Only Toscanini at his most intense could inspire an orchestra to such an outpouring of passion as can be heard here in evergreens like the "William Tell" overture, the Verdi "Forza del Destino" overture, and Herold's "Zampa".Many of the recordings were re-done by Maestro in the early fifties: here the forties' 78s are included, though the earliest (William Tell, 1939) still sounds quite fine in the decent monaural transfers.
These would not all be my favorites of the versions conducted by Maestro that have appeared on LP and CD: the "Mignon" of Thomas makes a greater impact in the high-fidelity recording of 1952, as does the "Freischuetz" Overture. The Kabalevsky "Colas Breugnon" Overture, recorded here on a 78 rpm disk in 1946, does not have the passion, panache, and lively spirit of a broadcast of that same year, available on Dell'Arte. And I take issue with the inclusion of a rather scrappy, poorly played, and scratchy transcription disk from 1946 of the Smetana "Bartered Bride" Overture; an earlier NBC concert performance from 1939 (about to be issued by Naxos but not in the U. S.) has better sound and cleaner playing. One wonders why the Maestro approved this later and inferior performance.
However, the spectacular recording of the 1952 "Zampa" has never sounded better! It is nearly the equal of any recording made that year, by any record company! So much for the canard that "Toscanini records always sounded bad!" Nothing could be further from the truth!
