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A Social History of American Concert Life
University of California Press
May 1994
On Sale: May 6, 1994
492 pages
ISBN: 0520085426
EAN: 9780520085428
Trade Size (reprint)
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Non-Fiction Biography
As America's symbol of Great Music, Arturo Toscanini and the
"masterpieces" he served were regarded with religious awe.
As a celebrity personality, he was heralded for everything
from his unwavering stance against Hitler and Mussolini and
his cataclysmic tantrums, to his "democratic" penchants for
television wrestling and soup for dinner. During his years
with the Metropolitan Opera (1908-15) and the New York
Philharmonic (1926-36) he was regularly proclaimed the
"world's greatest conductor ." And with the NBC Symphony
(1937-54), created for him by RCA's David Sarnoff, he became
the beneficiary of a voracious multimedia promotional
apparatus that spread Toscanini madness nationwide.
According to Life, he was as well-known as Joe Dimaggio;
Time twice put him on its cover; and the New York Herald
Tribune attributed Toscanini's fame to simple recognition of
his unique "greatness."
In this boldly conceived and superbly realized study, Joseph
Horowitz reveals how and why Toscanini became the object of
unparalleled veneration in the United States. Combining
biography, cultural history, and music criticism, Horowitz
explores the cultural and commercial mechanisms that created
America's Toscanini cult and fostered, in turn, a
Eurocentric, anachronistic new audience for old music.
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