The best single choice. Toscanini made many great recordings (Manfred Symphony!) but Falstaff is the pinnacle.
@b1i2l336 Жыл бұрын
Great choice! I also opt for the Respighi Roman tributes and his amazing Strauss Death and Transfiguration with NBC.
@jefolson6989 Жыл бұрын
Loving this series !
@jensguldalrasmussen6446 Жыл бұрын
I would have vacillitated endlessly between Falstaf and the 1940-performance of the Requiem with Milanov and Björling in the cast, hadn't it been for a gift from a friend: the Pristine Classics reconstructed stereo remastering of Toscanini's Verdi Requiem from 1951. This performance has always stood in the shadows of the 1940 performance - but jeeeez... When I put on the 'Dies irae' in Andrew Rose's highly interventionistic, but fully vindicated remastering, not only did the music almost blow out my loudspeakers, it blew my brains out, too. I've always listened to a lot of the Italian maestro's performances with relish, respect and veneration due to his meticulous, painstakingly prepared, dramatic and riveting performances. I've especially enjoyed the performances and/or moments, where you have got more of an impression of his trademark sound, lauded and admired by so different colleagues as Furtwängler and Klemperer (as we fx. hear it in his recordings from Philadelphia, the Philharmonia Brahms symphonies, and the magic moment in the 1940 Requiem, beginning just before the onset of the tenor soloist in Hostias). Never before, though, have I so immediately and viscerally experienced, what the fuss about the specific Toscanini sound and dramatic flair was about as in Rose's version of this performance. If I was in a house on fire and had to grab one and only one recording by Toscanini, this would be it (although, I would probably try to sneak the Falstaf and the 1940 Requiem out with me also...at the risk of turning into a pillar of salt! 😁)
@MrJdaniel1371 Жыл бұрын
Just one shout-out for Toscanini's studio La Mer. Glistening, sensual, colorful and truly raucous ending.
@davidaiken1061 Жыл бұрын
Absolutely the right choice, Dave! Toscanini's "Otello" and "Requiem" are not far behind, but his "Falstaff" will probably never be surpassed.
@jfddoc Жыл бұрын
I remember sitting at the Met Opera during the second act of Falstaff. I had heard Meistersinger about a month before. It suddenly hit me just how right Toscanini was about them.
@rtisom Жыл бұрын
His LP pairing the Mendelssohn Octet and Schubert’s 5th symphony, is absolutely glorious. Both recordings are available on CD and sound great.
@Bobbnoxious Жыл бұрын
Verdi's first comic opera, "Un giorno di regno" (1840), was such a fiasco that he waited 50 years to write his second, "Falstaff". Throughout his life Verdi never stopped growing as a composer and this opera has a creative energy that's astonishing for an artist who was close to 80. And he still had one more masterpiece in his pen, the "Quattro pezzi sacri" (1898). Some composers are sprinters; Verdi was marathon runner.
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
Toscanini's opera recordings almost all are truly thrilling. People often complain about his casts, but I do not agree. There are many singers in those recordings who today would be of stupefying stature, even if they were not quite the major league singers of their own times. Jan Peerce, Giuseppe Valdengo, Marian Anderson, Richard Tucker, Licia Albanese, these, my friends, were great vocalists and singers with real artistic temperament. They are quite enough to make his casts more than adequate for Toscanini's lofty dramatic and artistic ideals. The results, under such heaven-storming genius directing serving Toscanini's superb operatic instincts, are awesome, at least most of the time.
@CortJohnson Жыл бұрын
I think they were fine - in the end what mattered was whether the performance worked - and in Toscanini's hands, the operas were a marvel.
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
Yes, yes! Toscanini's and those vocal artists' performances really do "work" for that maestro. His "Aida" is one of the very greatest, EVER, and Tucker (for Toscanini, at least, even if not in his later disappointing studio recording) is one of the best singers as Radamès, and Herva Nelli holds her own quite nicely, thank you, in the title role. That's just one example among so many superb other ones. @@CortJohnson
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
Just think of how privileged Toscanini was to have so many of the finest Canadian and American born singers in their roles for him. Just the example of the phenomenal combined soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto Rose Bampton alone should give critics pause, not to mention so many others!
@bbailey7818 Жыл бұрын
The Traviata has just about the best standard Metropolitan Opera cast for the period. But listening to it, I always think of Lucrezia Bori's comment about the tempi, "He didn't conduct it that way when I sang it with him in 1913!" The recording(s) of the last act of Rigoletto have certainly never been surpassed. A thrill a second.
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
As much as I love Toscanini's recordings of the operas that have come down to us, I don't regard them as "definitive" in the usual sense that some use that assessment. There are numerous ways to conceive and to execute a great opera convincingly. Just think of the wonderful opera recordings that Serafin, Molajoli, Molinari-Pradelli, Gui, and Gavazzeni, or even Fausto Cleva at times, have left them to us. When they are of the same scores, each of them usually is terrific and utterly convincing. However, let's face it, Toscanini exmplifies that to a special and consistent degree.
@bumblesby Жыл бұрын
I have the 2012 box reissue and haven't gotten to this one yet. So excited to have one of the recordings on your If I Could Only Choose One list!
@josecarmona9168 Жыл бұрын
Absolutely agree!! This is just mandatory.
@harinagarajan2296 Жыл бұрын
You are one of three most interesting, learned critics/commentators,/speakers/analyst of western classical music that i have come across during over 5 decades of listening and collecting records. The others are Dr Karl Haas, the gentleman that used to host a program called "starlight concerts" (i have forgotten his name. sorry). Everytime i hear you mention Toscanini it brings on an automatic smile. I know that you sometimes get irritated by those that mention about historical recordings. There is this "remastering" of the Philharmonia Brahms cycle. I wanted to write about this. Good gosh. Just marvellous and such expressive music making. The third is something of a revelation. Many thanks for the work that you are doing. Hari
@DavesClassicalGuide Жыл бұрын
Thank you!
@howardgilman5698 Жыл бұрын
Dr. Karl Haas also did a show called "Adventures In Good Music" the intro being from Beethoven's Pathetic sonata.
@goodmanmusica2 Жыл бұрын
Great choice
@bbailey7818 Жыл бұрын
Falstaff definitely though the Otello is white hot. Not to forget, we have two Falstaffs, because there's the 1937 Salzburg staged production with Stabile. That one is more expansive. When the long gone Andante label released it in tandem with Karajan's from Salzburg, the basis for the EMI recording, Toscanini's was shown actually to be slower at every point. My other personal choice is Act 2 of Gluck's Orfeo, the most rapturously beautiful I know of in the Elysian fields; coupled with the most dramatic Furies scene earlier but still classically poised-- even with added tam tam.
@francescofurlan3098 Жыл бұрын
I fully agree and I think that Toscanini had also a gift in understanding that this opera is much more powerful (and not at all so comic) if you leave away all those "veristic" effects, which afflict also a great but too istrionic singer as Gobbi. I find Valdengo really perfect and in my opinion he has always been s little bit underrated. As far as Toscanini love for this masterpiece is concerned, I remember to have read that he literally martirized Mariano Stabile (if I correctly remember, he is Falstaff in the live Salzburg recording with Toscanini), reharsing for hours the four words "tre fagiani, un'acciuga"...😊
@gavingriffiths2633 Жыл бұрын
My goodness - to be forced to choose between Toscanini's Falstaff and Otello....personally I'd have gone for Otello...but by only the tiniest of margins....
@MartinRichard-y6c5 ай бұрын
Agree, But I have to find a great Falstaff on DVD? or Blu RAy. Any suggestions???
@CortJohnson Жыл бұрын
This is a tough one. Virtually everything Toscanini did was interesting. I recently heard his Brahms Serenade 1. The first movement was unlike anything I've heard before - very powerful - and it made me wonder if others are missing something. Falstaff is a great example - hard to bring off -but in Toscanini's hands powerful and nimble at the same time - perfect for Toscanini. (I actually like the NBC recording sound - limited but very clear - you can hear all the lines - and that's what Toscanini was all about.)
@markvaz9300 Жыл бұрын
I always felt that AT's treatment of the first movement was a little too rushed. There is an earlier broadcast performance with the NYP from 1936(?) that is the only performance of the entire Serenade we have for reference. If memory serves, his pacing of the first and subsequent movements was a little bit more relaxed in that earlier performance.
@bendingcaesar65 Жыл бұрын
Interesting choice, Dave. I don't know this opera as well as I'd like, so, for me, his one recording would be Pictures at an Exhibition. I love that recording.
@DavesClassicalGuide Жыл бұрын
So do I.
@fabiopaolobarbieri2286 Жыл бұрын
@@DavesClassicalGuide I only recently heard it for the first time, and I could not believe what I was hearing.
@dennischiapello7243 Жыл бұрын
I read in a Toscanini biography that he was singing his praises of Falstaff, and in mentioning Meistersinger, he said it was very great, "but too much C Major!"
@sgfnorth Жыл бұрын
How about Tamas Vasary in this series - he seems to be out of fashion but I enjoy going back to his music making.
@kanishknishar Жыл бұрын
Hello Dave. I think you should make a proper video on Aho. Perhaps best discs and even comment on how you find his quality of output has fallen. You can make his music more well known.
@fred6904 Жыл бұрын
If I could choose one recording of Daniel Barenboim it would have to be Bruckner's Symphony no 4 whith Chicago Symphony Orchestra on DG. Which is your choice Mr Hurwitz?
@DavesClassicalGuide Жыл бұрын
It could be that...
@GL-hk3xb Жыл бұрын
Is this RCA package comes with libretto ?
@DavesClassicalGuide Жыл бұрын
Yes. Good luck finding it.
@RobertFells Жыл бұрын
As a long time Toscaninian (if there is such a term) I fully embrace Dave's designation of AT's FALSTAFF as the Maestro's Numero Uno. That said, I think "Which is Number 1" is a false construct that artificially narrows the field when narrowing isn't needed. Put another way, if Dave said that AT's OTELLO is No. 1, I would agree. If he said AT's UN BALLO EN MASKERA is No. 1, I would agree. In some cosmic sense perhaps, among excellence we can allow more than one Number 1. To stir the pot: which should be No. 2?
@DavesClassicalGuide Жыл бұрын
False construct? Absolutely not! Artificial? For sure. But that's a generic argument. By the same logic, any effort at selection among worthy options is "false" if you can have all of them. So lighten up! It's an effort to encourage people to listen to recordings they may not know.
@RobertFells Жыл бұрын
Dave, I'm flattered that you responded to my comment. I have to agree that "artificial" is a better term than "false construct" and that, admittedly, has a certain hoity-toity ring to it. Perhaps I've developed an allergic reaction to those lists of the "Ten Best" or the "100 Best" because the discussions tend to deteriorate into arguments of why isn't that work on the list, etc. Your motive of spotlighting individual recordings as No. 1 is a good tactic for attracting well-deserved attention in the crush of so many records, so little time. But my preference with any conductor or composer is to have a rotating list of "Today's No. 1" etc. With Toscanini especially, on the orchestral side of the repertory, there are so many performances that were recorded that a sub-genre could be created of which performance of - fill in the blank - is No. 1 out of the group.
@chazinko Жыл бұрын
And for Toscanini's son-in-law, Horowitz, either Tchaikovsky 1st (with Toscanini) or Rachmaninoff 3rd.
@DavesClassicalGuide Жыл бұрын
No way.
@bbailey7818 Жыл бұрын
The live 1943 Tchaikovsky but not the 1941 RCA recording.
@chazinko Жыл бұрын
@@bbailey7818 Yes, that one
@chazinko Жыл бұрын
@@DavesClassicalGuide You don't like them?
@josecarmona9168 Жыл бұрын
Does someone agree Falstaff is perhaps the first feminist opera? I mean, in a really good sense (and in fact quite valid even today)?
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
Well, the idea is okay, but I think (and many agree) that the real first outright and greatest feminist opera is Cherubini's Médée (Medea). That opera is absolutely revolutionary not only in feminist terms but in social and political ones as well. Nice try, though, dude!
@josecarmona9168 Жыл бұрын
@@geraldparker8125 , absolutely true, and quite older than Falstaff. Anyway, I think that in Medea the female character goes her own way (rejecting even her children) in a freedom exercise which is associated with an evil feeling. In Falstaff we have those women who are absolutely smarter than the men around them, so the "feeling" is positive. All in all, two magnificent operas with really strong female roles.
@bbailey7818 Жыл бұрын
It's certainly Herva Nelli's best work on disc aside from the feminist aspects. And Nanetta's Act 3 aria is gorgeous. Practically the only place in Falstaff where Verdi let's someone expand at length in an honest to God aria. Fenton has one earlier but it's interrupted. I think Fidelio is pretty feminist, heroic and resourceful and courageous.
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
For sure, dude! @@josecarmona9168
@geraldparker8125 Жыл бұрын
Yeah -- and Toscanini cast The Great One in the title role: Rose Bampton. Thank you so, so much for doing that, Maestro Toscanini! @@bbailey7818