January 16, 1957
Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, 89, died of a stroke at his home in Riverdale. His life represented his passion both for music and for human dignity.
He was intense, fierce. His temper would flare as he demanded perfection and spirit from his musicians, wanting to convey the deepest emotions of the music. Bad rehearsals would cause him to tear his hair, shout, and storm off the stage.
He conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1908–1915), the New York Philharmonic from 1926–1936, and toured South America and Europe with that same orchestra in the 1930s. In the early age of aviation he was renowned as a globe-trotting celebrity conductor.
Vehemently opposed to Fascism in his native Italy, Toscanini refused to play the Fascist anthem Giovinezza at a concert in May 14, 1931, and was later severely beaten by Fascist Blackshirts. Mussolini, who once called him “the greatest conductor in the world,” furiously took away his Italian passport, tapped his phone, and placed him under constant surveillance. The passport was returned only in response to world outrage, and he fled permanently with his family to New York.
In 1936, visibly in tears, he conducted the first concert of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (now the Israel Philharmonic) in Jerusalem. Orchestra members were refugees of Nazi persecution.
In November 1937 the NBC Symphony in Rockefeller Center was created for him. It was aired on the radio to cheer millions during the Depression, and continued until his retirement in 1954. Hundreds of the NBC Symphony’s recordings were made during that time, and he can still be heard singing or humming along with them.
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