Toscanini and Vivaldi

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1937, as a Christmas gift to the nation, the NBC radio network broadcast the first NBC Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The orchestra had been specifically created to lure the famous Italian conductor back to America.

For the first selection on his first concert, Toscanini chose what was then an obscure piece an obscure Italian composer named Antonio Vivaldi: his Concerto Grosso No. 11, to be exact.

These days we are used to hearing Baroque music in “historically informed performances,” “hip” for short, and often played on period instruments. By those standards, Toscanini’s Vivaldi might be described as “pre-historic,” but in 1937 it must have seemed a shockingly hip selection: a bracing, bold shot of unfamiliar Baroque music by a composer rarely — if ever — heard on a symphony concert.

In fact, one might argue that Toscanini was trying to be “historically informed,” since he probably used a score prepared by the Italian musicologist and composer Gian Francesco Malipiero, based on manuscripts and original editions of Vivaldi’s music found in the library of the Liceo Musicale in Venice, where Malipiero taught in the 1930s and Vivaldi lived in the 1730s.

Music Played in Today's Program

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Concerto Grosso No. 11; NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor (r. Dec. 25, 1937)

On This Day

Births

• 1583 - Baptism of English composer and organist Orlando Gibbons, in Oxford

Deaths

• 1845 - German composer Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst Bach, 86, in Berlin. His father was the “Buckeburg” Bach, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (The last of J.S. Bach’s composer-children).

• 1871 - Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (Gregorian date: Jan. 6, 1872)

Premieres

• 1723 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 63 (Christen, Ätzet Diesen Tag) and Magnificat, performed on the First Day of Christmas as part of Bach’s first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24)

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 91 (Gelobet Seist Du, Jesu Christ) performed Christmas Day as part of Bach’s second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25)

• 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 110 (Unser Mund sei Voll Lachens) performed on Christmas Day as part of Bach’s third annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1725/27);

• 1728 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 197a (Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe) probably performed in Leipzig on Christmas Day as part of Bach’s fourth annual Sacred Cantata cycle (to texts by Christian Friedrich Henrici, a.k.a. Picander) during 1728/29

• 1734 - Bach: Part 1 (Jauchzet, Frohlocket) of the six-part Christmas Oratorio, in Leipzig

• 1815 - Beethoven: cantata Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt (Sea Calm and Prosperous Voyage) and the Namensfeier (Name Day Fest) Overture, at the Redoutensaal in Vienna, conducted by Beethoven, at a benefit for the Citizens’ Hospital Fund

• 1818 - Franz Gruber: “Silent Night,” in St. Nicholas Church, Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria, composed the night before (Christmas Eve)

• 1870 - Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, at his villa in Switzerland as a combined birthday and Christmas gift to his 33-year old wife, Cosima (she was born on Dec. 24, 1837), Hans Richter playing trumpet and Wagner conducting an ensemble from the top of the staircase. The work is named for their son Siegfried who was six months old on that Christmas morning, and who later also became a composer.

• 1902 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera Kashchey the Immortal, in Moscow, Ippolitov-Ivanov conducting (Julian date: Dec. 12)

• 1934 - Shostakovich: Cello Sonata, in Leningrad, by cellist Viktor Kubatsky, with the composer at the piano

Others

• 1821 - Beethoven finishes his Piano Sonata No. 29 (Hammerklavier)

• 1931 - First national radio broadcast of a complete opera, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, New York City

• 1937 - Arturo Toscanini conducts his first radio concert by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, consisting of a Vivaldi concerto in D minor, Mozart Symphony No. 40 and Brahms Symphony No. 1