Toscanini, Harvey Sachs
Toscanini, Harvey Sachs
List: $39.99 | Sale: $28.00
Club: $19.99

Toscanini
Musician of Conscience

Author: Harvey Sachs

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 40 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/27/2017


Synopsis

During a sixty-eight year career, conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957) was famed for his fierce dedication, photographic memory, explosive temper, and impassioned performances. At various times he dominated La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the NBC Symphony, and the Bayreuth, Salzburg, and Lucerne festivals. His reforms influenced generations of musicians, and his opposition to Nazism and Fascism made him a model for artists of conscience. Thanks to unprecedented access to the conductor's archives, Harvey Sachs has written a completely new biography that positions Toscanini's epic musical career and sometimes scandalous life against the roiling currents of history. Set in his native Italy, across Europe and the Americas, and in 1930s Palestine, Toscanini soars in its exploration of genius, music, and moral courage, taking its place among the greatest music biographies of our time.

About Harvey Sachs

Harvey Sachs, author and music historian, has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, and many other publications. He is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lester on August 02, 2017

Immensely enjoyable from start to finish, and balanced beautifully between the conductor's professional and personal life, this is one of the best biographies of anyone I've ever read. Toscanini was an amazing musician, a walking contradiction in his generosity of spirit, political ethics, his hurtf......more

Goodreads review by Susan on September 06, 2017

Certainly a major book. Not just about Toscanini, but about being a musician of extraordinary perception. Aside from the minute details of Toscanini's professional life, Sachs using new material fills out the contradictory (sometimes) more than life size personality of his subject. Both the strong l......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on February 09, 2016

Funny and personal. I read it twice. Five stars.......more