I had forgotten that Toscanini came from Parma. I was walking to Bologna Central Station with Leigh and our friends, catching a train for a day’s outing to Parma and Modena. And for some reason, the overture to the opera La Forza del Destino came into my head. Those three horn notes at the beginning. And they repeat. And then the strings take over. That’s when I remembered. Toscanini, whose recording of that overture I’d air-conducted since grammar school, was from Parma. There must be a memorial, I thought, or a museum.
I’ve written before about my younger brother and his love of classical music. We really were a bit like Niles and Fraser growing up. Not as snobbish or elitist, to be sure, but very much the pair when it came to our devotion to classical music and to Toscanini. Really, some kids worshiped Hank Aaron or John Glenn. We were fervent fans of Toscanini—his music and his story.
Arturo Toscanini was... Well, there’s really no modern equivalent. Maybe the Gustavo Dudamel of his day? Only bigger? From the last decades of the 19th century until just before Sputnik, when classical music did not inhabit so much of the rarified musical niche it does today, Arturo Toscanini conducted orchestras all over the world. He led the New York Philharmonic, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, and, of course, the NBC Symphony. He was heard on the radio every week by hundreds of thousands, sold records in record numbers, his concerts sold out in minutes, and, later, he was seen on early TV broadcasts.
He was a vehement opponent of fascism. He led concerts to benefit the Allies during World War II and helped refugee musicians and their families. He conducted the first concerts of what is now the Israel Philharmonic. He premiered operas and orchestral works by composers across the spectrum of classical music, from Puccini to Barber. He was the Bernstein before Bernstein and then some.
I was thinking of all this as I walked into the Toscanini Birthplace and Museum: an unassuming, narrow house on a quiet side street in Parma, a few blocks from the river. Several bright rooms filled with family furniture, autographed scores, opera costumes, the maestro’s formal wear, batons, busts, letters, testimonials, posters, caricatures, and political cartoons. Many reproductions of the great Robert Hupka photos hang on the walls. Some monitors playing concert videos: kinescope artifacts struggling through their grainy black-and-white to give evidence of what must have been absolutely thrilling performances from any seat in the house.
A small theater on the top floor showing a film biography of Toscanini’s life: his musical and political accomplishments, edited to around thirty minutes. It’s a beautifully kept space, staffed with friendly people. At the little gift counter, I bought a guide to the collection and one for my brother, too. It was a wonderful and bittersweet experience. One of the greatest musicians of the last century, a mighty force for artistic and social good, confined “in little room.”
Today, sadly, Toscanini is often remembered, at least in the popular media, as a man with a bad temper. The conductor who threw tantrums and shouted at musicians. But this perspective reduces a great global talent to a single, infrequently manifested flaw. It can be what we do these days to historical figures—as if the total complexity of their actual characters is just too much for us to comprehend.
Toscanini was a perfectionist, passionate in the extreme about the power and importance of music. His good fortune to reach his peak just at the birth of the twentieth century was also his curse: fighting political and ideological battles against his own homeland, against musical forces he had once loved (the Wagner family and Bayreuth, for example), and always in the spotlight. Under these conditions, the many sides of his genius sometimes clashed. He always regretted these episodes and was always most critical of himself.
A seventy-year struggle of art versus life. Read Harvey Sach’s brilliant book, "Toscanini: Musician of Conscience," and you’ll get it. As you exit the train station in Parma, headed toward the river and the charming city center, you cross a park. In it is a massive memorial to another Parmesan, Giuseppe Verdi. A huge sculpture, maybe ten meters long and five or six high, depicts Verdi, the characters from his operas, and the struggles and triumphs of his life. It’s awe-inspiring. Humbling. Toscanini conducted the music at Verdi’s funeral. That was in Milan in 1901, years before radio or any electronic media. More than 300,000 people attended. Verdi, of course, wrote La Forza del Destino. Those three horn notes at the beginning. And they repeat. And then the strings take over…
