Post by f***@gmail.comYes he said so. But. It seems that he said so just after what it was reported by some "friend" of him, as he did not listened to those recordings. In the '60s it seems that Shosty changed his mind, after he finally could listen to those recordings.
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Is there any documentation on when and how DSCH heard the Toscanini performance of the 7th?
Was the NBC broadcast available in the Soviet Union by short-wave transmission? Did NBC (or some other entity) provide a set of acetates during war-time?
A book on this work [“Symphony for the City of the Dead,” by M.T. Anderson] does not address these specifics. But it does relate some other, interesting accounts of the events before that performance.
First, the Toscanini/NBC performance was preceded a month earlier by Sir Henry Wood conducting the London Philharmonic in the ‘BBC Studios’ on June 22, 1942. (p. 327). The book fails to indicate whether it was broadcast or whether a recording exists.
Secondly, regarding preparations at the NBC: “The parts were riddled with errors. All of these had to be corrected.” “The clarinetist discovered that Russian clarinets had an extra hole. He had to bore his own.” I was unable to find any specific reference to DSCH’s reaction, at that time or later, to Toscanini’s performance.
Jerry