Arturo Toscanini, at the time a 19-year-old cellist who was assistant chorus master, was persuaded to take up the baton for the performance.

Strauss's seeming relationship with the Nazis in the 1930s attracted criticism from some noted musicians, including Arturo Toscanini, who in 1933 had said, " To Strauss the composer I take off my hat ; to Strauss the man I put it back on again ," when Strauss had accepted the presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer.

It did not maintain a regular place in the repertory, despite the advocacy of Arturo Toscanini, who conducted it in New York three years in succession, and Sir Thomas Beecham, who pronounced it " one of the finest lyrical dramas of our time ," and staged it at Covent Garden in 1937.

Other conductors who have recorded the work include Arturo Toscanini, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Leopold Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy, William Steinberg and André Previn, as well as leading English conductors from Sir Henry Wood and Sir Adrian Boult to Sir Simon Rattle.

Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, who judged it the finest orchestra he had ever conducted.

Although he also worked with Wagnerian heldentenor Lauritz Melchior, he would not work with Melchior's frequent partner Kirsten Flagstad after her political sympathies became suspect during World War II ; it was Helen Traubel who sang with Melchior instead of Flagstad at the Toscanini concerts.

Sachs and other biographers have documented the numerous conductors, singers, and musicians who visited Toscanini during his retirement.

Frank and Dyment also discuss Maestro Toscanini's performance history in the 50th anniversary issue of Classic Record Collector ( 2006, 47 ) Frank with ' Toscanini – Myth and Reality ' ( 10 – 14 ) and Dyment ' A Whirlwind in London ' ( 15 – 21 ) This issue also contains interviews with people who performed with Toscanini – Jon Tolansky ' Licia Albanese – Maestro and Me ' ( 22 – 6 ) and ' A Mesmerising Beat: John Tolansky talks to some of those who worked with Arturo Toscanini, to discover some of the secrets of his hold over singers, orchestras and audiences.

While online critics such as Peter Gutmann have dismissed much of what was written about Toscanini during his lifetime as " adoring puffery ", it neverthleless remains a fact that composers and others who worked with the Maestro readily acknowledged what they felt was his greatness, and audio interviews containing the praise of such luminaries as Aaron Copland still exist.

Conversely, Joseph Horowitz contends that those who keep the Toscanini legend alive are members of a " Toscanini cult ", an idea not altogether refuted by Frank, but not embraced by him, either.

The show, hosted by NBC announcer Ben Grauer, who had also hosted many of the original Toscanini broadcasts, featured interviews with members of the conductor's family, as well as musicians of the NBC Symphony, David Sarnoff, and noted classical musicians who had worked with the conductor, such as Giovanni Martinelli.

* Antek, Samuel ( author ) and Hupka, Robert ( photographs ), This Was Toscanini, New York: Vanguard Press, 1963 ( consists of a series of essays by one of the NBC Symphony musicians who played under Toscanini, combined with remarkable rehearsal photographs from the latter part of Toscanini's career ).

Brunswick also embarked on an ambitious domestic classical recording program, recording the New York String Quartet, the Cleveland Orchestra under Nikolai Sokoloff ( who had been recording acoustically for Brunswick since 1924 ), and in a tremendous steal from Victor, the New York Philharmonic with conductors Willem Mengelberg and Arturo Toscanini.

Gatti-Casazza brought with him Arturo Toscanini, the fiery and brilliant conductor who had led La Scala during Gatti's years there as manager.

His best-known books are about Toscanini: Conversations with Toscanini ( 1959 ), a personal reminiscence and the closest thing to a series of interviews with the publicity-shy Toscanini that has ever been published, and The Toscanini Musicians Knew ( 1967 ), a series of interviews with musicians who played or sang under the venerable Italian maestro.

Puccini, however, seems to have had some inkling of the possible seriousness of his condition since, before leaving for Brussels, he visited Toscanini and begged him, " Don't let my Turandot die.

After the severe criticisms by Ricordi and the conductor Arturo Toscanini, he was forced to write a second, strictly censored version that followed Puccini's sketches more closely, to the point where he did not set some of Adami's text to music because Puccini had not indicated how he wanted it to sound.

During a 1935 tour in Salzburg, the famed conductor Arturo Toscanini told her she had a voice " heard once in a hundred years.

One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra, which had been created especially for him.

He completed ( but later destroyed ) another opera, Ero e Leandro, and left incomplete a further opera, Nerone, which he had been working at, on and off, between 1877 and 1915 ; excluding its last act, for which Boito left only a few sketches, Nerone was finished after his death by Arturo Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini and premiered at La Scala, 1924.

Arturo Toscanini, widely regarded at the time as the world's leading conductor, conducted the BBC SO in 1935 and later said that it was the finest he had ever directed.

Toscanini had left in search of higher fees with the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Although he had no conducting experience, Toscanini was eventually convinced by the musicians to take up the baton at 9: 15 pm, and led a performance of the two-and-a-half hour opera.

Later that year, Toscanini had a disagreement with NBC management over their use of his musicians in other NBC broadcasts.

At La Scala, which had what was then the most modern stage lighting system installed in 1901 and an orchestral pit installed in 1907, Toscanini pushed through reforms in the performance of opera.

Key acted on a dream he had of meeting Toscanini by starting the Arturo Toscanini Society to release a number of " unapproved " live performances by Toscanini.

Because the Arturo Toscanini Society was nonprofit, Key said he believed he had successfully bypassed both copyright restrictions and the maze of contractual ties between RCA and the Maestro's family.

But classical-LP profits were low enough even in 1970, and piracy by fly-by-night firms so prevalent within the industry ( an estimated $ 100 million in tape sales for 1969 alone ), that even a benevolent buccaneer outfit like the Arturo Toscanini Society had to be looked at twice before it could be tolerated.

Toscanini fans and record collectors were dismayed because, although Toscanini had not approved the release of these performances in every case, many of them were found to be further proof of the greatness of the Maestro's musical talents.

The former principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic had been the youngest member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic when it was founded in 1919, and had turned to conducting at the suggestion of Arturo Toscanini.

In 1938, at the insistence of Arturo Toscanini, Steinberg left Germany for the United States, by way of Switzerland.

Original poster for Puccini's ToscaLa bohème was premiered in Turin in 1896, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Years later, Arturo Toscanini recorded the music for RCA Victor with the NBC Symphony Orchestra which complements the 1947 Toscanini performance of the complete opera.

Arturo Toscanini conducted the vast forces of combined orchestras and choirs composed of musicians from throughout Italy at the state funeral for Verdi in Milan.

** Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is played on television in its entirety for the first time, in a concert featuring Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

* December 25 – At the age of 70, legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra on radio for the first time, beginning his successful 17-year tenure with that orchestra.

* December 6 – With the NBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Arturo Toscanini performs what he claims is his favorite Beethoven symphony, Eroica, for the last time.

Of this version, about three minutes were cut for performance by Toscanini, and it is this shortened version that is usually performed.

In his 1944 film, the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini also incorporated " The Internationale " for the Soviet Union and " The Star-Spangled Banner " representing the United States.

Vladimir Horowitz developed a special fondness for Clementi's work after his wife, Wanda Toscanini, bought him Clementi's complete works.

Mengelberg and Toscanini both led the Philharmonic in recording sessions for the Victor Talking Machine Company and Brunswick Records, initially in a recording studio ( for the acoustically-recorded Victors, all under Mengelberg ) and eventually in Carnegie Hall as electrical recording was developed.

Additional Toscanini recordings with the Philharmonic, all for Victor, took place on Carnegie Hall's stage in 1929 and 1936.

After an unsuccessful attempt to hire the German conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, the English conductor John Barbirolli and the Polish conductor Artur Rodziński were joint replacements for Toscanini in 1936.

The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra established by David Sarnoff of the National Broadcasting Company ( NBC ) especially for conductor Arturo Toscanini.

The NBC Symphony performed weekly radio concert broadcasts with Toscanini and other conductors and served as house orchestra for the network, beginning November 13, 1937 and continuing until 1954.

Artur Rodziński, a noted orchestra builder and musical task master in his own right, was engaged to mold and train the new orchestra especially for Toscanini.

Toscanini led the NBC Symphony for 17 years.

During this time Toscanini continued to lead the orchestra in a series of public benefit concerts for war relief.