Toscanini by Harvey Sachs

Author:Harvey Sachs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liveright

2.

THE AGE OF JET AIRPLANE TRAVEL BEGAN JUST AFTER TOSCANINI’S career ended, and within a few years successful conductors were able to make guest appearances all over the world—one week in one country, the next week in another. Until Toscanini was well past his sixtieth birthday, he had worked for substantial periods in only three countries—Italy, the United States, and Argentina—and had appeared briefly in only six others: Brazil and Spain at the outset of his career, Uruguay in his thirties, France and Canada in his forties, and Switzerland in his fifties. The 1929 Scala tour added Austria and Germany to the latter list; the 1930 New York Philharmonic tour would bring him before audiences in four more countries and in six more major cities.

The prospect of demonstrating the New York orchestra’s prowess to audiences in fifteen major European cities stimulated Toscanini’s energies. It also stimulated the Philharmonic’s board of directors to underwrite the tour at a cost of $200,000, the economic crisis notwithstanding. Had the tour been planned for 1931 instead of 1930, it would likely have been canceled.

Toscanini insisted that the ensemble travel aboard the French liner De Grasse—although it was not one of the newer or faster vessels available—because it did not have class divisions: all passengers could mix freely on all decks, and Toscanini could spend time with the 114 members of the orchestra and its staff, many of whom had brought their wives and children along. “At sea, the orchestra musicians got to know a new Toscanini: no longer the nobly severe conductor, but an affable, smiling, even joking traveling companion,” the Corriere della Sera reported shortly after the ship docked at Le Havre. Toscanini claimed to have done “nothing” during the crossing, and his musicians confirmed that he had sunned himself and taken many walks on the deck, watched his fellow passengers playing games and exercising, and stayed up till all hours observing them dancing to the music of the on-board jazz band—to which many of his musicians had contributed their services. As Prohibition was still law in the United States, many of the travelers had been delighted to partake legally of alcoholic beverages as soon as the ship had left the country’s territorial waters. Arthur Judson claimed that the musicians had drunk the ship dry after two days at sea, but evidently some reserves remained: on the final evening of the voyage Toscanini offered champagne to everyone. The Russian members of the ensemble even sang toasts to Picciù, the Toscaninis’ dog, who, however, “began to bark and energetically refused to initiate the whistle-wetting,” the Corriere reported.

Upon disembarking at Le Havre, on 2 May, the maestro looked ruddy-cheeked and smiling, and he had even gained a little weight. “It’s the sea air that always does me a lot of good,” he told the Corriere. The Toscaninis were met at the pier by their son/brother Walter as well as by the wife of Carlo Clausetti of the Ricordi company and by Anita Colombo, to whom Judson had entrusted the coordination of the tour.

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