[78-L] trivia answer

[DAVID BURNHAM]

In a turn of fate that was fortuitous, he went back to Italy weeks 
earlier than planned; his original passage had been booked aboard the Lusitania 
that May, which was sunk by a German U-boat on the voyage he was to have taken, 
losing over 1,000 of the 1,900 people aboard."


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This was the answer I was looking for.  If he had not had his disagreement with the Met., he would have finished the season and boarded the Lusitania on May 7, 1915.  Isn't it strange to think that in that event, we may never have had any of the many Toscanini recordings which have become legendary over the years - but we wouldn't have missed them any more than we miss all of the recordings which Mahler never made.

db