The Immolation Scene and Rienzi Overture both showed up some 15 or so years ago in a three-disc Memories box devoted to Toscanini’s Wagner, but in rather dim transfers (especially for the Immolation Scene) that, while at least suggesting the power of the performances, could not let them be heard anywhere near properly, a problem the current release more than sets right. Toscanini’s Rienzi Overture is a weighty, dramatic, powerfully conceived, lyrical where necessary, broadly sculpted account that impressively avoids the level of bombast or even silliness that can so damagingly and typically undermine performances of this work. The Immolation Scene is truly extraordinary: majestic, awesomely detailed, with overwhelming cumulative power. Toscanini’s RCA recording with Traubel, made in Carnegie Hall just two days after the broadcast, certainly preserves the incandescence of the reading, but doesn’t match the thrilling impact of the live performance. The same concert also featured Traubel in “Dich, teure Halle” from Tannhäuser, and in the duets with Lauritz Melchior from Die Walküre and Götterdämmerung originally released by RCA decades ago on LP. The Immolation Scene concluded the program, with Traubel at that point clearly stretched to her limit, though this does not at all diminish the end result.

This leaves only the “Pastoral” Symphony and Brahms Fourth for comment. I’ve always preferred Toscanini’s BBC Symphony recordings of Beethoven’s First and Fourth symphonies (from 1937 and 1939, respectively) to this 1937 “Pastoral,” finding its first movement in particular generally unatmospheric and unyielding, not to mention some bothersomely untidy string-playing. But the previously unissued NBC Brahms Fourth of November 1948 is surely itself worth the already low price of this entire two-disc set. In his annotations, Mort Frank describes this as “perhaps [Toscanini’s] finest surviving account of the work.” Though I haven’t heard them all, I certainly hear nothing to discount his judgment. All of the adjectives (and adverbs) appropriate to a truly inspired performance on the part of both orchestra and conductor apply here at all the right moments: firmly controlled, lyrical, intense, flexible, rhetorical, poetic, expansive, broad-breathed, forward-moving, consistently engaging, expertly balanced, remarkably phrased, cumulatively powerful, with not a single note going for nothing, and extraordinary textural transparency. Further, the full-bodied recorded sound contributes markedly to the overall effect, the clarity of the bass line in particular providing a rock-solid foundation and springboard for the whole. This now takes its place alongside my preferred Toscanini broadcast of the Brahms Third, also with the NBC Symphony, that of February 8, 1941, issued a few years ago by Naxos."

Marc Mandel, FANFARE