Conductor, Arturo Toscanini was born in Parma in 1867 and died in Riverdale, New York, in 1957.
Arturo Toscanini is now internationally recognized as one of the world’s great conductors.
He graduated in cello in 1885 at the Parma Conservatory and after performing as a cellist in Italy, he went to Rio de Janeiro in 1886 to play in the opera orchestra.
He soon demonstrated his ability to elicit great performances from the musicians while substituting the conductor and he was engaged for the rest of the season.
Toscanini returned to Italy in 1886 and subsequently conducted the premieres of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in 1892, Puccini’s La Bohème in 1896 and the Italian premiere of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung in 1895.
In 1898 he was appointed chief conductor and artistic director at La Scala of Milan, where he presented new operas and the Italian premiere of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger in 1898 and Siegfried in 1899.
From 1908 to 1914 he conducted in New York at the Metropolitan Opera, where he gave American premieres of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden West in 1910 and Wolf-Ferrari’s Le donne curiose in 1912.
Toscanini returned to Italy during World War I and with the reorganized La Scala Orchestra he toured in 192021 in Europe and the United States.
He was artistic director of La Scala from 1921 to 1929 and after his return to the United States, he conducted the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1928 to 1936 and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, founded for him in 1937.
His other engagements included the Bayreuth Festivals of which he was the first non-German conductor, the Salzburg Festivals, the Lucerne Festivals (193739) and in 1936 the inaugural concert of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in Tel Aviv.
In 1954 he retired as conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
A strong personality, Toscanini was greatly respected by performers and widely emulated by conductors. His artistry is preserved in recordings, notably of the symphonies of Beethoven and works by Brahms, Wagner and Verdi.
The tomb of Toscanini is in the Cimitero Monumentale of Milan.
Do not miss a visit to Toscanini birthplace and museum on Via Tanzi, near the Ducal park.
