and on.

I'm not much for this knowledge of Maestro was both as a human and as a man of music. Oh yeah and it continued right through the years to the all the way through to the very very end where we have such a wealth of where shall we start and what the next one of the things that he used to do. Because as I say he loved to talk on the telephone at night because he was visiting it killed his time and he used to talk about everything under the sun. And personally things in the long ago used to reminisce about his life and about the lives of people he was fond of me about all sorts of things he'd talk about anything that happened to be on his mind. And then again I talk about his work and he was just he would be making programs for future weeks to come. And he'd say I think next week I'm going to play thus and such on my program for two weeks from Sunday is going to be this and of course I would always listen with bated breath and in the back of my mind going round and round like a worm was God

help is going to play the essence of something you want something I want you to go right out and say well I learned many many many years ago that the one way not to get what you wanted was to ask for it. So I had been through this routine of saying oh Maestro Won't you please play thus and such. And if you asked him directly the surest way to get his back up and ensure that he wouldn't play it was to ask him because he didn't like to be asked. So then of course you began to look around to find little ways to make him come around in the back of these things and decide what to do. So I don't force. So I had. And of course you also knew in the years with the NBC that if you know if for any reason he put a work on a program it was pretty evident that it would also get recorded and would wind up as a record that you could expect to keep. So then there was even more reason for begging him or hoping that he was going to play. Would you want it. So I sort of buy over a long period of

time evolved quite a few devices for evoking from him works that. I would hope to hear. And there were quite a number of them and we could thank you perhaps for some of the records going on. Well I mean anybody else I'm sure other friends of yours probably had parallel experiences that I never heard anybody mention just this but of course with this was also tied up his teasing because he loved to T. And sometimes you could do it by teasing him. But. Once for a long long long stretch of time he hadn't played the Mendelssohn Fourth Symphony. The Italian symphony. I think he thought it's a work that might be overplayed Anyway there was a long stretch of years when he hadn't played it. And by this this was getting rather close to the end of of his years with the NBC and he was beginning to say you know all this when he said that he wanted to be contradicted but still he used to say it. So

I began thinking with Mendelssohn voice symphony. So he was at my little house in Italy for lunch one day which he loved to do. He loved to come out there he loved the country and used to love to drive out to the lakefront come. So. I was thinking what can I do about this. And at that time there must have been other recordings of the Fourth Symphony but I had one and the conductor who conducted it shall be nameless. But he was somebody of my. Let's be charitable my eyes so I had no particular admiration in fact I got in quite a number of nice names. Well since I have named the gentleman I can also say Maestro called him Rona and lots of other things and kind of creating you know you can call him that he would call it. But I called him a shot and he got him all

sorts of pretty names. Anyway I said you know my stuff. It really is an awful pity. First I sort of introduced the name of this musician and chat. And then I sent his records huge something frightful and I said just for instance I had them. You should listen to it. So I thought well since it's the blue top and I let a three or four bars go on I said Should I stop it. No no I just thought it of course he also had a kind of a love to many of us that he loved to play something terrible musical side is I'm sure it was a hit and I think it stirred him up probably stirred up his his adrenal glands. So I don't remember how much of it we played but but by the time the record was off he was just pacing up and down the room having a fit.

So nothing was said about it. Along sometime in the next winter he was having one of these chats on the telephone and he was talking about his programs for some weeks to come and he sing next week or whatever it was I play. So I I knew I was going to say the wrong thing that's why I said it but I said oh how wonderful are some words to this effect. He said yes the Mendelssohn fifth. Which of course is the Reformation symphony so I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of putting man over on me and I said I said at times so. So he did play the Fifth Symphony and the rehearsals were something so sublime as you know want it can happen that sometimes the dress rehearsal is even more heavenly than the moment that they were all well. So it happened and the Mendelssohn was absolutely divine. And I learned out of it I had known the other one much better and I learned to know it as

one does from hearing it many times in a week and I acquired a fondness for it which is even greater than the one for the fourth. But anyway it was a noble experience and so that went in a couple of weeks later he said and so next week I'm going to play the Mendelssohn forth. So he had it his way and he did play them both in a short stretch of time and now they both exist on two sides of the same record. You think he was he knew all the time he was teasing. Of course you know Maestro than in musical ways and socially and politically perhaps the rounded man in all of us for of course that you constantly but I knew him politically but he took great pride in saying that he loved politics and politicians of all kinds and he had nothing but contempt for what he called G. And. It took a courageous stand on the broader issue of pressure lots of course different that serious he has daily maneuvering.

Yes and but as individuals but he did it. There was a little thing that he did months which is typical of the way that his mind always switched to music on the day that General Eisenhower was first inaugurated on the Inauguration Day. It was of course going to be an extraordinary spectacle and that Toscanini's had the biggest and best television that I knew. So I ask Valda and his wife Gee if I could go out there and see all this on their television at 53. That's right. So I did and my sister who ordinarily stayed in the studio all day long. I kept running downstairs because there was a guest for lunch and his nose was a little out of joint because I had come there to see a political broadcast and not to spend the day with him. So we kept running in and out of the room like this and saying this is nonsense who wants to see this political stuff is nothing but politics. But then his curiosity got the better of him so that finally he sat down on the couch in front of the it was a wonderful

spectacle and he watched it. And there came the crux of the moment when all the great dignitaries were assembled and the curtains were going to pot and the president elect was to come out and my sister said Now Michael now he's coming by this time it was a show in my eyes there was a man of the theater so he was interested. So just as General Eisenhower walked forward through these things the band that was down under this rostrum let out the first bar of The Star-Spangled Banner out of time out of tune Meister jumped up and clapped his hands they said they should have had me. That said there are. Many faceted man with that central heart of the Yes Men like devotion about music of course I think that was what pushed the button. I mean come and go oh yeah what do you think was the center of it. What was the source of heaven storming spring.

It was him and it was a quality of course of human strength. He was certainly as a man of of wheel and of intellect and of all of the elements in a human being which can be brought to their fullest powers by application and discipline on the part of the person. I should say that he had to make similar access to all of those qualities at their height and at their strongest. All his life and of course they increased. If you remember on his eighty fifth birthday the rehearsals of the missile sullenness which went on all day long you were there we were there. These things feed on themselves and grow. And he had

everything that the mix him a degree other people have roadblocks to the powers he did not have got the standards that he I think he had as what he exacted of himself. He certainly had the highest and most impeccable standards that anybody could ever of had as an artist. He held them for himself and of course he also tried to apply them to the people who work for him. And I think the fascinating thing is that instead with this because he was at work if he wasn't pleased or if he was terribly dedicated and on fire with something he was a pretty formidable sight at work. But we all know that when he was like that he didn't frighten the artists who played in his orchestra and sang with him. He inspired them all they needed to be you were good enough in him. And if they were that good he could bring out of them. The latent thing is that they themselves have

all said time and again they didn't know they could because we had thousands of examples of artists doing something with my style as they were never able to do it before or since. Thank you Marcia. Our intermission guest has been Marsha Davenport noted author and friend for so many years of Maestro Toscanini. You're listening to Toscanini the man behind the legend. Where tonight we look back across 26 years to revisit the triumphal debut concert about Toto Toscanini and the NBC symphony orchestra. Here now is a sound from that long remembered event. Do I hear you. Is applause. Applause from Studio 8. And the night of December 25th 1937. Applause for our total Toscanini and the NBC symphony or. Brigadier General David sung the. Chairman of the board of directors of RCA recalls that memorable evening the

opening concert on Christmas night of 1937 in an NBC studio 8. Age was a musical event of the greatest importance and was still recognized not only in America but in the rest of the world. For 17 years this unparalleled musician gave was musical interpretations that were perfection itself. It was indeed a memorable night and memorable year as a world acclaimed broadcasts and recordings together. It was a brilliant combination of the world's greatest awe cast of musicians with the world's greatest conductor Mischa Mischa coff concert master of the NBC symphony for many years remembers maestros first rehearsal with the orchestra. Now I never forget things first three Heisler many things through the hassle of the orchestra and a enthusiasm of Master working with orcs that Orcs there was composed of great

artists Joseph Khan pianist with the orchestra recalls his first glimpse of Maestro as he came into Studio 8H for the first time I was thrilled. Course and he looks small and unassuming rather timid. But of course as soon as he got on the podium it was complete transformation when he became a giant 9 feet tall and called Glassman timpanist of the NBC symphony has this amusing anecdote about that long heralded appearance. We had two very famous conductors preparing the orchestra and each one would say. Wait till the maestro comes just when we heard that so often the stagehands spoke to his way to get my gun and got into the elevator wait to the maestro comes. Well the maestro did come he was introduced he bowed graciously and then immediately went into the biomes number one and

found that the fear there's nothing to fear. Wait till a maestro comes if you could play what's in your copy. You needn't to a fear Tuscany. And the years proved that Col. Glassman was right. Marsha Davenport sums it up this way. If he wasn't pleased or if he was terribly dedicated and on fire with something he was a pretty formidable sight at work. But we all know that when he was like that he didn't frighten me artists who played in his orchestra and sang with him. He inspired them. All they needed to be was good enough for him and if they were that good he could bring out of them the latent things that they themselves have said time and again they didn't know they could. Seventeen years of music making 937 Christmas night it all began and through the marvels of our electronic age and the legacy of his incomparable recordings it goes on and on. The living legend about Toto

Toscani our concert continues now as we hear a work that was included on that first broadcast of Christmas night in 1937. The symphony in G minor of Mozart without toto Toscanini conducting the NBC symphony orchestra. Oh. Yeah.

And.

And. And. With this performance of the symphony in G minor of Mozart befalling by the

NBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the Toto Toscanini we've come to the end of another broadcast of Toscanini the man behind the legend. We most cordially invite you to be with us next week. When we'll hear the adagio Gatso from the quartet number 16 Opus 135 of Beethoven. And death and transfiguration of records Strauss our guest in intermission time will be Maestro Toscanini's personal secretary for many years. Eugenia Gayle. Script materials for this series is taken from the personal files of the Toscanini family in Riverdale New York. And the programs I produced for NBC under the supervision of Don Gillis. You heard one of a series of programs produced at NBC in 1963.

Additional material call this presentation came from the Toscanini archive. With post-production by William D Hayes and editing by Sherry Hutchinson. This program is brought to you by the South Carolina Educational Radio Network. Major funding is from Cooper Industries incorporated and Mr. and Mrs. Gee which are chopped up additional funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This is NPR National Public Radio. Yes.

Thanks.

Liz. Say.