[78-L] trivia

[James Tennyson]

Well, in the teens Toscanini had  quite  a disagreement with either his wife 
or Geraldine Farrar about his ...ahem... friendship, to be euphemistic, with 
the latter. This was the main reason , I understand, that he left the Met 
and went back to La Scala . It was that orchestra that he took on the tour 
which was the begiinning of his  reputation as an orchestral conductor of 
the premier rank rather than  a conducto who was primarly an operatic one. 
This  tour was his introduction to the recording studio.

Am I warm?

Jim Tennyson

From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
>> Don't forget, the disagreement I'm thinking of probably saved
>> Toscanini's life. His disagreements with Mussolini, (which,
>> I think, actually took place in the 1940s), placed him in peril.  db

>> Hmm..he had a difference of opinion or two with Mussolini,
>> but I'm thinking that this occurred in the 1920s after he'd
> already toured the US with the La Scala Orchestra.  dl

And of course had made his first recordings.  And since he had also made
recordings with the NY Phil-Sym and some British orchs in the later 20s,
anything that happened to him in the 30s would have still left us those
recordings.  Mussolini came to power in the 20s, and that might have
sent him to England, but there would still have been those acoustical La
Scala recordings. No, any disagreement would have had to have happen
before the La Scala recordings, perhaps when he was touring South
America and got his first chance at conducting rather than just playing
in the orchestra.  Did the disagreement have something to do with the
loss of the scheduled conductor in South America?

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com