Pristine Audio PASC 119, 74:52 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****:
Recorded in Carnegie Hall on 21 March 1954 (Rossini, Tchaikovsky) and 3 April 1954 (Wagner), these experimental stereo recordings made by Victor Restoration and re-mastered by Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio (July-August 2008) can only add to the Toscanini legend for sheer breadth of musical line and the inflamed quality of his musical vision. From the opening notes of Rossini’s familiar Overture to The Barber of Seville, we find the 87-year-old Maestro in powerful, pungent form, eliciting wonderful string and brass accents from his responsive ensemble, the patter and crescendi literally crackling with youthful ardor.
A brief station identification from Ben Grauer, and then Toscanini places us in the tempestuous throes of Tchaikovsky’s last symphony. Whatever personal reservations Toscanini entertained regarding Tchaikovsky’s merits as a composer in the symphonic tradition, his rendition of the Pathetique brooks no shallow half-measures. From the opening, soft pedal and bassoon solo through the first period, the music acquires a lyrical, songful elegance that eventually dissipates into dramatic expectation; the ensuing explosion of sound and Allegro non troppo resonate with sound and fury, with Toscanini’s attention to transitions exploiting the wonderful coloration of the score. While I find the second movement Allegro con grazia “merely” genial and beautifully balanced, the third movement Allegro molto vivace proves shattering, as potent as anything in the Gergiev or Mravinsky bag of orchestral tricks. The agogics fly at a superheated, frenzied pace, Tchaikovsky moving between dominant and subdominant with an especially nervous bombast and militant vigor. In stereo, the NBC woodwinds make an excellent series of points for their being among the most highly gifted choirs in American symphonic ensembles. By the end of the poignant finale, with its grand, melancholy gestures and echoes of the opening bassoon’s lament, the audience–already having been ready to worship Toscanini after the Scherzo–yell and scream in unbridled histrionics for a gripping performance.
The two Wagner selections exemplify the expressive powers of Toscanini’s exceptional band of players, particularly as they enjoy the Carnegie Hall acoustics. The Lohengrin Prelude’s sustained ecstasies allow strings and woodwinds to interweave a long, flexible melodic line, for which the Pathetique, too, did not lack. Then, the ominous Dawn sequence that breaks into “Zu neuen thaten” becomes boldly aggressive and rife with pageantry and impeding tragedy as Toscanini propels the musical line forward, a blistering account whose colors and dramatic detail realize the monumental upheavals in nature and in heaven that mark the course of Wagner’s operatic vision. Superlative stereo sonics from Andrew Rose will cause many Toscanini detractors to reassess their auditory impressions, while audiophiles will delight in the resuscitation of visceral scores led by an old veteran whose rocket ship had not slowed down.
— Gary Lemco
