Once Hitler had gained power in Germany in 1933, Toscanini never conducted there again.

ECONOMIST: Musical lives

In 1926, Arturo Toscanini conducted the first performance of Giacomo Puccini's opera "Turandot" at La Scala, Milan.

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Despite his pre-eminence as a conductor, Toscanini was not infallible on musical matters.

ECONOMIST: Musical lives

In 1954, Arturo Toscanini conducted his last concert with the NBC Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

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In Salzburg in the mid-1930s, he had the good fortune to work as assistant to two of the day's top conductors, Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini.

ECONOMIST: Saluting Solti

The letters surrounding the ensuing controversy, which eventually led to Toscanini's permanent departure from Italy, form the most absorbing section of the main part of the book.

ECONOMIST: Musical lives

This is the first collection of his letters, and, ample though it is, it represents only a small proportion of the huge number of letters that Toscanini wrote in a long life.

ECONOMIST: Musical lives

Toscanini ended a 17-year association with the orchestra.

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Asians are to be seen on classical podiums across America, but, as the author notes in a profile of Marian Anderson, a contralto whom Arturo Toscanini called a once-in-a-century voice, blacks make up just 2% of orchestral players.

ECONOMIST: Essays by the New Yorker's music critic

Mr. de Sabata may be barely known today, except to connoisseurs, but he was second only to Arturo Toscanini among Italian maestros in his day, and one of the few conductors from his country to enjoy an international reputation at the time.

WSJ: Maria Callas | Puccini's Tosca | The Measure of a Diva | Masterpiece by David Mermelstein