Toscanini Conducts Martucci

1. Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op 75
Composed by Giuseppe Martucci
Performed by NBC Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Arturo Toscanini

2. Novelleta, for piano or small orchestra, Op 82
Composed by Giuseppe Martucci
Performed by NBC Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Arturo Toscanini

3. Notturno for piano or small orchestra, Op 76/1
Composed by Giuseppe Martucci
Performed by NBC Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Arturo Toscanini

4. Tarantella, for piano, Op 44
Composed by Giuseppe Martucci
Performed by NBC Symphony Orchestra Conducted by Arturo Toscanini

Customer Reviews:

A Fascinating, Fresh, and Unknown Symphony, Well Played!.......1998-09-17

Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909) was one of the minority of Italian romantic-era composers who emphasized instrumental music over opera and vocal works. His piano pieces (mostly miniatures) were as important in the repertoire of his native Italy as Schumann's or Grieg's were in Germany and Norway. His two symphonies (1895 and 1905) were powerful four-movement sonata-form compositions of great intensity, melodiousness, and sobriety: influenced by Brahms' academic style, they are lightened by the luminous orchestration and lyrical themes.

The Second Symphony is less conventional than the First. Toscanini played them both during the early years of his NBC Symphony leadership (he is said to have been greatly pressured by Samuel Chotzinoff, Musical Director of the network, to drop further performances of this composer, who was virtually unknown to the American public.) It is a pity that after 1940, the year of the broadcast of the Martucci Second, only two further readings of a major Martucci piece were given by the ensemble under Toscanini: the Piano Concerto in Bb (the second) with Glacco d'Attili and Mieczyslaw Horszowski in 1946 and 1953, respectively. There are no commercial records of Martucci by Toscanini, and no "high fidelity" ones, since the broadcast with Horszowski has not been issued.

This 1940 reading was made during one of the two acknowledged finest years of the ensemble (1940-1) when the musicians had at last learned to play with the cohesiveness of a professional orchestra, and when the engineers had discovered more effective ways of balancing the instrumental choirs with the best possible mike placement in the smallish Studio 8-H. Yet one cannot fully judge the original source recording, because Iron Needle adds artificial echo and stereo reprocessing, which is NOT NECESSARY, and further removes one from the immediacy of the original sound source.

If you have the flexibility to place your preamp in L+R mono (blending the two audio channels) you will receive better and more solidified sound. There was apparently some attempt at adding artificial reverberation to this recording, either during the original broadcast or shortly afterward to the archival disks: even the old sixties Clyde Key / Toscanini Society LPs had some ambience added to the dry Studio 8-H sound (which is also noted in the 1940 broadcasts of Petruchka and Manfred, and was an experiment by the NBC engineers, probably using the "echo chamber" mike/speaker feeds used for dramatic productions. It worked quite well, adding some 'bloom' and 'air' to the 8-H sound.)

While the knotty and densely constructed first movement seems a bit strained and underrehearsed in this broadcast (and is more smoothly articulated in the d'Avalos CD on ASV) the performance in totality is compelling. Repeated hearings of the work -- which does not divulge its secrets on first playing, as does the First Symphony -- will usually impress the listener with the effectiveness of the musical argument. Martucci may have been something of an eclectic, but his works do not sound exactly like any other composer, though traces of Brahms, Verdi, Boito, and Puccini may sometimes be detected.

The song-cycle "Canzone di Ricordi" is as affecting and poignant as many others from the decades around the composition of this work: it recalls some of the moods of Elgar's "Sea Pictures" or Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder". In the original Toscanini Society LP of this Bruna Castagna reading, I was unconvinced due to the murky quality of the recording aircheck from the broadcast of 1940. I would guess that this transfer is made from the same source material, but it is clearer and more transparent than the old LP, and makes a better case for the performance, which is thereby competitive with the Rachel Yakar or Carol Madalin digital recordings on modern CDs.

If this release had been done WITHOUT the artificial stereo, I would have awarded it 5 stars; as it is, I grant it only 3. But lovers of romantic music who do not yet own the ASV set of Martucci works might wish to investigate this release; all Toscanini collectors will insist on possessing it.

Arturo Toscanini conducts Giuseppe Martucci
Average customer rating:
Arturo Toscanini conducts Giuseppe Martucci

Manufacturer: Iron Needle
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000AQHQPQ

Product Description

ARTURO TOSCANINI CONDUCTS GIUSEPPE MARTUCCI. GIUSEPPE MARTUCCI (1856-1909). Symphony No. 2 in F Major Op. 81 (1904): 1. I. Allegro moderato. (12"21) 2. II. Scherzo. Allegro vivace. (06"02) 3. III. Adagio ma non troppo. (10"29) 4. IV. Allegro. (09"15). NBC Symphony Orchestra. Recording: March 30, 1940. 5. La Canzone dei Ricordi, poemetto lirico (1886-1887). (Wds. Bruno Pagliera) (28"23) Bruna Castagna, mezzo-soprano. NBC Symphony Orchestra. Recording: March 29, 1941. ARTURO TOSCANINI, conductor.

Average customer rating:

Toscanini conducts Martucci

Manufacturer: Iron Needle
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00005OKUY
Release Date: 2001-09-04

Tracks:

Sym No.2 in F, Op.81: I. Allegro Moderato
Sym No.2 in F, Op.81: II. Scherzo. Allegro Vivace
Sym No.2 in F, Op.81: III. Adagio Ma Non Troppo
Sym No.2 in F, Op.81: IV. Allegro
La Canzone Dei Ricordi, Poemetto Lirico - Bruna Castagna

Toscanini Conducts Vaughan Williams, Brahms, Martucci, Tchaikovsky

Average customer rating:

Toscanini Conducts Vaughan Williams, Brahms, Martucci, Tchaikovsky
Johannes Brahms , Franz Joseph Haydn , Giuseppe Martucci , Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky , Ralph Vaughan Williams , Arturo Toscanini , and NBC Symphony Orchestra
Manufacturer: Guild
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Suites | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Average customer rating:

Conducts Martucci
Arturo Toscanini
Manufacturer: Dante Records Lys
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000IJBB
Release Date: 1999-03-16

Average customer rating:

Fine Music, Brilliantly Played, With Dull Transfers
Definitive Performance of Martucci Sym 1 in Dull Sonics

Toscanini Conducts Martucci

Manufacturer: Grammofono 2000
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Sym No.1 In d, Op.75: I. Allegro
Sym No.1 In d, Op.75: II. Andante
Sym No.1 In d, Op.75: III. Allegretto
Sym No.1 In d, Op.75: IV. Moso, Andante Risoluto
Novelletta, Op.6, No.1
Notturno, Op.6, No.2
Danza (Tarantella), Op.44

Customer Reviews:

Fine Music, Brilliantly Played, With Dull Transfers.......1998-09-19

Lovers of full- blooded romantic music will revel in the works on this disk, even if not taking the greatest pleasure in the production values of the CD transfer.

Toscanini's attempts to revive the music of his old mentor Giuseppe Martucci ( 1856-1909) were not as successful as, say, Bernstein's advocacy of Mahler. Over his NBC Symphony career, the Maestro played both of the Martucci symphonies (1938 and '40), the second piano concerto (1946 with Glacco d'Attili and '53 with Horszowski), the song cyle "Canzone di Ricordi" with Castagna (1940, on an Iron Needle CD reviewed elsewhere), and the short pieces contained in the present Grammophono reissue. Yet rumor has it that the conductor was pressured by NBC to abandon Martucci, who was not generally well received by the radio audience (the composer and his oeuvre were then almost totally unknown and unappreciated in the USA, a sad state of affairs that this CD may help to redress.)

The Symphony contained on this release was played at the NBC broadcast of 26 November 1938, in a passionate and committed performance that fully explores the piece's tumultuous and powerful emotions: I have often commented that the D Minor symphony sounds like Brahms' First if Puccini, instead of Brahms, had written it! The parallel is most striking in the "intermezzo- like" third movement, an introverted Allegretto with a very memorable and melodious main subject. The first and last movements are rugged and tumultuous; the second movement an appropriately pensive slow Andante. This highly engaging work is played a bit more aggressively by d'Avalos on his ASV stereo CD recording, but I find Toscanini to be superior in sustaining the musical line.

Sadly, the engineering is more effective in pristine copies of the original in-house aircheck disks than on the present CD transfer. An attempt has been made to add echo and phony- stereo rechannelling, as well as mushy Cedar noise reduction, but thankfully it is not as extreme as in other Grammophono releases. The original 1962 WRVR rebroadcast sounded superbly solid and clean; the old Clyde Key / Toscanini Society private LP had slightly less clear reproduction, and this CD is even more restricted. The original restoration was probably done by John Corbett, who worked for Walter Toscanini to dub the old broadcast acetates onto disk. Unfortunately, a fixed- speed turntable was employed, so there are noticeable pitch changes evident in ALL of the above sources, which apparently stem from the same Corbett transfer. Modern engineering would permit the correction of the semitone pitch changes, which are very annoying to the musically- trained auditor; sadly, Grammophono has not bothered to do so. In addition, the high frequency content shifts dramatically at side- joins; this, too, COULD have been ameliorated, but was not. What effort that was made to "refurbish" the sound in the digital domain was, instead, damaging to clarity rather than improving other deficiencies.

Grammophono's shoddy approach to the Toscanini legacy is also evident in their reversal of the documentation of two of the short works: the opus numbers for the Novelletta and Notturno are ENTIRELY incorrect (the former is Op. 82, and the latter is really Op. 70 No. 1; Grammophono claims 'Op. 6, n. 1 & 2' which is utterly false!) In addition, track 5, labelled "Novelletta", is REALLY the Notturno, while tr. 6 is the Novelletta and NOT the Notturno! Since the Notturno, Op. 70 No. 1 is a relatively famous piano piece of Martucci, which he orchestrated, and has been recorded several times, it is -- in effect -- the best known of the composers works. Yet Grammophono's producer did NOT know it. For verification, consult the Pierino Gamba / London Symphony Decca / London stereo LP of the late fifties, the Muti / Scala Sony CD (SK 53280), or the d'Avalos ASV CD (DCA 675).

I would judge that this disk is an actual copy of the old Clyde Key - produced LP, which had fairly good sound on all the works EXCEPT the final Danza Tarantelle, which was extraordinarily dim and mushy. Here, too, the quality suddenly diminishes in the Danza, the final track, which gives little pleasure.

The entire broadcast containing the First Symphony (Smetana Bartered Bride Ov; Martucci D Minor; Liszt Orpheus; Ravel D&C Suite #2) has been issued in Europe on Naxos 8.110817, which is not sold in the continental USA, and should probably have been produced from more authentic source copies.

If you find this Grammophono to be your only way of obtaining the Symphony, then you should get it as a preferable means of enjoying this great work, surpassing the stereo d'Avalos reading. Be prepared, however, to encounter the problems recounted above: playback with your preamp set to L+R mono mode is recommended to obtain the best possible solidity of sound.

Definitive Performance of Martucci Sym 1 in Dull Sonics.......1998-09-16

This CD appears to be sourced by the old Clyde Key/Arturo Toscanini Society set on 2 LPs of the broadcasts of the 1930s and 40s of Martucci as done by Toscanini with the NBC Symphony (minus only the very important 1953 performance of the B-Flat concerto with Horszowski, but containing the First & Second Symphonies, Piano Cto in Bb with Glacco D'Attili, the song cycle "Canzone di Ricordi", and some short orchestral pieces.) Unfortunately, the ATS LP set was NOT processed in uniformly good archival sound (the short works were noticeably inferior in fidelity to archival original RCA source material, for example, though the symphonies sounded reasonably good for broadcasts of 1938 and '40, respectively.)

In this CD, one hears what appears to be the original John Corbett tapings of the in-house RCA transcription disks of the Symphony No. 1, as used for the famous series of Toscanini rebroadcasts on WRVR, Riverdale, New York, in the late sixties.

However, Corbett did NOT use a variable-speed turntable to make his dub. Thus, at the side changes (the transcriptions were done at 33.3 rpm on 16-inch disks that played for 15 minutes per side) there is a noticeable pitch shift of a semitone or more. A musically sensitive listener (or a musician) will be terribly irritated by this: it could have been EASILY corrected by using an analog tape deck, such as a Studer or Revox, that featured a variable speed adjustment, or -- I suspect -- done in the digital domain with a pitch shifter. No one at Grammophono has taken the time and effort to do the correction: thus, in the finale of the symphony (10:22 elapsed time, tr. 4) and at other particular spots, there is a pitch jump. The fidelity of the symphony -- as heard in the WRVR broadcasts and on the Clyde Key set -- was decent compared to the best material from the broadcasts of 1938: highs up to about 6 or 7 kHz (a tiny bit better than commercial 78s of the era); full bass; close and tight balances from the dry acoustic of Studio 8-H which, nevertheless, reproduce the instruments with crystal clarity. The musical details are as evident here as in the modern stereo CD by d'Avalos on ASV! However, there is little dynamic range, as some form of gain riding (both manual as well as electronic) has smoothed out the variances. This is typical of most of the Toscanini broadcasts of the era, and is not much worse than the dynamic restriction one hears on today's FM stereo radio programs!

The Toscanini qualities abound in this wonderful performance: a dramatic sweep that carries the listener forward; a long, singing line that conveys the musical logic; a sustained emotional drive, commitment, and intensity; and a powerful sense of architectural structure. The work itself is a full-blooded romantic symphony which I once described as seeming to be a bit like Brahms First had it been composed by Puccini! The orchestration is more transparent than Brahms (recalling the luminescence of Puccini's orchestral pieces and operatic accompaniments) but the thematic material and treatment are serious, academic, and somewhat old-fashioned for a work of 1895, at least as measured alongside the compositions of Mahler and Richard Strauss. I have long known and loved this piece, and find the Toscanini interpretation much more satisfying than the aggressive d'Avalos account. The second and third movements are especially charming and intimate; the first and fourth movements are dramatic and fulsome.

The short pieces are little orchestral gems: the best known is the exquisite Notturno in G-Flat, op. 70 No. 1, recorded at a broadcast of October 1938, a month earlier than the symphony. An orchestration by Martucci of one of his own piano pieces, the first of a pair of Notturni, it was given a very fine stereo recording by Pierino Gamba and the London Symphony in the late fifties on Decca / London records (now out of print.) But the incompetent wretches at Grammophono records apparently do not know this relatively famous piece: for they misidentify the opus numbers and reverse the track numbers and identification of the Notturno (listed as #5 but REALLY #6) and the Novelletta (stated as being #6 but actually being track 5!) This is typical of the shoddiness and lack of care and precision that one notes of the releases on this label. For verification, I direct an interested listener to ASV CD DCA 675, containing these two pieces and the Symphony No. 1 conducted by d'Avalos. In the Novelletta, for instance, Toscanini is at once more detailed and pointed in his phrasing, and yet more lyrical and graceful, than Francesco d'Avalos.

The sound quality of the Grammophono CD is fake stereo, as one might expect from this company. However, very little echo or ambience has been added: the effects are mostly created by boosting the highs or cutting the bass on the left and right channels of the recording (which make headphone listening quite unnatural): place your preamp in L+R mono for the best reproduction, which regains some of the solidity of the original single-channel recording.

As in the case of the original Clyde Key LP set, the sound of the short works (especially the Danza, Op. 44) is extremely muddy compared to the brighter and clearer symphony. No doubt the RCA archives (and the Rodgers and Hammerstein collection) have excellent, clear transcriptions that have been lovingly reprocessed by Seth Winner. Perhaps some day we shall be privileged to have them to replace this stop-gap effort.)

I would recommend the disk for the symphony, even if you already have the d'Avalos stereo recording. Toscanini is simply a superior musician, and invigorates a worthy, unknown, and fascinating composition.

Track Listings:

Track Listings

track listings

Track Listings

Sympathetic Sounds of Toe-Rag Studios London

Ave Maria Mass - Suite For The Americas

A Nice Day in Paris

Song for My Sister

Answering Machine Music

A Lonely Man [Extra tracks] [Import]

A Child's Celebration of Lullaby

Arnold: Hobson's Choice/Five Pieceds for Violin and Piano, Op.84/Fantasy For Cello,Op.130/Homage to the Queen/Trio fo

A Deeper Shade of Blue

A Five Star Edition

A Song for the Lovers [CD-single]

6Twenty [Explicit Lyrics] [Import]

100% DJ Antoine [Import]

Rhapsodies in Spirit

Happy Feet