On 13 Jun, 22:09, Andrew Rose
pristineaudio.com> wrote:> Kerrison wrote:
>> On 13 Jun, 21:47, "Wagner Fan"
comcast.net> wrote:>>> "Kerrison"
yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message>
>
>>>> On Jun 13, 2:52?pm, Kerrison
yahoo.co.uk> wrote:>>>>> On 13 Jun, 19:44, Andrew Rose
pristineaudio.com> wrote:>>>>>> Andrew Rose wrote:
>>>>>>> Only once did Toscanini programme an all-Debussy concert
>>>>>> ...apart from the two he did with the NBC SO...
>>>>>> (whoops!)
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Andrew Rose - Pristine Classical
>>>>>> The online home of Classical
Music:www.pristineclassical.com>>>>> Quote: "Toscanini met Debussy for the first time in Paris in 1910, and
>>>>> later corresponded with him on a number of occasions - including
>>>>> asking for - and gaining - permission from the composer to adjust
>>>>> aspects of the orchestration in La Mer with doublings and rebalancings
>>>>> in order to improve the clarity of sound, particularly in the inner
>>>>> voices. "
>>>>> Could you please supply precise chapter and verse as to this
>>>>> correspondence in the form of hard and fast evidence: that is to say,
>>>>> the dates they corresponded, (day/month/year), and also exactly where
>>>>> this actual correspondence can be seen or found. Additionally, if you
>>>>> have photocopies in your own collection which you are citing here,
>>>>> please let us know where you obtained them and from whom. Thanks.
>>>> I assume that Andrew excerpted that from "The Letters of Arturo
>>>> Toscanini compiled, edited, and translated by Harvey Sachs" (Alfred A.
>>>> Knopf, New York, 2002). I have just looked at my copy's index; there
>>>> are many, many entries about Toscanini and Debussy. I haven't had time
>>>> to look up all of them. Regardless, I remember reading those words by
>>>> Toscanini in Sachs's book.
>>>> I'm sure that Andrew Rose will reply on his own.
>>>> The book is of inestimable importance and should be purchased and
>>>> read by anyone interested in this great musician and complicated, even
>>>> tormented, man (Toscanini). I'll bet that you'd like Sachs's book a
>>>> lot.
>>>> Don Tait- Hide quoted text -
>>>> - Show quoted text -
>>> I fear you assume incorrectly: there may indeed be many entries about
>>> Toscanini and Debussy in Sach's book, which I've already consulted,
>>> but none in respect of this alleged "permission" to tamper with La
>>> Mer. Neither is there a single reference to it in any of the books on
>>> Debussy, including the complete Debussy Letters as translated by Roger
>>> Nichols (Faber & Faber 1987). This is why it will be especially
>>> interesting to learn of the hard factual evidence, and the precise
>>> location of the source material, that Mr Rose will doubtless supply.
>
>>> Its also mentioned in this article but no source is given
>
>
>>> Wagner Fan- Hide quoted text -
>
>>> - Show quoted text -
>
>> Thanks for the link but again it's nothing more than one writer
>> rehashing what another writer has written in what really amounts to
>> second or third-hand hearsay. I'm still interested to know exactly
>> when this alleged "correspondence" took place and indeed in which
>> language it was conducted.
>
> My own source is Mortimer H. Frank's "Arturo Toscanini The NBC Years",
>
> in which he writes:
>
> "The relatively dry acoustics of studio 8H may have contributed to
> Toscanini's obsession with clarity in La mer. Granted, he had always
> sought it, gaining approval from Debussy to amend the score with
> doublings and rebalancings so that everything would "sound"..." (p.153)
>
> If this is factually incorrect I suggest you take it up with Mr. Frank.
>
> --
> Andrew Rose - Pristine Classical
>
> The online home of Classical
Music:www.pristineclassical.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Why should I take it up with Mr Frank when it is not him but you who
have stated here that AT and Debussy "corresponded on a number of
occasions." How many occasions exactly, and when?
Evidently you can't after all produce one iota of evidence and neither
could Frank, as it happens, since he - like the writer in the link
above - all too obviously copied down what he'd read somewhere else,
just like you've done, without bothering to check any facts. He can no
more produce the "correspondence" you refer to than anyone else, since
none exists nor has ever existed.
What we have here is a classic example of the Toscanini adulators,
having painted themselves into a corner with all that "Do As Written"
baloney, desperately scratching around to try and get their idol off
the "tampering with the score again" hook by cooking up this fiction
about "permissions" and "correspondences". I suppose Frank will be
telling us next that Toscanini got Tchaikovsky's "permission" to
rescore the Manfred Symphony from the very first bar, adding tam-tam
crashes here, cutting 100 bars there, having trumpets play the oboe
parts somewhere else, re-writing the string parts, and so on. If he
did I wouldn't put it past certain people to believe him.
