Toscanini, we are told, was fond of Bizet's music - Carmen in particular was "led many times in the theater" (Mortimer H. Frank) - and yet it rarely appeared on his NBC Symphony Orchestra broadcasts. The major exception to this was a concert outside of the regular yearly broadcast seasons, given on 19th September 1943 in NBC's Studio 8H as a War Bonds fund-raiser. ("Send $1000 to your radio station for War Bonds and you'll receive a special signed photograph of Arturo Toscanini...")

The concert featured three suites derived and adapted by Toscanini from the operas of Bizet: La Jolie Fille de Perth (The Fair Maid of Perth), L'Arl�sienne and Carmen, none of which coincides exactly with the regular published suites connected with each work. Items are cut, suites are mixed and matched, and Toscanini even gets down to a little composition himself, with a harp cadenza written for Carmen.

As I explain in my notes, this came to me in a variety of transcriptions, some complete, others partial. My task was not only restore each of four options to the point at which I could reliably select the best for each part of the broadcast performance, but then to mix and match these in as seamless a manner as possible and squeeze the very best possible sound quality from each.

The finest quality was to be found in discs prepared for rebroadcast in South America - and quite possibly live short-wave transmission there as well. I'm told that these were prepared simultaneously to the live broadcast, with the Spanish commentator sitting in a booth next to the one in which Ben Grauer introduced the programme to US and Canadian listeners.

George Gershwin

With a little space to spare I was able to add another recording to this release - after all that French music, why not explore the idea of an American in Paris, as conjured up by George Gershwin in 1928. By this time the saxophone was starting to become more associated with jazz, and it can be heard in this score - but you'll also hear it in the Bizet concert of 1943, Bizet being the first major composer to write for the instrument in an orchestral context.

As with the Bizet concert - and particularly the Spanish transcriptions - the sound quality here is superb, and after XR remastering sounds more 1950s or even 1960s than mid-forties. It really is spectacular, and one senses Toscanini would have made fine work of other jazz-influenced composers of the day, given the inclination and opportunity based on what he achieves here. There's a life and zip to this live performance that perhaps exceeds that of his studio recording made a couple of months after.





There's more to read about the technology behind this here if you're interested (and there are far more complex descriptions elsewhere):

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