Evening star., 1933-03-05

TN the person of Arturo Tos-
canini, the last and greatest
Of this seasons visiting con-
= ductors, this musical genera
ton is privileged to know a man
OF rare musical force and genius.
In him, creative ability, strength
Of ideas and gift of psychological
penetration are combined in such
proportions as to form that rarity
Of all times and all professions, a
born leader. Musical history is
replete with genius, but confined
for the most part to the urge for
individual and exclusive express
sion which has found vent in
composition and has been a per-
sonal notation of personal reac-
tion to an inner inspiration.
The musical veil with which the
composers have shrouded their
thoughts and feelings is not easily
penetrated and the images move
behind it with provocative allure.
The power to discern the clear
forms, to understand their SYM
bolism and to revisualize their
message requires the gift of a
highly sensitive and clairvoyant
nature. In this Toscanini stands
alone on a mountain peak, seeing
into a land that is closed to the
lesser gifted and repainting the
beauty that stretches before him.
No other conductor of the pres
ent day has at his command such
lection of balance. He is an
tdealist, with his craving for per-
lection never satisfied, and a hard
worke2, driving himself to delve
ever deeper into the SublimitieS
he seems to have already mas
tered. He has the ability of seeing
where others are blind and to
fuse himself into the very soul
of the music he interprets. It is
a spiritual alliance between him
self and the composer, and
through this communion he is
able to take on the characteris-
tics of the great mind and serve
as a medium of exact transmits
sion.
The talent of Toscanini has
made him a hero not only to his
own people, but to the world.
His prodigiouS feats of memory
have appealed to the dramatic
sense and many stories are told
of this accomplishment. It has
been claimed that his extreme
nearSightedneSS is the reason of
his conducting without score, but
from his earliest youth he showed
proof of his musical memory. To
convince a doubling teacher, he
once sat down and wrote the en-
tire overture from "Lohengrin"
from memory. Another time,
when the quartet of which he
was a member wished to play an
"Adagio" that had been written
for them year earlier, the music
of which was missing, Toscanini
Immediately wrote out the several
parts. ,'
During one week at the Metro
politan he conducted the vocal
score of 338 pages of 1.-The Girl
of the Golden West" on Monday,
the 1,025 closely printed pages of
Tristan" on Wednesday, 1856
pages of "Orfeo ed Euridice" on
Thursday, La Donna Curiosa,"
PIT pages, on Friday, while con-
Quoting "Ariane ct Barbe Bleue,"
with its score of 572 pages, every
morning at rehearsal. This meant
remembering the value of every
note, every pause, every change of
tempo and every mark of inter-
probation.
Before Toscanini directs a SYM
phony or great orchestral work,
he spends days in communion
with it. The life of the composer
is studied, his joys and sorrows
relived and his particular style
dissected. Then he says to his or
chestra men: You play everything
as it is written. But these are
not only notes; they are notes
written with blood, notes written
with feeling. Music is noise when
played without feeling" Again he
explains to them: This Is a man
broken by misfortune, fleeing for
refuge in a wilderness. He sees
the jeweled stars prick the sky
on his last night. He forgetS him
self; he stops dreaming of repair
ing the irreparable. The serenity
OF night distils a subtle sweet
ness and his arms, no longer ca
pable of lifting his broken body,
strain toward the beauty infusing
the whole universe. Softer,
sweeter, more mysterious-see,
shadows drift by. We must make
them unearthly."
Sometimes to illustrate his idea
he drops his baton, distorts his
body and pranceS around in his
effort to picture more clearly or
lifts his arms in supplication to
envisualize the characteristics to
be expressed. Once when his men
were incapable of grasping the
idea, he dropped on his knees be-
fore them and pleaded with them
to try again and feel what they
were playing. He is not always
tender or poetical at rehearsal.
His RACES are common knowledge
and many a player has trembled
when Toscanini has picked him
out from the volume of sound,
pointed his baton at him and
shrieked: play A sharp in place
of A natural" or You, there, why
aren't you playing this note flat?"
His ever favorite exclamation of
"Shame, shame" can range
through the entire octave OF
sound and contain every variety
of imprecation.
Second to his love for Verdi is
Toscanini's reverence for Beetho-
ven, whose symphony, "Eroica," he
will direct on Tuesday. Through
his efforts, Beethoven became bet
ter known and better loved in
italy and the heavy program OF
the masters works he gave at the
Beethoven centennial, which he