Word: maestro
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...does to others. After an explosive day of ranting, raving, stomping and swearing in rehearsal, he will sometimes sidle up to an intimate friend at a party, and say with downcast eyes: "I have a bad character." Most of his friends know the right response. "No, Maestro, you don't have a bad character; you just have a bad temper." But he will continue: "I was bad. I don't know what makes me do those things, but I can't help it. Do you think I am bad? I am not; I am a good...
...awful occasions, he brings the other Toscanini to a party. Then he glowers in a corner, refuses to talk, turns away food and drinks and generally casts a pall over everything. At one party, a waggish friend suggested hanging a sign around his neck, "Do not feed the Maestro." Another evening was saved only when a nonartistic friend, arriving late, went over to the sulking Toscanini, slapped him on the back and said: "Did you see that Louis-Walcott fight?-worst fight I ever saw." Toscanini brightened immediately. Ramming his fist into his hand, he shouted, "He couldn...
...also likes children's programs on television. A friend recently caught him watching Du Mont's program "Small Fry Club," asked him, "What are you watching, Maestro?" Toscanini replied, never taking his eyes from the screen: "Fry Small." Last month, when NBC first televised his concert, the Maestro watched the audience and musicians on a set in his dressing room until it was time...
When, on their golden wedding anniversary, NBC gave the Maestro and buxom Carla Toscanini a clock that supposedly would run for 50 years without rewinding, Toscanini beamed happily and said: "Just think, when this clock stops, no one here in this room will be here but me." Last week Carla was in Italy, and son Walter and his family were staying with the Maestro at the big house in Riverdale. Daughter Wanda visits frequently (with her pianist husband, Vladimir Horowitz). He often talks by telephone with his other daughter Wally, the Countess Castel-barco, who lives in Italy...
...Toscanini is sometimes criticized for not playing enough contemporary music, or for choosing, in the current music he does play, the second-rate or derivative. But the Maestro knows his own limits: he will not play music he is not sure he understands (although he has tried Gershwin without much success). Looking at a new score, he seldom says, "This is bad." Instead, he says, "This is not music for me." He does not trust music that does not touch his heart. He feels that he was a pioneer in his youth, and that it is now up to younger...