Toscanini's Best Beethoven Recording! Symphony No 7 (1936) NYP
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 มี.ค. 2019
- Many consider this to be the best of Toscanini's many Beethoven recordings. It has been newly remastered for this edition in 2019.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 7 in A Major, op.92
1. Poco Sostenuto: Vivace (00:05)
2. Allegretto (11:35)
3. Presto Meno Assai; Presto (20:22)
4. Allegro Con Brio (27:30)
Arturo Toscanini, conducting
The Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York
Recorded April 9-10, 1936 at Carnegie Hall, New York City
This recording stands out among Toscanini's best, even by his meticulous standards, this represents him at his most inspired. As he put so much effort into it, it was only natural to take another, and much closer look, at the recording.
This is not a stereo recording. It was mastered with a technology we call FAR (Field Acoustic Re-imaging). This results in a sound which resembles stereo, which was originally developed to image field acoustics.
In order for our posts to remain uninterrupted and commercial-free, we do not monetize on this channel. If you wish to support this kind of music and sound restoration, you may make a donation to: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted... - เพลง
Toscanini's best performance.
Amazing this recording is 90yrs old almost and performance-wise it sounds so modern.
A genius conducting another genius's music... brilliant!
Astonishing. I'm no audiophile, and do not fathom the technical aspects of your work, but I find it difficult to believe this is a 1936 recording. I've enjoyed Toscanini's Beethoven readings due to his aggressiveness in the odd-numbered symphonies. This performance is more measured and controlled. I am very glad I discovered this work.
14:03 No one's better than Beethoven. I love his work, his music, such a talented human
...You think...?
“Talented human” must be the understatement of the century
i must listen to every recording of Toscanini. my hears need.
Me too!
Yes astonishingly modern interpretations. The man basically set the standard for how a modern orchestra should sound.
Thanks, God, for gave us Beethoven.
There’s no god
@@hashfingers
Beethoven croyait en Dieu.
Et Dieu a toujours cru en Beethoven.
1. Poco Sostenuto: Vivace (00:05)
2. Allegretto (11:35)
3. Presto Meno Assai; Presto (20:22)
4. Allegro Con Brio (27:30)
Toscanini, IMHO, was by far the best conductor, ever! It's abdolute unique how the NBC orchestra could sound as a thunder or light as a feather under his directions... dynamic range taken to its best for the sake of perfect emitional balance.
This is not the NBC but the NY Phil
I'm afraid I have to disagree. He was surely a Titan among conductors but no one even gets close to what a C. Kleiber did - even with his very limited discography (but mind you his repertoire was actually very ample). Toscanini was the first 'Urtext' (in his intentions that is but not de facto) conductor of his generation and started a revolution. In addition not many conductors had the luxury of having their own personal orchestra (NBC, although the recording here isn't with them).
De tous les temps ??!!
Vous oubliez peut être Beethoven lui même !!
There is no "Best conductor ever." There are only our individual opinions and perceptions. As to this recording, I personally like it better than most that Toscanini made with the NBC orchestra, reason being that TPO was a better ensemble. Also, I think Toscanini was a bit more interpretively expressive in the 1930's than in the post war years.
@@enricomarconi8358 Carlos Kleiber? You mean his Beethoven 7th? I find it a bit soft edge and unremarkable. The Vienna Philharmonic plays very fine, but actually sounds a lot more determined and responsive in the Bohm recording.
Bravo, bravissimo! It brings tears to the eyes for a bygone era of great performances. Maestro Arturo owns this piece.
Do have a go at C. Kleiber's version... a Must Have. Full stop.
Toscanini is one of the few conductors to stick to Beethoven's Allegretto marking for the second movement instead of slowing it to an Andante. Counterintuitively, I find this tempo allows the music to sing more, with intimate emotions. The beginning of the movement is really sad.
And the last movement! You can actually hear the first violins!
I love Toscanini, but I'm afraid he's guilty of slowing down in the Allegretto. I detect a tempo between 60 and 58 right from the start of the 2nd movement. Beethoven's MM tempo is set at 76 to the crotchet (or better said in Italian alla semiminima). The 1st movement is also too slow and doesn't respect Beethoven's MM indications. However he speeds up later on... before the Vivace in the 1st movement. These issue of the tempi is a disaster with most conductors... I'm sorry to say, but I will have to agree with G. Schuller on that.
@@lptape I agree with you... today's scene is a disaster. You must have noticed that we're not after quality these days... but rather the opposite. Toscanini remains a legend and his recordings are impressive in every way.
@@lptape What's so odd about Mengelberg? He was a wonderful conductor... The problem is that these days we've lost the 'feel for the mission' which is what should power conducting in the first place. First of all, realisation of the score as the inspiration comes from the composition one is conducting. In many cases it's all there even tempo markings when there is none (just look at the phrasing in the strings and you'll know what the frame is and what's possible to cue with any given phrases in the strings).
@@lptape Toscanini 4th with the BBC is outstanding, do listen to C.Kleiber's live performance with the Royal Concertgebouw (paired with a marvellous 7th that is). Beecham's Bizet is also top notch and so is his Boheme. You see, these were other musicians, people where the content mattered more than the 'container' so to speak. Conducting is such a delicate art as it includes understanding the score, REALISING the score (according to the composer's agogic indications and not just the notes), being able to translate music into gesture and, most of all, being able to communicate that to the orchestra. talking about multi-tasking... to do that, we need men of content more than 'containers sales men'... (and I shall know a thing or two as to how difficult conducting is...)
Enough with the Carlos Kleiber. Tiresome.
What's so impressive to me with this performance and fabulous restoration is that everything sounds well balanced,clear,not as hard driven as the NBC forays yet still vital,and pacing that just seems right,esp. the allegretto and finale. Too bad the great Italian maestro didn't record the entire nine with this ensemble! Thanks for your efforts on this one - it was a delight to take in!
Yes he did, there are RCA box sets of LPs -on eBay, for as low as $14 plus shipping
@@keithrodan7763 With the NBC Symphony, not the NY Philharmonic.
Yes, Studio 8H, where did I say NY Phil?
the 1935 BBC Beethoven 7 is also a great performance
Come Toscaninini non ne sono nati nari più❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Absolute truth in every breath.
This recording was accompanying my life for many years, long before the word Internet (let alone TH-cam) was born. It is still my favorite performance of the Seventh (albeit the 1965 recording with Carlos Kleiber and Vienna Phil comes very close).
For me, the first and fourth movements are an extraordinary interpretation. Thank you for the outstanding restoration.
I agree, and I also love the second movement. No so keen on the interpretation of third! :)
Fabulous! thank you for restoring and sharing this recording! When I was a child, my parents had a boxed set of LP records of Toscanini conducting all 9 symphonies. Awesome!
Yes. It was on RCA Victor, brown labels. But the recordings were from the late 1940s to early 1950s.
Grew up the same. Spoiled me for other versions.
Beethoven est un génie, quelle puissance...!
This is a revelation. I applaud you for leaving the hall in the mix - too often the baby is lost with the bath water but not here. In about 10 seconds the ear adjusts, and Toscanini is revivified. Stunning.
This is an epic performance - the warmer acoustic also shows the maestro in a fresh light. Hearing this recording, I can totally understand why both Legge and Karajan saw Toscanini as the archetype for the kind of orchestra they would build together in the Philharmonia. Patrician, yet passionate; intense, yet warm; sharp, yet singing.
Simplemente MARAVILLOSO. Una joya musical que perdurara para siempre..Gracias a quien subio esta melodia...Lo saludo desde Lima, capital del Perù
Hola, Lima! Gracias.
Melodía?
Wonderful performance and excellent sound! Many thanks!
So wonderful, thank you.
Love the 3rd movement
excellent recording!
Thank you a lot!
You're welcome!
Thanks.
Excelente I Mov,cantado y lirico.Creo que el Maestro en sus u'ltimos anios,con la NBC,era ma's rigido en sus interpretaciones.Disfrute' muchisimo e'ste movimiento!!.-
Que maravilla!!
Eccezionale! Tutte le altre settime (Furt, Bernstein, Karajan ecc.) non possono reggere il confronto
A lovely-sounding remastering of a famous recording. I find much to irritate me here, sadly. The triplet 6/8 of the first movement too often moves to duple meters, and as noted below, it would be even better if put closer to the tempo Beethoven asked for. On the other hand, he does do the trio about right, which was a real eye-opener in those days.
Resulta emocionante saber que se trata de un registro de 1936, y en una sala tan prestigiosa como Carnegie Hall.
Toscanini le imprime algo muy propio a Beethoven, un marcado sentido del ritmo. Su vitalidad es persistente y no se desvanece.
El fue el primero director 'urtext' para ponerla así... pero a veces cambiava cosa en la partitura - hay un anécdota con Ravel que se molestò mucho por eso y gritando decía a Toscanini 'El compositor soy YO!!"
If only you would tackle the Schubert 9th from the same year! To my ears it is the finest Schubert 9th ever and deserves a good remastering.
I'll look into it.
@@RS3DArchive I hope you'll LISTEN into it!!!! (BTW, the sound is very bad, which is maybe why this has not been done so far - the Lincoln Center Library has a fairly decent copy so I'm told but getting them to let you use it is another matter)
@@davidjohnson9796 The issue, as you point out, is availability. There are so many Toscanini recordings and so many are not available anywhere. There is also the problem with condition. Some of his recordings are so poor that restoration becomes almost useless. So far I have not been able to locate a source. I do have the 1947 version with the NBC, and that will be dealt with sooner or later. I am currently re-issuing all of his prior posts, (Pre-2020), that is a lot of work, as you can imagine. I will keep looking.
@@RS3DArchive The 1936 is the only one that has "space" both aurally (because of Carnegie Hall) and flexibility that makes it superior musically to all the others (the next best one being the 1941 Philadelphia - I personally don't care for any of the others). I hope you can convince the Lincoln Center Library to at least let you hear it. I think you will agree that the sonic limitations are transcended by the performance (the 1936 Beethoven 9th is a good comparison sound-wise: not great but definitely worth restoring.
@@davidjohnson9796 I am arranging to work with them. We will have to be patient. There could be issues involving unions, etc. Gotta do it legal.
"Germans plays Beethoven like funeral march" 🤣🤣🤣 I love Toscanini ❤
You're still the best
This is actually a somewhat more "conservative" performance than his NBC records. Somewhat slower but better shaped and better acoustics than 8H. His records with the NBC orch have more bite and perhaps more drive, but this one sounds better overall.
I would say more flexible, not more conservative.
A quick question: Which version are you using for the first side of the (I assume) 78s? The original issue or the second version, which went on sake in 1942 I believe, after the first one was damaged? The first one is 20 seconds longer. Thanks.
This is from "The Toscanini Collection" on RCA (Earlier release). The matrix numbers are listed in the booklet which I do not have. I will be issuing this again soon from the Second Edition.
Very, very nice. More polished than Furtwangler (BSO), who I prefer for this piece.
Furtwangler never conducted the BSO. Do you mean BPO?
👍🙂👍
11:37 2nd mov
Paul, You show this as having been mastered in Feb. and March. How does this edition differ from your earlier efforts? I'm just interested in what refinements you are using now.
Sourcing is the primary difference. A more authentic sound, which is less pretty and more accurate, is represented here. We have also dialed in the Orchestra and its spatial orientation more accurately than before. Finally, Carnegie Hall itself. I have been analyzing Carnegie Hall in its earlier incarnations and making time-align studies of it's acoustic properties. Basically, re-doing what RCA was probably doing in the late 1930s prior to their efforts there. It turns out that the hall has some Jekyll and Hyde characteristics in terms of the acoustics; the stage co-efficient reverses at the threshold between the stage and the main hall, where the audience sits. Perhaps this is because Carnegie Hall was designed to make it so that a whisper on the stage could be heard in the back of the hall. I suspect that this design caused a field effect that caused this reversal, which understandably would have nullified standing waves and cleaned up the hall. However, it made it a very tough place to record in with simple, open mics. /my guess is that this is the chief reason why RCA opted to use ribbons to cover the stage for later recording. They could put mics right into the orchestra and eliminate the boomy qualities that condensers picked up when trying to record from greater distance, which tended to make things muddy. The 36 recording is clearly with condensers, and picked up a lot of acoustics. We left those alone. In our prior issue, we went along with the Camden issue idea of sweetened sound using EQ. In the current one, this was abandoned in favor of time-align accuracy, which avoids the use of EQ, which throws everything out.
I like the end result very much. Thanks!
The level of expertise required to even describe what happened over history and across recordings is amazing. I really like the "rawness" and clarity of the sound in this recording. It is awesome. I'm in psychology, and one of the challenges in any data analysis for research is the level of smoothing one might have to do on any continuous data one works with. When you oversmooth (to eliminate "noise"), you tend to capture a main factor in the data but may miss other factors. I think that may be similar to what you're describing here, right? EQ smooths the acoustic data? So you capture the primary melody but may miss the additional factors the performance seeks to convey.
@@DoyleAndrewCarson I apologize for not responding sooner. As you can imagine, I am still a working engineer and often very busy. EQ's primary effect is time align; it can pull a violin out of it's actual position in the room. We use EQ constantly, but only to achieve time align. Think of it as synchronizing harmonics and you're very close to what it does. Most people only use it as a glorified tone control, but pros never use it for that. NR actually re-shapes harmonics, especially of the automated variety. We are finding that most forms of noise can be handled acoustically without additional processing. The present recording was mastered by using this acoustic principle, as it yields more accurate results than processing does.
@@RS3DArchive I love the sound that you have found - hard and authentic. But I have not got a clue what you are talking about.
As great as this sounds, Paul, do you think it would benefit from the new FAR methodology, similar to the 1952 9th?
I also wonder if you have access to a good master of the 1927 Stokowski/Philadelphia 7th? As a performance, it's right up there with this one, the Carlos Kleiber and the Furtwangler recordings, IMHO.
Are you a mind reader? That is exactly what is coming up today. I hope you enjoy it.
That Stokowski 7th is wonderful. He added an organ to the bass line to bring it out especially in the last movement. That and this 7th are my favorite perfs of this work. For those who need more modern sounding acoustics, I recommend Munch and the Boston. More wonders!
I strongly disagree.The 1951 recording with the NBC Symphony Orchestra is nonpareil.
On second hearing I’ve reconsidered my hasty opinion.This performance is more nuanced and warm.I was accustomed to the strong momentum of the 1951 version.
I always come back to the 1936 NYPO recording. As much as I admire Toscanini's linear precision in his frenetically driven performances post-1945, I find this more measured and reflective. He lets the music flow naturally, and it is through his sense of refinement and focused sonorities that I am drawn into this recording, time and again.
About the remasterings, how does this one compare to the Opus Kura and Pristine Audio? Any helpful guidance much appreciated.
The main difference is the physics applied during the mastering process. The present recording, and all other posts on this channel, uses Field Acoustic Reimaging, which is based upon atmospheric displacement. Unlike artificial stereo the original acoustics are recaptured by defining the mass of the orchestra in real time. This is also what is defined in an original stereo recording, which uses panning and multichannel technology to define acoustics. The other recordings you refer to use the common method of applying convolution reverb to simulate a stereo effect, but the acoustics of the original are not actually defined.
@@RS3DArchive Marvelous reply, much appreciated -- you must be Paul Howard, yes? I admire your work. In his piece on Toscanini's 10 greatest recordings (previewed on TH-cam & just posted in full @ Classics Today), David Hurwitz begins the list, as expected, with this 1936 NY Phil Beethoven #7, for which he recommends the Opus Kura (which I can't find anywhere to sample), and I own the Pristine Audio CD, which is almost, to my ears, too pristine. I like yours better -- more air, more punch. Do you offer FLAC downloads anywhere?
@@issadad Sadly, I do not. I say sadly because the full resolution files at SACD res are much better. I honor all copyrights, which is why I cannot share these. But I will give you a tip; YT files are downloadable ,and upres surprisingly well. I use a resolution that is linear in its translation to YT. When upresed to SACD, they come back remarkably close to the original, because the up-sample rate is also linear.
@@RS3DArchive Hm. I respect your position. So are we in jeopardy if I were to ask what "upres" means? I download a lot from TH-cam, and all songs arrive as 320 kbps files which I drop into iTunes. I could use file Converter software to turn these 320 .mp3's into WAV files (compatible with iTunes), but I've always been told that that sort of in-name-only conversion is illusory and won't really do anything -- that is, add more actual music data to a file. True? No? Yes? Unless upres is only accessible via Hogwart's Express, I'd love to know how. Again, thanks. Btw I just brought down your Toscanini '53 Eroica!
@@issadad No jeopardy at all! I have never cross loaded into iTunes, but the most likely definition is to simply change a header from one protocol to another. That does not actually change resolution. An upres of audio is usually achieved through a third party program, known as a DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation. This involves software which resamples an audio file by either increasing or decreasing it's resolution. Most web streaming uses highly compressed files such as MP3 or MP4, you can convert these files into higher quality file formats using software. This can range from purchased programs to freeware. All are easily downloaded from internet sources. There are a number of free programs which can do this.
11:40 for the start of the second movement 👀
La vitesse de la bande est un petit peu accélérer dans le 3ème mouvement !!
The 4th movement unfortunately has too little brio and is too dragged for me. I feel more comfortable with Furtwängler or Kleiber.
Sorry to bother you again but this version uses the 2nd take of side pne of the 78s. The first take was Toscanini's preference but wore out and became damaged. Here is a link to the earlier version. th-cam.com/video/ZiMg5zObBrs/w-d-xo.html
Good performance, but not my favorite Beethoven symphony--somewhat bombastic and overblown. Conductor Thomas Beecham referred sarcastically to the first movement as "yaks dancing."
"bombastic and overblown"!? Perhaps the very reasons this was Wagner's favorite Beethoven symphony? I rather like it in parts.
As for Sir Thomas, my favorite quote of his was referring to the sound of the harpsichord as "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof"...
I prefer his 1939 Cycle for all 9 symphonies.
karajan est plus ''prussien"" plus romantisme germanique.....
I like the 8 more from Toscanini. This version is quite rigid, no real development.
Toscanini did something wrong with the beginning of the 4th movement. Instead of firing a shot to let the horse run at breakneck speed, he held it back! Uncharacteristic.
Bof... Il manque à cette interprétation rigoureuse mais sage la folie démiurgique que savait inspirer à cette partition le génial Furtwaengler !
Geniale Furtwaengler? Lontanissimo dagli autori e vicinissimo a se stesso e agli ideali estetici romantico-decadenti-nazi. Toscaninini non sarà stato il più grande interprete di Beethoven, ma si avvicinava alla sua vera essenza molto più del mgniloquente Furt.