Joseph Gingold: the Toscanini I knew

It was in our second season that we played Tchaikovsky's Pathétique the first time; and it was quite a revelation to us, and gave us a bad morning. He came to the rehearsal with the preconceived idea that the orchestra was set in its way of playing the symphony; and he was right. We came to the second subject, the D-major melody which traditionally- for I don't know how many years-- we had all played with a ritardando on the first three notes. When Toscanini began to conduct the melody in tempo, the orchestra took it away from him and slowed down the first three notes. He stopped: "Signori, perche? Why? Is written so, eh? Ancora!" We started again; and again we made the ritardando: it was so ingrained in us that we couldn't help it. And he threw a fit. "Si, tradizione! The first asino, the first jackass, did it that way, and everyone follow him!" Then he pointed to the score: "This is my tradizione! So play like this!" Toscanini's logic was unanswerable: if Tchaikovsky had wanted a ritardando he would have written it in the score: "Is very easy to write ritardando, no?" So we played the three notes in time; and from then on we played everything as Tchaikovsky wanted it. This was the way we played it at the broadcast; and for the first time musicians and music-lovers heard the music as Tchaikovsky wrote it; but a great many of them didn't like it, because it was different. And today I hear the Tchaikovsky Pathétique played again in the "traditional" manner. I won't say by everybody: George Szell, for instance- who, incidentally, was a great admirer of Toscanini; oh yes, he had a tremendous admiration for him- Szell, who treats the classics with the utmost respect, tries to follow in Toscanini's footsteps with a personality of his own. I never heard Cantelli, unfortunately; but except for him, Toscanini didn't have the great young disciples to continue what he achieved.

I remember marvelous performances we gave in Buenos Aires. We were having a beautiful trip; we were rested; we were playing nothing but symphonic music, and not one broadcast a week but a concert every other day; Maestro was in fine spirits. And one performance of the Tristan Prelude and Finale in the Teatro Colón was UN-FOR-GETTABLE! 

Certain performances of Toscanini's I don't think will ever be equalled by anyone else. The Enigma Variations, for instance: I don't think anybody did it as well. I don't think there will ever be a La Mer like his. The time he spent with the cellos and violas in that passage in the first movement! Also the Beethoven Ninth. The first movement: it was classic; it wept; it was operatic! The slow movement! And the recitatives of the basses in the finale! Berlioz's Queen Mab: the magic of it! The Rossini overtures: impossible to duplicate! The Wagner: no one conducted Wagner like Toscanini-no one! And of course Verdi: who will ever hear Verdi played like that? Even the accompaniments in performances of the arias: never banal, always with dignity, grandeur. Nothing was too small; everything was important. A little miniature like Oueen Mab: how he worked on it! Twenty batons must have been broken to achieve itl Or the little Martucci pieces: with what grace and charm he did them! And I played with him at that Chatham Square benefit- in that little orchestra in which Heifetz played, and Milstein and Adolf Busch and Feuermann, with a few NBC men; and Toscanini conducted the Moment Musical of Schubert, the Musical Joke of Mozart, the Perpetual Motion of Reis, and a piece called Loin du Bal by Gillet, which you hear on Muzak and used to hear in hotels. Even though it was supposed to be a jamboree , we had a rehearsal and the old man conducted as if it were a concert or broadcast: everything was done perfectly. And what he did with this little piece, this trifle, Loin du Bal! It came out like a wonderful jewel! Whatever he played, he played as though it was the greatest work.

I think he was the greatest recreative artist of this era- certainly as a conductor, and the explanation of how he did what he did has to begin with the unexplainable- that he was a genius. One can say he was a masterful conductor, who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it; one can speak of his tremendous knowledge, his thorough preparation, his ear, his baton technique. But I think that in the final analysis it was his genius that really won out: he was a genius blessed with all these things he needed for realization. It was not just one of them, but the combination of all of them. From a purely technical viewpoint he had the clearest beat of any; but it wasn't the beat of a specialist in virtuoso conducting, it was the beat of a musician who had a stick and could show whatever he wished with it. And he never did more than was needed. He once quoted Hamlet's directions to the actors: "Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action"; and he himself made the motion that was suited to a forte, a piano, or any dynamic. He once said to the violinists, in a pianissimo passage where we were using too much bow: "Watch my hand. If my motion is small, your bow must be small; if my motion is large, your bow must be large." And the marvelous way he could conduct a slow tempo--the control! He is the only conductor I know who conducted the Parsifal Prelude in four instead of the customary eight; and he didn't give the silent downbeat most conductors give to assure perfect unanimity at the very beginning. He said: "Is no cadenza per me: I start to beat when we start to play." And he did, and the violins came in together! Also, he beat it all in four, and with his superb stick control it was always together. (To say nothing of the mood, the magic that he got in this piece.) Also, the second movement of Ibéria, which is written in two, but which everyone does in four. Toscanini said: "I know is conducted in four, but I cannot do it so"; and he did it in two- and the control was marvelous. He was like a human metronome: a human metronome, I say, because I mean that his sense of rhythm was so marvelous. We played the Eroica one year; and the next year he varied by five seconds in a work which takes forty-eight minutes. And yet he was smarter than some conductors who are Kapellmeister -who always hold the reins: he would run with a running horse. We did a performance of the Haydn No. 88; and we heard later from the people who were backstage after the performance that the Old Man came up beaming and said: "Did you hear the beautiful tempo primi violini took in finale?" They laughed at the idea of the violins taking a tempo; and he said: "Si, they took the tempo." Of course it was his tempo; but within hairbreadths it could be a tiny bit on the fast side; and once it started there was nothing he could do; so, smart man that he was, he took what he got--which happened to be perfect-and played along with it. And he was so delighted! So many times he walked of the stage cursing-disgusted with the orchestra or with himself. He was very tough on himself: many times he said: "Stupidi-anch' io!" Even when something was good he was sparing with his praise: when he said "Non c'è male-not too bad" that was a real compliment. Which reminds me of an extraordinary incident the first time we played Wagner's Faust Overture. The piece starts with a solo for tuba; and when our tuba player, William Bell, had played it, Toscanini stopped and said: "Ancora. Again." So Bell played it again; and this time Toscanini went on; and we in front heard him say under his breath as he conducted: "This is first time in Fifty-five years that I hear this solo played correct. Bravo, tuba, bravo, bravo." This was extraordinary; but so was the rest of the story. Since Toscanini said it so softly, only those of as around him heard it, and each of us assumed one of the Others had told it to Bell, who sat too far away to hear it.Well, Bell and I now teach at Indiana University; and last year, when we were reminiscing about the Old Man,and I referred to Toscanini's terrific compliment to him, he didn't know what I was talking about. It turned out that noone had told him at the time, and when I told him what Toscanini had said, he was just as thrilled now as he would have been in 1938.

To get back to the other things about Toscanini's conducting: the score and parts of the Shostakovich Seventh arrived here at the last possible minute, and Toscanini had no more than two weeks' preparation before calling the first rehearsal. The work is about seventy-three minutes long, and when Toscanini began that first reading he knew the entire work by memory. Now we were playing from the parts of the Leningrad Philharmonic or whatever orchestra had played it in Russia--if not conducted by Shostakovich, certainly supervised by him-and not just one performance, but I believe twenty or more. When Toscanini had run through the first movement he said "Da capo"; and pretty soon he stopped and said, either to a trumpet- or a horn-player: "What you play there? You play si bémol, eh? I think should be fa." The player said: "But Maestro, I have a B flat in my part." "No, caro, I think should be fa." And in his myopic way he peered at the score; and he was right. He was right the first time; he was right the second time; and I believe he must have found thirty-five or forty mistakes in the parts, that Shostakovich himself hadn't heard in twenty or more performances. The same thing happened when we played Roy Harris's Third Symphony. I think we had the parts from which the Boston Symphony had played it and recorded it under Koussevitzky. Roy Harris was at the rehearsals; and I imagine he must have been at the Boston Symphony rehearsals; and Toscanini kept finding wrong notes in the parts and turning to Harris: "Eh,Maestro, you don't think should be this note? Poor Harris had to look at the music; and of course Toscanini was never wrong. There was a contemporary piece-I can't remember what-that he programmed, tried once,and took off: he couldn't take it; it was too dissonant for him. He came to that rehearsal knowing the piece by memory; and as we were reading it we came to a terrific discord: it was so dissonant that we actually had to look at the fingerboard to see where our notes were. And he stopped: "Eh, terzo corno! Third horn! Re! I didn't hear!" The man had had a few bars' rest and had cleaned his horn, and hadn't been able to get it up again in time to come in. Toscanini couldn't see that far, and didn't see that the man wasn't playing; but he heard that the D was missing. 

Then there was his knowledge-not just of symphony and opera, but of everything in music. I don't think he ever forgot anything. This background of allround knowledge came into the playing, no matter what particular work he was doing. One felt it. 

And then there was the spell which his genius cast over the men. My wife likes to tell the story about the day I had some bug and wasn't feeling well enough to go to a rehearsal, but there was something on the program that I wanted to play, so I said: "I'll bundle up and go, and I'll play that one piece and then come right home." I went there feverish and in no condition really to play; but once Maestro began the rehearsal, I became so absorbed in what we were doing that I forgot I was sick, I forgot about myself entirely; and at the end of the rehearsal I was feeling completely well. This was the effect Toscanini had: when you were playing with him your mind never wandered for one moment; you were completely absorbed in music-making and at one with him and with the composer. And also, no matter what you were playing, you were convinced, at that moment, that this was the only way it could be played.

It was the spell of his musical personality; but it was also what he gave of himself. From the moment he began the rehearsal it was music-making plus a workshop; and it was never "Let's take it easy and save ourselves for the concert": he never spared himself, and he expected his musicians never to spare themselves. How could we help responding to this man who worked harder than everybody else (there was a pool of water around him after a while), for whom music was a religion, and who made us feel the same way? We adored him; and wetried at least to give as much- and not only for him but for the music's sake. And let me say this: the concerts were of course a marvelous thing to have; BUT-THE REHEARSALS! As much public acclaim as he had in his sixty years as a conductor- and for me it wasn't enough; he should have had even more- only the musicians who were in the workshop with him really knew how great he was: they saw aspects of his art that one couldn't see at the concert. The concert was a finished thing; and sometimes one had a feeling, not that he didn't care, but that the work had already been done, the concert had to take place, so let's go through with it. Sometimes; I wouldn't say always. He was always inspired; but the rehearsals were incredible: he was as inspired at them as most conductors are at concerts. It was the wonder of wonders, the things you saw this man do, whereas you had difficulties playing just one line. You felt like a little nincompoop in the presence of a god. 

A great, great genius--one in a lifetime: there will never be another one like him-not in our time. And the impact he had on all of us who played with him was such that our whole musical being was altered for the good-for the best. Music was a religion for him; and it rubbed off on all of us who came into contact with him. He instilled a love of work, a devotion and respect for music, for the composer. He taught us to look carefuly at the composer's indications on the printed page-to see, for example, what he wrote after Allegro. He would say «Is not Allegro. Is Allegro ma-"or"Allegro con-" Every word meant something. In Allegro giusto you had to pay attention to the word giusto; in Allegro vivace, to the vivace. When we played an Andante he would say: "Non marcia funebre! Andante!” 

But the statement one often hears-that one of the great things about him was that he played everything as it was written-those who say this are uttering a mere empty phrase. To play what's written is quite easy; what people don't realize is that Toscanini, being a great musician, read between the lines, and this was what gave the music the life it had in his performance. And very often he did change dynamics- because he had to. In a Beethoven symphony, for example, you wil find that Beethoven wrote double-forte throughout a passage; and if you played it exactly as writen it would sound poorly balanced and blurred. So Toscanini made certain changes in the dynamics for clarification, to enable certain voices to emerge. Where the violins had to fight against all the brass he changed the double-forte to mezzo forte for the brass and left the double-forte for the violins, so the violins could be heard clearly without having to force. His ideas of clarity, of voices always emerging clearly-there has never been anything like it. He would take just, let's say, the second clarinet and third horn and violas--inner voices- and make them play alone. And always "Cantare! Cantare! Sing! Sing!" He made these voices sing as if they were thematic, and then incorporated them with the rest of the orchestral texture. And how beautiful the whole thing became! One thing he did that occurs to me is his beating in circles. Musicians I knew would ask me: "How do you know what he's doing?" The perspective was different for someone in the orchestra- He did the circular movement when he felt that the music called for expansion, for excitement, which he achieved by getting away from the square one-two-three four beat. He always was making music; and as far as we were concerned the beat had been established. It was difficult for an outsider to understand; but we understood it perfectly. 

As I said before, working with this man we felt that we were in the presence of a god. That's why when he would throw fits and would insult people- though it wasn't very pleasant, I must say, and we wished he had acted differently- we understood and accepted it. Sometimes we accepted even when we didn't understand. Chotzinoff once gave me the explanation of an incident which baffled us at the time. He sometimes came to a rehearsal with a preconceived idea about what was going to happen. I told you about the first time we rehearsed Tchaikovsky's Pathétique; and in this case it was the first time we were going to do the Leonore No. 3. At the end there is that famous violin passage, which we prepared in advance: we practiced it individually, and together; and as you know we had a marvelous violin section. The day of the first rehearsal, Chotzinoff told me, the Old Man was pacing back and forth, back and forth, in his room. Chotzinoff asked him what was the matter. "Tutti violini di NBC son stupidi!" "But Maestro, you seemed satisfied at the concert on Saturday." "Eh, but you will hear Leonore. They cannot play. Is male, male!" At the rehearsal, we sensed that he was in an unusually bad mood; but it wasn't the first time. When he came to the difficult violin passage he stopped, pointed to the last four violins of the section, and said: "Last four violins play alone." They played very well. "Next four." They played very well. Down the line: everyone played well. Then the whole section: it was marvelous. And he was so angry that it went well, because it was contrary to what he had expected, that he began to scream: "You are dilettanti!" We just looked at him: there was no use trying to figure out what this was all about. But he could be very understanding and patient when something was dificult.And he could be wonderful to people. When the orchestra manager once wanted to fire a musician, Toscanini said: "He stay." And when one of the men was killed in South America and Toscanini found out about it, he locked himself in his cabin and wept for hours, because he felt that if he hadn´t made the tour this man would still be alive.

I myself had a wonderful experience with the Old Man. None of us ever approached him personally: we were asked to keep away from him when the orchestra was organized. So when I resigned from the orchestra in 1943 to become concertmaster of the Detroit Symphony, I handed in my resignation to the personnel manager, not to Toscanini. But a notice appeared in The Times on the day of one of our Sunday afternoon broadcasts; and Maestro read it. After the broadcast Chotzinoff said: "Maestro wants to see you." I didn't associate it with the notice in the paper, and didn't know what it was about. For the moment I was stunned, and thought: "My God, what did I do?" I recapitulated the entire broadcast in my mind; but as far as I could remember I had played as well as I could, and hadn't spoiled anything. So I went in to see him; and he looked at me and said: "Caro, you don't like Maestro anymore?" I said: "Maestro, I adore you!" "Then why you leave?" "Well, Maestro, I've always wanted to be a concertmaster; and of course one has to start in a smaller orchestra to realize this ambition." "Ma-is good orchestra here, and good maestro. Why you leave?" This was the first time he had shown any awareness of my existence: until then I had thought I was just another number-- but not at all. He then invited me to visit him in Riverdale; and we spent a whole afternoon with him that was just terrific.

We debated whether to take our boy, who was then four years old. My wife didn't think we should; but I said he was old enough to be able to remember it and say he once shook hands with Toscanini; so we decided to take him along. Toscanini was wonderful to him-gave him cookies,and took him out to a swing or something in the yard. We were alone with the Old Man the whole afternoon- four hours.He was sniffling and sneezing, and said: "I have terrible cold"; but my wile whispered that she thought it was hay fever, because she had it and it was the season; and we found out later that he did have hay fever. Well, he asked me about myself- with whom had I studied? I said: "With Ysaye." "Ah, is great violinist. He play with me innnnnn-Scala. Was innnnnn- April- eighteennnnnn ninety six—Mi Maggiore Bach- and Mendelssohn." Just like that, and if the Old Man said it was April 1896, it was so. "He play beauuutifully. Beautiful rubato e cantabile. A beautiful artist." And then he said: "You know, Sarasate play with me in Italy first time Lalo Symphonie Espagnole. Is not very interesting, but beautiful technique. He play like-- like lady."

It was lovely: he reminisced, and I asked him questions. I asked him about the great days at the Metropolitan when he was there. I said: "It must have been wonderful when they had singers like Caruso and Scotti." He said: "When I am young man I admire certain singers. And people say: 'You think these are good. You should have heard Rubini! You should have heard Grisi!' Is always so. Now in twenty-five years you will say: 'Singers today are no good. You should have heard Peerce! Were not such golden years." He spoke about Chaliapin, for whom he apparently at one time had great admiration. He said that they were going to do Mefistofele at La Scala and were looking for a suitable bass; and it so happened that a very dear friend who went on a business trip to Russia heard Chaliapin there. This friend was not a musician, but he knew opera, he knew singers; and he told Toscanini about this young Russian bass who he said was wonderful. So Toscanini sent Gatti-Casazza on a special trip to hear Chaliapin, and Gatti signed him up. It was the first time that Chaliapin sang outside of Russia; and Toscanini said that when he came to rehearse, "Was molto bene, molto modesto. He did some things not perfetto; but we worked. Everything I tell him, he say: Si, Maestro, si. And he did a wonderful Mefistofele. Correct! CORRRRECT!" You know what a wonderful compliment this was from Toscanini. Everything was done beautifully; and it was a great success. At last, Toscanini thought, he had a singer who not only had a marvelous voice and was a wonderful actor, but was modest and took direction. They engaged Chaliapin again for the folowing year, and meanwhile he was engaged elsewhere: he sang in London, he sang everywhere, and always with great success. Then reports came to Toscanini that Chaliapin had already had a fight with the conductor somewhere- that in the middle of a performance he signalled to the conductor- you know: "Via, via, via! And Toscanini said: "No, no, you make mistake. Is molto, molto modesto. No, no." Then he had to go to Paris; and in Paris he saw in the newspaper that Chaliapin was singing in Mefistofele. So he went; and he said: "Was porcheria! Male-bad-bad taste-everything distorted! I went backstage, and I said to him: 'Chaliapin, you must restudy the whole thing when you come to La Scala! We must work again!' 'Si, Maestro, si.' ” Then, he said, about two weeks before Chaliapin was scheduled to return to La Scala, they got a telegram that he was sick, so they postponed the performance. Then they got another telegram that he couldn't come for some other reason. And finally it was evident that he didn't want to come. Toscanini said he was disappointed that this man didn't want to be corrected. To find a great artist like that, and not to be able to do anything with him! He was so disappointed in him!

Later that afternoon Toscanini played a recording of Harold in Italy, which Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony had made with Primrose; and he listened, tugging at his moustache, and said: "Poor Primrose. Poor Primrose! Next year he come to play this piece with me again; and he must play correct! This is not correct! This Koussevitzky play very good double bass, you know? Molto bene.” And he said it was a wonderful Orchestra, but Boston always had good orchestras. "I remember Karl Muck. He play the Beethoven First”; and the Old Man imitated Muck conducting the Alegro of the first movement in a dragging tempo." He did not make the first repeat: was boring also for him,no?!" And we couldn't laugh as you and I are laughing now; because the Old Man couldn't take a joke, and to him this was serious: he didn't think it was funny at all. 

He was in great form that day. He recalled that when he was at La Scala, Ricordi came to him and told him that a composer named Leoncavallo, who was associated with them in some way, had written an opera, and they wanted Toscanini to do the premiere. So he looked at the score of I Pagliacci, and said: "E porcheria." ['It's a mess."] And he said: "I didn't want to do it; but Ricordi, who was a good friend, begged me. He said: 'Do it just once. This man Leoncavallo is so poor.' And I don't know why, but I say: 'Bene, bene. I do this porcheria! And you know what success had this piece! It went all over the world for fifty years! But you know, caro, anchetoday is porcheria!"

It was a wonderful visit. A few years later-- I don't remember exactly what year-- I listened in Cleveland, over the radio, to an incredible performance; and I sat down and wrote a Christmas card to Toscanini. I wrote him: "I was just listening to your broadcast. It was absolutely sublime. Maestro, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." That's all I wrote. On Christmas Day, at eight o'clock in the morning, a special delivery; and there was an envelope addressed in Tosca- nini's hand, with a bold "Special Delivery" at one side, and inside a card with a photograph of himself in it, and a hand- written inscription: "Thank you, my dear Gingold, for your very kind words. My very best wishes to you for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." He went to the trouble-he probably went to the post office himself to send it! He never forgot a former musician. 

And I had a lovely visit with him-it was the last time I saw him- when the orchestra playerd in Cleveland on the transcontinental tour. They played in the Public Auditorium, to 10.000 people. I went to the concert, and tried to get backstage afterwards, but there was a police guard at the stage door, and I couldn´t get in. The next day some of the men came to my house for lunch; and I told them: "I tried to see the Old Man, but I couldn´t get in. I feel so terrible: I wanted to tell him what a wonderful concert it was." And one of them said: "Call up Walter Toscanini; because the Old Man was expecting you, knowing you are here." So I caled up Walter Toscanini; and he said: "But Father left word with Walker to let you in.” I said: "I couldn't even get to Walker." He said: "Come ot the train. We leave at midnight; and Father wil be there about ten o'clock." I did, and had about two hours with the Old Man on the train-a beautiful visit. He wanted to know all about the concerts in Cleveland, and how I was doing. He told me I was getting too fat. And I must tell you this wonderful story. He was having trouble with his knee; and they had a railing around the conductor's podium, so that if his knee gave way he could hold on. In Cleveland he conducted the Brahms Fourth; and the Scherzo was as energetic as ever; but at the end of it, the three forte chords came out forte-forte-pianissimo. I was taken aback, but thought maybe because of the acoustics I didn't hear right. When I saw him he said: "You notice some thing in Scherzo of Brahms, eh?" And he looked at me with those eyes. I said: "Well, Maestro, I noticed the last chord was piano. "Si, caro, was piano. You know, I have trouble with my knee. And I start to make energico the last chord; but my knee is going to break, eh; and I could not make the last chord big as should be. I make piano; and the stupidi musicisti- they follow me!

I had brought him a little present- a book containing the programs of the Bonn Festival of 1892, which included programs of the Joachim Quartet. It was a very rare book, and when I gave it to him he was very happy: he looked through it thoroughly; told me he had heard hte Joachim Quartet play;and spoke about them. I also had brought along the memoirs of Arditi. He's the man who wrote Il Bacio; and he was a well known conductor in his day. I brought the book because Arditi has in it a story of how Rossini once and for all settled the question of a note in the English horn solo in the William Tell Overture. Arditi asked Rossini which is it: EDBCBG or EDBCAG? And Rossini took out his visiting card and wrote on it EDBCAG and his signature. Arditi writes in his memoirs that now when English-horn-players ask him, he shows them Rossini's card; and he has a photograph of the card in the book. I showed it to the Old Man; and he said: "Si, is Rossini's writing. But is banale like this. Rossini sometimes write this way, sometimes another way. No, caro, is wrong-is banale. Is banale also for Rossinil"; and he shut the book molto energico. 

It was a beautiful visit. And do you know what amazed me? When I left I embraced the Old Man; and he had the skin of a baby! I noticed also that he had all his teeth-and this was a man who was then over eighty! And the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen in my life! Incidentally, when he would look at the first-violin section, when he got angry, his eyes covered everybody: everyone thought he was looking at him-whereas he was looking at the whole section. And that was the last time I saw the Old Man. He emerges today greater than ever--though I don't know whether his influence is very great now. The things he fought for are being distorted again-the tempi in Brahms's symphonies, for example: allegros are played as andantes, andantes as adagios-the very things Toscanini fought against. And if you question the conductors about this, their answer invariably is: "Well, thats the tradition." But there is hardly a day- when I am teaching, or practicing, or playing--that his image isn't before me, and that I don't recall some remark or idea or other reminder of his genius. I thank God for giving me those seven years of playing with him; because my whole life has been enriched by my contact with this great, great musician. And I am sorry that others didn't have this opportunity. In my twenty-five years of symphony playing I have played with great conductors and wonderful musicians; but there was only one Toscanini.

©1967 B.H. Haggin/ Horizon Press