Record Records
For the past seven years Conductor Arturo Toscanini, who dislikes mechanical music, has been steadfast in his refusal to make phonograph records. To him, his own performances always seemed short of perfection, hence unworthy of being perpetuated. During his last few months with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony (TIME, May 11 et ante), RCA Victor doubled its efforts to persuade him to change his mind, pleaded that he owed it to the public and posterity. The Maestro's "no" was unyielding until a friend suggested that he would be doing a real service to the composer he might interpret, that his records would help young conductors with their phrasing and their tempi. Result was the release last week of a Toscanini Wagner album,* which included the Preludes to the first and third acts of Lohengrin; Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Goetterdaemmerung; the tender Siegfried Idyll, composed by Wagner as a Christmas serenade for his wife Cosima the year after their son Siegfried was born. The Toscanini performances are peerless, the recordings faithful. First week sales were unparalleled, according to record dealers, since the days of Caruso. From headquarters in Camden. N. J., RCA Victor reported that few other albums have sold so well in a year as Toscanini's did in the first few days after its release.