Deryk Barker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Robert Clements ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
>
>>Politically, he loathed facism/naziism with a fury; an attitude which
>>cost him quite a few opportunities in Europe.
>
>Some of this may have been the zeal of the reformed, though: Toscanini
>actually stood as a fascist candidate in the 1919 (?) Italian elections.

1917 or 1919...  i can't quite remember myself; but it definitely occurred
at a very early stage in Fascist politics, when it could be plausibly be
considered as an extension of the Italian revolutionary movements of the
19th century.  As much as anything else, Toscanini saw himself in the
politicoartistic tradition of Rossini & Verdi.

By the mid 20s, Toscanini was publically critical of the party; & snubbing
party leadership whenever it made an appearance at his concerts, despite
the fact that this was costing him lira in patronage.  Toscanini's single
appearance at Bayreuth (1929) was due to the Wagner family adopting Nazi
patronage shortly afterwards.  Enough to establish a clear & early
consistancy with later behaviour.

>>Aesthetically, Toscanini was brough up with the same Goethic visions
>>of the artist-as-hero (ie, not because the artist did something heroic,
>>as in the case of Theodorakis; but merely because he was an artist) as the
>>facists/nazis were; so the sense that his conducting style sounds facistic
>>probably isn't facile.
>
>But that same tradition also produced At's antithesis: Furtwaengler.

On one level:  absolutely - that's the point....  the difference only shows
that artistic spirituality may or may not create art artists; but it does
nothing about their broader need for ethics.

On another level:  though the styles which the two conductors followed were
spiritually dissimilar, they both reflect a belief in the holy duty of the
artist to create art.  You might argue that Toscanini & Furtwangler follow
different Muses; but they are both follow the Muses....

All the best,
Robert Clements <[log in to unmask]>