Solemn Mass

The neighbors complained because he sang and shouted and walked the floor so wildly. The servants left because he refused his food, then raged at them for letting it get cold. For nearly five years Ludwig van Beethoven stormed thus at life and music. He was spending his last great powers on a Mass, struggling to keep the mighty contents within the liturgical framework. He was too deaf to know the noise he made at home, too deaf to hear any of his music at the first Vienna performance in 1824. Nevertheless he insisted on standing in the pit and beating time along with the regular conductor. With a fervor and concentration worthy of the music Arturo Toscanini gave the Missa Solemnis last week its first performance by the New York Philharmonic, the first he has ever conducted. For the occasion he had 250 choristers from the New York Schola Cantorum and four expert soloists--Soprano Elisabeth Rethberg, Contralto Sigrid Onegin, Tenor Paul Althouse, Basso Ezio Pinza. Toscanini sang croakingly along with them but there were no complaints. The little Italian had never seemed so inspired as in the exalted Gloria, the prayerful Agnus Dei.

Few conductors choose to give the Missa Solemnis because of its great technical difficulties, its demands on the human voice for which Beethoven never learned to write considerately. Toscanini last week made such obstacles seem negligible. The parts were perfectly proportioned between the orchestra, the chorus and the soloists. Transitions were managed so skilfully that the most fragile pianissimos seemed the logical conclusion to the mightiest crescendos.

During the entire performance, which lasted an hour and a half, the 67-year-old conductor never left the stage, paused only once to wipe the perspiration from his face, fan himself with his handkerchief. At the end he was exhausted but he could not complain of the box office receipts as Beethoven had done after the Vienna premiere.

During the Philharmonic's SOS drive (TIME, Feb. 5) there have been many protests against Toscanini's salary, rumored to be between $75,000 and $90,000 per season. The Missa Solemnis rounded out 14 performances in the Toscanini Beethoven Cycle. Each one has sold out to the doors. Bruno Walter and Hans Lange, the other Philharmonic conductors, make a practice of using popular soloists but even so neither one of them this season has been able to sell out Carnegie Hall.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.