Arturo Toscanini

La Scala is the lover who made me despair the most.

Arturo Toscanini (25 March 1867 – 16 January 1957) was an Italian conductor, considered one of the greatest conductors in history, and one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th century and early 20th century.


Quotes

  • They ask me what my secret is. My secret is very simple: it consists in having the music performed, note by note, as the author wrote it.
    • Cited from Andrea Della Corte, Arturo Toscanini (Edizioni Studio Tesi, 1981), p. 171.
  • [After hearing Marian Anderson perform] What I heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years.
    • Cited from Kosti Vehanen, Marian Anderson: A Portrait (New York/London: Mc Graw-Hill Book Company), p. 130.
  • Everyone here is celebrating me—everyone is raving about me! […] Tonight I have my first concert. It's useless for me to say it, but you can imagine how nervous I am... I'm the eternal beginner. Perhaps the only person who doesn't hold myself in esteem...
  • Every rehearsal is like a concert, and every concert like a debut.

Quotes about Arturo Toscanini

  • I feel the necessity to tell you for once how much I admire and honor you. You are not only the unmatchable interpreter of the world’s musical literature [...] In the fight against the fascist criminals, too, you have shown yourself to be a man of greatest dignity [...] The fact that such a contemporary exists balances many of the delusions one must continually experience from the species minorum gentium.
    • Albert Einstein, letter to Arturo Toscanini, March 3, 1936, cited from Davide Bassi Museo Casa Natale Arturo Toscanini (Mazzotta, 2002), p. 303.
  • He projected the figure of the conductor beyond the stage. Every legend has a surplus, an excess of image. However, when he conducted, he was spare, he knew how to extract the essence from a score without adding any artifice.
    • Salvatore Accardo

[2] Cited from Antonio Gnoli, Salvatore Accardo: "Ho sentito il talento quando ho visto un violino, ma essere un predestinato non basta", La Repubblica, 2014

  • My dear Maestro, my great friend, come to Fiume d'Italia, if you can. Here today is the most resonant air in the world. And the soul of the people is as symphonic as your orchestra. The Legionaries await the Fighter who once led the warrior chorus.
    • Gabriele D'Annunzio, letter to Arturo Toscanini, cited from Adriano Lualdi, D'Annunzio e la musica, in Piazza delle Belle Arti (Milan: Scuola tipografica Figli della Provvidenza, 1959)
  • Every conductor–even those who, like me, were born in Britain and raised in the United States–must sooner or later confront the ghost of Arturo Toscanini.
  • He was a great conductor, a true "servant" of music, he was the one who taught us to respect the scores, but he was also a great man, who never used music for self-interest... He was one of the three artists who radically changed the history of musical interpretation. The other two great names are Liszt, for his way of playing the piano, and Paganini for his revolutionary way of playing the violin.
  • When Toscanini conducted, it was like fate striking, infallible, inexorable. His innate sense of rhythm, his memory, were prodigious. Operas and concerts, he conducted them all from memory, without a score.
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