Arturo Toscanini

"Mortimer H. Frank's Arturo Toscanini: The NBC Years covers the capstone of the maestro's life, his leadership (1937 to 1954) of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the longest professional association of his unprecedented sixty-eight-year career. In an extraordinary act of corporate awareness and patronage, RCA's David Sarnoff created the orchestra expressly for Toscanini and for radio. From the outset, its broadcasts were immensely popular, the conductor's first appearance with the ensemble generating 50,000 requests for 1400 available seats. Fortunately what was called at the time "the miracle of broadcasting" allowed millions to hear him, making Toscanini's name virtually synonymous with conducting. And his fiery personality and legendary art created controversy that has continued to this day.". "This account suggests that his work before an audience was often more compelling than his commercially issued studio productions. Frank's analyses add considerably to what can be known about the conductor. In so doing, they correct misconceptions about the period and the man, questioning both the blind hero-worship that Toscanini engendered and more recent revisionist strictures that have ignored recorded evidence."--BOOK JACKET.