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THE ORCHESTRA Arturo Toscanini
STANDING as straight as an arrow, with baton pointing low for attention; leaning forward for more intimate communion with his men; with hands extended in quiet appeal; with arms darting out to compel obedience; in extreme repose; in the stress of the utmost exertion —in his attitude, Toscanini expresses the forces of his destiny.
While you look upon his slender figure —slender almost to the point of frailty, yet charged with electric vitality; while you follow his searching eyes as they sweep the stage or fasten on some musician in the orchestra, enjoining, beseeching, encouraging, reproaching; while you watch the commanding beat of his right arm, rhythmically exact, precise, imperious, yet wonderfully supple, elastic, and graceful, or marvel at the expressiveness of his left hand, lifted over the instrumental surge, to soothe or quicken, to appease or incite, you fall under the spell of his personality as completely as the artists who answer his will.
Such is Toscanini as he leads his orchestral forces. He is a strong, brilliant personality, clear of vision, impulsive, and determined. "When Toscanini leaves his house he knows exactly where he is going," one of his friends remarked in discussing his ways; and this strikes the keynote of his character. There is no halting, no hesitating, no turning, no vacillating, but one steady onward march, one course, one aim. This is something rarely found among musicians, rarely found among any of those who possess the artistic temperament.
Arturo Toscanini was born at Parma, Italy, in 1867. He was a musician from early years, and like many another conductor, he rose from a position in the orchestra to the head music stand. The incident of his rise was dramatic. Toscanini was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the time. He was doing double duty as the first 'cellist in the orchestra and assistant chorus master. The season had been going badly. One conductor had been rejected, and an indignant audience, assembled to hear "Aida," refused to accept the services of an incompetent substitute, compelling him with jeers, hisses and catcalls to leave the orchestra. The manager was in a quandary. Influential subscribers said
that the performance must not be abandoned, and that they were ready to accept as leader any musician in the orchestra. Someone suggested Toscanini, who there-upon beat a hasty retreat to the stage, where he was found hiding in the wings.
His attempts to escape were futile. Forced into a dress suit supplied by the costumer of the theater, he was dragged out to the pit and lifted bodily into the conductor's stand, while the crowd roared its approval. The youthful conductor seized the baton
and suddenly the noise stopped. He held by his magnetic personality the undivided attention, not only of the orchestra, but of the audience. Everyone could see that he was conducting from memory. Even then, when he made his first appearance as a leader,
Toscanini was, as always after, wholly independent of the music score. And so
the evening that began in an uproar ended in enthusiasm, and a new conductor was launched upon his career.
The news of this sensational affair was flashed across the ocean, and after that the doors of every opera house in Italy were open to the young conductor. He led the first performance of "Pagliacci" in Milan, when Victor Maurel created the role of Tonto. For years he was director of La Scala, the great opera house of Milan, where he became associated with Giulio Gatti-Casazza (Jool'-yo Gat'-tee Ca-sat'-zah), who later became the manager of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and brought Toscanini to the United States.
Toscanini's leadership in America won new laurels for him. His repertory was unusually wide, including all the most important works of Italian and French opera, and the great music dramas of Richard Wagner as well. And to think that he conducted these works by memory! His retentive powers were phenomenal. In fact, his capacity to absorb and fasten in his memory, down to the most minute details, an apparently unlimited number of opera scores is quite without precedent.
There is one striking contrast in the personality of Toscanini. He is both bold and shy& At the conductor's desk, facing his orchestra, he is a brilliant, flashing, masterful leader. When he turns toward the audience he becomes modest and shrinking. His abhorence of applause is not an affectation. It is in his nature. "I cannot give the exact reasons," he once said, "but noisy demonstrations of approval always have given me an acute sensation of pain. It is not timidity, I know. It is an instinct. I had the feeling as a boy when I played the 'cello for the first time in public. As soon as the hand-clapping began I could not resist the iii, pulse to rush into hiding."
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
CONDENSED FROM AN ARTICLE IN THE CENTURY MAGAZINE
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 5, No 1. SERIAL No. 125
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
