Klemperer on Toscanini, 1929
"One says very little about Toscanini when one says that he can conduct everything by heart. It is more important to say that, in the truest sense, he knows how to conduct everything from the heart. If we wish to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate manifestations in art, Toscanini is legitimacy personified: he is the king of conductors. His performances are more than beautiful, they are right.
In 1923 at La Scala in Milan I heard a performance of Die Meistersinger under his direction, and I can only say that I have never heard so consummate a presentation of this work in any other theater in the world. In New York I heard Toscanini’s concerts with the Philharmonic Orchestra, comprising the entire literature from Haydn to Stravinsky. [There was] always the same delightful impression of uncalculated rightness.
Toscanini not only works with the orchestra to the last detail but also rehearses [. . .] the most subtle shades of expression, which, as he himself says, “can no longer be grasped through words.” No one makes greater demands on the orchestra. Nevertheless, I never noticed in his rehearsals [. . .] any weariness or resistance in the orchestra. Any resentment would ricochet off his unassailable personality, for it stands above everything. Over and above the great musician there is a wholly integrated character, and to that we owe the rebuilding of La Scala, which, with exemplary musical performances, stands at the summit of opera companies.
[. . .] We expect a great victory [of La Scala in Berlin]. No one can be happier about this victory than Toscanini’s German colleagues, because we, too, who are living through opera crises, ought to learn from this victory how to be victorious."
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