I bought the recording with Toscanini and the NBC Orq.(1939) and also,
in an other CD symph.  nr 3 and 5.  I bought them believing I would like
a lot, once so many friends and listeners praised them.  Surprisingly -
for me - I didn't like them.  I felt some arrogance or pretension on the
way he conduced; some kind of "inflation of potency"; an Italian that
wanted to be German - horrible to say that, but its what I felt most part
of time listening these three symphonies with him.  On many passages, he
seemed just noisy, on others just furious.  Many times the metals "scream"
so loud that breaks equilibrium of the sound, looking like a car beeping on
the street.  On the 9th 4th mov, it is all disconnected!  It looks like a
mosaic of recordings, changed at each twenty compasses.  And 5th 1st mov
fast and furious, but meaning less.

Had Toscanini any relationship with nazists or facists?

That is vary surprising for me, because I like very much Toscanini's Magic
Flute - Life recording (1937- Salzburg Festival, I think) A really great
performance and one of the best Mozart's I ever heard.  A very sensible
performance, full of colors an shadows, with a perfect sense of tragedy
humor.  One could never imagine it was the same Maestro of those Beethoven
Cycle.  Cause of that performance I decided to purchase the Beethoven's
Sym.  with him.

Now I don't know if I will continue buying the cycle with him, if I try his
second cycle or if I will stop and swap to Furtwangler's, or if I swap to
other Mozart's operas and symphonies with him.  Regards

Renato Vinicius Diniz de Carvalho
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