Arturo Toscanini

Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, and won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where he studied the cello. Living conditions at the conservatory were harsh and strict. For example, the menu at the conservatory consisted almost entirely of fish; in his later years, Toscanini steadfastly refused to eat anything that came from the sea. He joined the orchestra of an opera company, with which he toured South America in 1886. While presenting Aida in Rio de Janeiro on June 25, Leopoldo Miguez, the locally hired conductor, reached the summit of a two-month escalating conflict with the performers due to his rather poor command of the work, to the point that the singers went on strike and forced the company's general manager to seek a substitute conductor. Carlo Superti and Aristide Venturi tried unsuccessfully to finish the work. In desperation, the singers suggested the name of their assistant Chorus Master, who knew the whole opera from memory. Although he had no conducting experience, Toscanini was eventually persuaded by the musicians to take up the baton at 9:15 pm, and led a performance of the two-and-a-half hour opera, completely from memory. The public was taken by surprise, at first by the youth, charisma and sheer intensity of this unknown conductor, then by his solid musicianship. The result was astounding acclaim. For the rest of that season, Toscanini conducted 18 operas, each one an absolute success. Thus began his career as a conductor, at age 19.[2][3]

Toscanini in 1908

Upon returning to Italy, Toscanini set out on a dual path. He continued to conduct, his first appearance in Italy being at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, on November 4, 1886,[4] in the world premiere of the revised version of Alfredo Catalani's Edmea (it had had its premiere in its original form at La Scala, Milan, on February 27, of that year). This was the beginning of Toscanini's lifelong friendship and championing of Catalani; he even named his first daughter Wally after the heroine of Catalani's opera La Wally.[5] He also returned to his chair in the cello section, and participated as cellist in the world premiere of Verdi's Otello (La Scala, Milan, 1887) under the composer's supervision. Verdi, who habitually complained that conductors never seemed interested in directing his scores the way he had written them, was impressed by reports from Arrigo Boito about Toscanini's ability to interpret his scores. The composer was also impressed when Toscanini consulted him personally about Verdi's Te Deum, suggesting an allargando where it was not set out in the score. Verdi said that he had left it out for fear that "certain interpreters would have exaggerated the marking".[6][7]

Gradually, Toscanini's reputation as an operatic conductor of unusual authority and skill supplanted his cello career. In the following decade, he consolidated his career in Italy, entrusted with the world premieres of Puccini's La bohème and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. In 1896, Toscanini conducted his first symphonic concert (in Turin, with works by Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner). He exhibited a considerable capacity for hard work, conducting 43 concerts in Turin in 1898.[8] By 1898, Toscanini was Principal Conductor at La Scala, where he remained until 1908, returning as Music Director, from 1921 to 1929. During this time he collaborated with Alfredo Antonini – a young pianist and organist in La Scala Orchestra.[9] In 1920, he brought the La Scala Orchestra to the United States on a concert tour during which he made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company.[10]

Caricature of Toscanini drawn by Enrico Caruso

In 1908, Toscanini joined the Metropolitan Opera in New York, along with Giulio Gatti-Casazza who left La Scala to assume the post as the Met's general manager. During Toscanini's seven seasons at the Met (1908–1915), he made several reforms and set many standards in opera production and performance which are still in practice today. At the end of his final season with the Metropolitan Opera in May 1915, Toscanini was set to return to Europe aboard the doomed RMS Lusitania, but instead cut his concert schedule short and left a week early, aboard the Italian liner Duca degli Abruzzi.[11] Toscanini conducted the New York Philharmonic from 1926 until 1936; he toured Europe with the Philharmonic in 1930. At each performance, he and the orchestra were acclaimed by both critics and audiences. Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to appear at Bayreuth (1930–1931), and the New York Philharmonic was the first non-German orchestra to play there. In the 1930s, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival (1934–1937), as well as the 1936 inaugural concert of the Palestine Orchestra (later renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in Tel Aviv, later conducting them in Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo and Alexandria. During his engagement with the New York Philharmonic, Hans Lange, the son of the last Master of the Sultan's Music in Istanbul, who, later, became conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the founder of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra as a professional ensemble, was his concert master.[12]

During his career as an opera conductor, Toscanini collaborated with such artists as Enrico Caruso, Feodor Chaliapin, Ezio Pinza, Giovanni Martinelli, Geraldine Farrar and Aureliano Pertile.

In 1919, Toscanini unsuccessfully ran as a Fascist parliamentary candidate in Milan. He had been called "the greatest conductor in the world" by Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Toscanini had already become disillusioned with fascism before the October 1922 March on Rome and repeatedly defied the Italian dictator. He refused to display Mussolini's photograph or conduct the Fascist anthem Giovinezza at La Scala.[13] He raged to a friend, "If I were capable of killing a man, I would kill Mussolini."[14]

At a memorial concert for Italian composer Giuseppe Martucci on May 14, 1931, at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Toscanini was ordered to begin by playing Giovinezza, but he flatly refused, despite the presence of fascist communications minister Costanzo Ciano in the audience. Afterwards, he was, in his own words, "attacked, injured and repeatedly hit in the face" by a group of Blackshirts.[15] Mussolini, incensed by the conductor's refusal, had his phone tapped, placed him under constant surveillance, and confiscated his passport. His passport was returned only after a world outcry over Toscanini's treatment.[13] Upon the outbreak of World War II, Toscanini left Italy. He returned in 1946 to conduct a concert for the opening of the restored La Scala Opera House, which was heavily damaged by bombing during the war.[16]

Arturo Toscanini

In 1936, Toscanini resigned from the New York Philharmonic, returned to Italy and was considering retirement; David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America, proposed creating a symphony orchestra for radio concerts and engaging Toscanini to conduct it. Toscanini was initially uninterested in the proposal, but Sarnoff sent Toscanini's friend Samuel Chotzinoff to visit the conductor in Milan; Chotzinoff was able to persuade the wary Toscanini to accept Sarnoff's offer. Toscanini returned to the United States to conduct his first broadcast concert with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on December 25, 1937, in NBC Studio 8-H in New York City's Rockefeller Center.[17] The infamous dry acoustics of the specially built radio studio gave the orchestra, as heard on early broadcasts and recordings, a harsh, flat quality; some remodeling in 1942, at Leopold Stokowski's insistence, added a bit more reverberation. In 1950, 8-H was converted into a television studio, and the NBC Symphony broadcast concerts were moved to Carnegie Hall. Studio 8-H has been home to NBC's Saturday Night Live since 1975. In January 1980, Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic began a series of special televised NBC concerts called Live From Studio 8H, the first one being a tribute to Toscanini, punctuated by clips from his NBC television concerts.)[18]

The NBC broadcasts were initially preserved on large 16-inch transcription discs recorded at 33-1/3 rpm, until NBC began using magnetic tape in 1949. NBC employed special RCA high fidelity microphones for the broadcasts, and they can be seen in some photographs of Toscanini and the orchestra. Some of Toscanini's recording sessions for RCA Victor were mastered on sound film in a process developed around 1930, as detailed by RCA Victor producer Charles O'Connell in his memoirs, On and Off The Record. In addition, hundreds of hours of Toscanini's rehearsals with the NBC Symphony were preserved and are now housed in the Toscanini Legacy archive at the New York Public Library.[19]

Toscanini was sometimes unjustly criticized for neglecting American music, but on November 5, 1938, he conducted the world premieres of two orchestral works by Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings and Essay for Orchestra.[20][21] The performance received significant critical acclaim.[20] In 1945, he led the orchestra in recording sessions of the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofé in Carnegie Hall, attended by Grofé, and An American in Paris by George Gershwin in NBC's Studio 8-H. Both works had earlier been performed on broadcast concerts. He also conducted broadcast performances of Copland's El Salón México; Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with soloists Earl Wild and Benny Goodman and Piano Concerto in F with pianist Oscar Levant; and music by other American composers, including marches of John Philip Sousa. He even wrote his own orchestral arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner, which was incorporated into the NBC Symphony's performances of Verdi's Hymn of the Nations, together with the Soviet Internationale. (Earlier, while music director of the New York Philharmonic, he conducted music by Abram Chasins, Bernard Wagenaar, and Howard Hanson.)[22]

In 1940, Toscanini took the NBC Symphony on a tour of South America, sailing from New York on the ocean liner SS Brazil on May 14.[23] Later that year, Toscanini had a disagreement with NBC management over their use of his musicians in other NBC broadcasts. This, among other reasons, resulted in a letter of resignation which Toscanini wrote on March 10, 1941, to RCA's president David Sarnoff. He stated that he now wished "to withdraw from the militant scene of Art" and thus declined to sign a new contract for the up-coming winter season, but left the door open for an eventual return "if my state of mind, health and rest will be improved enough". Leopold Stokowski was engaged on a three-year contract to conduct the orchestra and served as the NBC Symphony's music director from 1941 until 1944. Toscanini's state of mind soon underwent a change and he returned as Stokowski's co-conductor for the latter's second and third seasons, resuming full control in 1944.[24]

One of the more-remarkable broadcasts was in July 1942, when Toscanini conducted the American premiere of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7. Because of World War II, the score was microfilmed in the Soviet Union and brought by courier to the United States. Stokowski had previously given the US premieres of Shostakovich's First, Third and Sixth Symphonies in Philadelphia, and in December 1941, urged NBC to obtain the score of the Seventh Symphony as he desired to conduct its premiere as well; but Toscanini coveted this for himself and there were a number of remarkable letters between the two conductors (reproduced by Harvey Sachs in his Toscanini biography), before Stokowski agreed to let Toscanini have the privilege of conducting the first performance. Unfortunately for New York listeners, a major thunderstorm virtually obliterated the NBC radio signals there, but the performance was heard elsewhere and preserved on transcription discs.[25] RCA Victor first issued the recording on LP in 1967, and on compact disc in 1991.[26] In Toscanini's later years, the conductor expressed dislike for the work and amazement that he had actually bothered to memorize the music and conduct it.[27]

In the spring of 1950, Toscanini led the NBC Symphony while on an extensive transcontinental tour. It was during this tour that the well-known photograph of Toscanini riding the ski lift at Sun Valley, Idaho, was taken. Toscanini and the musicians traveled on a special train chartered by NBC.

The NBC concerts continued in Studio 8-H until 1950. That fall, needing 8-H for television broadcasting, they were moved briefly to Manhattan Center, then soon thereafter moved again to Carnegie Hall at Toscanini's insistence, where many of the orchestra's recording sessions had been held due to the acrid acoustics of Studio 8-H. Toscanini's final broadcast performance, an all-Wagner program, took place on April 4, 1954, in Carnegie Hall. During this final concert, the aging Toscanini suffered a minor lapse of concentration which became a cause célèbre when broadcast technicians overreacted with panic and took the music off the air for about a minute, making the lapse appear to be much worse than it actually was; many people believe the orchestra stopped playing, but it did not; Toscanini quickly regained his composure and the concert continued.[28]

In June 1954, Toscanini participated in his final RCA Victor sessions, re-takes of isolated unsatisfactory passages from his live radio broadcasts of the Verdi operas Aida and Un Ballo in Maschera, so that they could be released on records. Toscanini was 87 years old when he finally stepped down. After his retirement, NBC disbanded the Symphony in 1954.[29] Most of the orchestra's membership reorganized as the Symphony of the Air,[30] The ensemble appeared in concert and made recordings until its disbandment in 1963. NBC used the "NBC Symphony Orchestra" name once more for its 1963 telecast of Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Toscanini prepared and conducted seven complete operas for NBC radio broadcasts: Fidelio, La bohème, La Traviata, Otello, Falstaff, Un Ballo in Maschera and Aida (the latter opera was also shown on television), all of which were eventually released on records and CD by RCA Victor, thus enabling modern listeners an opportunity to hear what an opera conducted by Toscanini sounded like. He also conducted and broadcast entire acts and various excerpts from several other operas.

With the help of his son Walter, Toscanini spent his remaining years evaluating and editing tapes and transcriptions of his broadcast performances with the NBC Symphony for possible future release on records. Many of these recordings were eventually issued by RCA Victor.

Sachs and other biographers have documented the numerous conductors, singers, and musicians who visited Toscanini during his retirement. He reportedly enjoyed watching boxing and wrestling matches, as well as comedy programs on television.

Toscanini's family tomb at the Monumental Cemetery of Milan in 2015

Toscanini suffered a stroke on New Year's Day 1957, and he died on January 16, at the age of 89 at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in New York City.[31] It was his daughter Wally's 57th birthday. His body was returned to Italy and was entombed in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan.[32] His epitaph is taken from one account of his remarks concluding the 1926 premiere of Puccini's unfinished Turandot: "Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto" ("Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died").[33] During his funeral service, Leyla Gencer sang an excerpt from Verdi's Requiem.

In his will, he left his baton to his protégée Herva Nelli, who sang in the broadcasts of Otello, Aida, Falstaff, the Verdi Requiem, and Un ballo in maschera.

Toscanini was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987.

• Edmea (revised version) by Alfredo Catalani – Turin, November 4, 1886
• Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo – Milan, May 21, 1892
• Guglielmo Swarten by Gnaga – Rome, November 15, 1892
• Savitri by Natale Canti – Bologna, December 1, 1894
• Emma Liona by Antonio Lozzi – Venice, May 24, 1895
• La bohème by Giacomo Puccini – Turin, February 1, 1896
• Forza d'Amore by Arturo Buzzi-Peccia – Turin, March 6, 1897
• La Camargo by Enrico De Leva – Turin, March 2, 1898
• Anton by Cesare Galeotii – Milan, December 17, 1900
• Zaza by Leoncavallo – Milan, November 10, 1900
• Le Maschere by Pietro Mascagni – Milan, January 17, 1901
• Mosè by Don Lorenzo Perosi – Milan, November 16, 1901
• Germania by Alberto Franchetti – Milan, March 11, 1902
• Oceana by Antonio Smareglia – Milan, January 22, 1903
• Cassandra by Vittorio Gnecchi – Bologna, December 5, 1905
• Gloria by Francesco Cilea – Milan, April 15, 1907
• La fanciulla del West by Puccini – New York, December 10, 1910
• Madame Sans-Gène by Umberto Giordano – New York, January 25, 1915
• Debora e Jaele by Ildebrando Pizzetti – Milan, December 16, 1922
• Nerone by Arrigo Boito (completed by Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini) – Milan, May 1, 1924
• La Cena delle Beffe by Giordano – Milan, December 20, 1924
• I Cavalieri di Ekebu by Riccardo Zandonai – Milan, March 7, 1925
• Turandot by Puccini – Milan, April 25, 1926 (Note: Toscanini informed the audience that the opera was incomplete due to Puccini's death.)
• Fra Gherado by Pizzetti – Milan, May 16, 1928
• Il re by Giordano – Milan, January 12, 1929

• Adagio for Strings and First Essay for Orchestra by Samuel Barber – NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York, November 5, 1938
• Western Suite by Elie Siegmeister – NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York, November 1945.

Toscanini made his first recordings in December 1920 with the La Scala Orchestra in the Trinity Church studio of the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey, and his last with the NBC Symphony Orchestra in June 1954 in Carnegie Hall. His entire catalog of commercial recordings was issued by RCA Victor, save for two recordings for Brunswick in 1926 (his first by the electrical process) with the New York Philharmonic and a series of excellent recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1939 for EMI's His Master's Voice label (issued in the US by RCA Victor, HMV/EMI's American affiliate). Toscanini also conducted the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall for RCA Victor in several recordings in 1929 and 1936. He made a series of long-unissued recordings with the Philadelphia Orchestra for RCA Victor in Philadelphia's Academy of Music in 1941 and 1942. All of Toscanini's commercially issued RCA Victor and HMV recordings have been digitally remastered and released on compact disc. There are also recorded concerts with various European orchestras, especially with La Scala Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2012, RCA Red Seal released a new 84 CD boxed set reissue of Toscanini's complete RCA Victor recordings and commercially issued HMV recordings with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.[41] In 2013, EMI Classics issued a 6-CD set containing Toscanini's complete HMV recordings with the BBC Symphony. Toscanini's dislike of recording was well-known; he especially despised the acoustic method, and for several years he recorded only sporadically as a result. He was fifty-three years old and had been conducting for thirty-four years when he made his first records in 1920, and did not begin recording on a regular basis until 1938, after he became conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra at the age of seventy. As the recording process improved, so did Toscanini's negative attitude towards making records and he eventually became more interested in preserving his performances for posterity. The majority of Toscanini's recordings were made with the NBC Symphony and cover the bulk of his repertoire. These recordings document the final phase of his 68-year conducting career.

Toscanini was especially famous for his performances of Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Debussy and his own compatriots Rossini, Verdi, Boito and Puccini. He made many recordings, especially towards the end of his career, most of which are still in print. In addition, there are many recordings available of his broadcast performances, as well as his remarkable rehearsals with the NBC Symphony.

Charles O'Connell, who produced many of Toscanini's RCA Victor recordings in the 1930s and early 1940s, said that RCA Victor decided to record the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, whenever possible, after numerous customer complaints about the flat and dull-sounding early recordings made in Studio 8-H in 1938 and 1939. (Nevertheless, some recording sessions in Studio 8-H persisted as late as June 1950, probably because of alterations to the studio beginning in 1939, including installation of an acoustical shell in 1941 at Leopold Stokowski's insistence, before he would temporarily replace Toscanini as principal conductor in the fall.) O'Connell and others often complained the Maestro was little interested in the details of recorded sound and, as Harvey Sachs wrote, Toscanini was frequently disappointed that the microphones failed to pick up everything he heard as he led the orchestra. O'Connell even complained of Toscanini's failure to cooperate with him during the sessions. Toscanini himself was often disappointed that the 78-rpm discs failed to fully capture all of the instruments in the orchestra or altered their sound to such an extent they became unrecognizable. Those fortunate to attend Toscanini's concerts later said the NBC string section was especially outstanding.[42]

O'Connell also extensively documented RCA's technical problems with the Philadelphia Orchestra recordings of 1941–42, which required extensive electronic editing before they could be issued (well after Toscanini's death, beginning in 1963, with the rest following in 1977). Harvey Sachs also recounts that the masters were damaged during processing, possibly because of the use of somewhat-inferior materials imposed by wartime restrictions. Toscanini had listened to several of the test pressings and had given his approval to some of the recordings, rejected others and was prepared to re-record the unsatisfactory sides. Unfortunately, the 1942-44 Petrillo/AFM recording ban had begun and prevented immediate retakes; by the end of the ban over two years later, the Philadelphia Orchestra's contract with RCA Victor had expired and the orchestra signed a new contract with Columbia Records. Columbia was willing to let the orchestra record the retakes with Toscanini, but RCA Victor apparently was hesitant to promote the orchestra any further, since it now recorded for arch-rival, Columbia. RCA Victor had decided the defective Philadelphia masters were unsalvageable and Toscanini eventually re-recorded all of the same music with the NBC Symphony. When told that RCA had finally decided to scrap the Philadelphia recordings, Toscanini vehemently exclaimed, "I worked like a dog!". The best sounding of the recordings is the Schubert Symphony No. 9 (The "Great"), which had been successfully restored and issued by RCA Victor in 1963. In 1968, the Philadelphia Orchestra returned to RCA and the company was more favorable toward issuing all of the discs. When RCA finally released a complete edition of the recordings in 1977, Sachs and others suggested that some of the masters may have deteriorated further. As for the historic nature of the recordings, even on the first RCA Victor compact disc issue, released in 1991, some of the sides have considerable surface noise and some distortion, especially during the louder passages. Nevertheless, despite the occasional problems, the sound has been markedly improved on CD, and the entire set is an impressive document of Toscanini's collaboration with the Philadelphia musicians. A second RCA CD reissue from 2006 makes more-effective use of digital editing and processing in an attempt to produce improved sound. Longtime Philadelphia conductor Eugene Ormandy expressed his admiration for what Toscanini achieved with the orchestra.

In the late 1940s when magnetic tape replaced direct wax disc recording and high fidelity long-playing records were introduced, Toscanini said he was much happier making recordings. Sachs wrote that an Italian journalist, Raffaele Calzini, said Toscanini told him, "My son Walter sent me the test pressing of the [Beethoven] Ninth from America; I want to hear and check how it came out, and possibly to correct it. These long-playing records often make me happy."[43]

NBC recorded all of Toscanini's broadcast performances on 16-inch ​33 ¹⁄₃ rpm transcription discs from the start of the Maestro's broadcasts in December 1937, but the infrequent use of higher-fidelity sound film for recording sessions began as early as 1933 with the Philharmonic, and by December 1948, improved high fidelity made its appearance when RCA began using magnetic tape on a regular basis. High fidelity quickly became the norm for the company and the industry. NBC Radio followed, adopting the new technology in the fall of 1949 for its NBC Symphony broadcasts, among others. The first Toscanini recording sessions in Carnegie Hall followed immediately thereafter, although individual takes continued as with 78s, each running only about ​4 ¹⁄₂ minutes. RCA continued in this vein with 7-inch tape reels until 1953, when long takes on 10-inch reels were finally implemented for the recording of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. With RCA's experiments in stereo beginning in early 1953 when two-track decks were first delivered by the engineers to the record producers (per Jack Pfeiffer, 11/77 interview, NYC, by CWR), stereo tapes were eventually made of Toscanini's final two broadcast concerts, plus the dress rehearsal for the final broadcast, as documented by Samuel Antek in This Was Toscanini and by Pfeiffer. These followed test sessions in New York's Manhattan Center in December of Delibes with members of the Boston Symphony under Pierre Monteux, in February 1954 with the full Boston Symphony under Charles Munch in Berlioz' Damnation of Faust, and in early March with the NBC Symphony in Manhattan Center again under Stokowski doing the Beethoven Pastoral symphony. For Toscanini, later in March and in early April, the microphones were placed relatively close to the orchestra with limited separation, so the stereo effects were not as dramatic as the commercial "Living Stereo" recordings RCA Victor began to make in March with the Chicago Symphony, just a few weeks earlier. Two days after the final concert, Guido Cantelli took the podium in a hastily organized session to record the Franck Symphony in D minor, for RCA Victor using the same microphone and equipment set-up put in place for the Maestro. The stereo version of the recording was finally released on LP by RCA in 1978 (Warner Music Group now holds the rights and has issued several CD versions). Toscanini's June sessions were recorded monophonically to correct unsatisfactory portions of the broadcast recordings of Aida and Un Ballo in Maschera.

One more example of Toscanini and the NBC Symphony in stereo now also exists in a commercially available edition. This one is of the January 27, 1951, concert devoted to the Verdi Requiem, previously recorded and released in high-fidelity monophonic sound by RCA Victor. Recently a separate NBC tape of the same performance, using a different microphone in a different location, was acquired by Pristine Audio. Using modern digital technology the company constructed a stereophonic version of the performance from the two recordings which it made available in 2009. The company calls this an example of "accidental stereo".

External audio
1952 performance featuring Arturo Toscanini (conductor) of Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 4 in E Minor Opus 98 with the Philharmonia Orchestra on archive.org

Among his most critically acclaimed recordings are the following (with the NBC Symphony unless otherwise shown):

(Many of these were never released officially during Toscanini's lifetime)

• Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" (1953; also 1939 and 1949 recordings)
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" (1952)
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 (1936, Philharmonic-Symphony of New York)
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 (1952 and 1938) (only the 1952 recording was released officially)
• Beethoven, Missa Solemnis, (1953 and 1940 NBC broadcast) (Only the 1953 version was released officially.)
• Berlioz, Roméo et Juliette (1947 NBC broadcast) (only excerpts released during Toscanini's lifetime)
• Brahms, Symphony No. 1 (1941)
• Brahms, Symphony No. 2 (1952 and February 1948 broadcast)
• Brahms, Symphony No. 3 (February 1948 broadcast) (October 1952 concert, Philharmonia Orchestra)
• Brahms, Symphony No. 4 (1951 and 1948 broadcast)
• Brahms, Four Symphonies, Tragic Overture and Haydn Variations, 1952, Philharmonia Orchestra, London (his only appearances with that orchestra, produced by Walter Legge).
• Debussy, La mer (1950 and 1940 broadcast; only the 1950 version was released officially)
• Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" (1953)
• Mendelssohn, Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night's Dream, (NBC 1947, studio and broadcast versions; Philadelphia 1941); Scherzo, New York Philharmonic, (1929)
• Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 4 "Italian", (1954, exists in two versions: one as approved by Toscanini with excerpts from the rehearsals, and the unedited broadcast)
• Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 5 "Reformation", (1942 broadcast, 1953 studio recording. The 1953 version is the one officially released.)
• Puccini, La bohème (1946 broadcast)
• Mozart, Die Zauberflöte (1937, Salzburg Festival; poor sound)
• Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (1938, 1948 and 1953 broadcast, studio recording 1953, all of them in the version orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. The studio recording from January 1953 is the only one to have been officially released.)
• Schubert, Symphony No. 9 (Philadelphia, 1941; NBC 1947 and 1953)
• Tchaikovsky, Piano concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23, Vladimir Horowitz and NBC Symphony, (live recording of April 25, 1943 War Bonds benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, first issued in 1959 on LP by RCA Victor)
• Verdi, Requiem (1940 NBC broadcast; and 1951 studio recording)
• Verdi, Un ballo in maschera (1954 NBC broadcast)
• Verdi, Falstaff (1937, Salzburg Festival with restored sound on the Treasury of Immortal Performances label (Andante version out of print); 1950 NBC broadcast)
• Verdi, Rigoletto (Act IV only, 1944; from World War II Red Cross benefit concert held in Madison Square Garden, with the combined forces of the New York Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony; the entire concert, complete with an auctioning of one of Toscanini's batons, was released on an unofficial recording in 1995)
• Verdi, Otello (1947 NBC broadcast)
• Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1937, Salzburg Festival; original Selenophone sound-on-film recording restored on Treasury of Immortal Performances label (Andante version out of print).)

There are many pieces which Toscanini never recorded in the studio; among these, some of the most-interesting-surviving recordings (off-the-air) include:

• Meyerbeer Overture to Dinorah (1938, on Testament)[44]
• Stravinsky, Suite from Petrushka (ballet) (1940, on RCA Victor)
• Mendelssohn, Symphony No. 3 "Scottish" (1941, on Testament)
• Franz Schubert, Symphony No. 2 (1940, on Testament)
• Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" (1942, on RCA Victor)
• Vasily Kalinnikov, Symphony No. 1 (1943, on Testament)
• Schumann, Symphony No. 2 (1946, on Testament)
• Boito, scenes from Mefistofele and Nerone, La Scala, Milan, 1948 – Boito Memorial Concert.
• Mussorgsky, Prelude to Khovanshchina (1953)

A few of the hundreds of hours of rehearsal tapes featuring Toscanini, residing in the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archive of Recorded Sound, a division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Many hundreds of hours of Toscanini's rehearsals were recorded. Some of these have circulated in limited edition recordings. Many broadcast recordings with orchestras other than the NBC have also survived, including: The New York Philharmonic from 1933 to 1936, 1942, and 1945; The BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1935 to 1939; The Lucerne Festival Orchestra; and broadcasts from the Salzburg Festival in the late 1930s. Documents of Toscanini's guest appearances with the La Scala Orchestra from 1946 until 1952 include a live recording of Verdi's Requiem with the young Renata Tebaldi. Toscanini's ten NBC Symphony telecasts from 1948 until 1952 were preserved in kinescope films of the live broadcasts. These films, issued by RCA on VHS tape and laser disc and on DVD by Testament, provide unique video documentation of the passionate yet restrained podium technique for which he was well known.

A guide to Toscanini's recording career can be found in Mortimer H. Frank's "From the Pit to the Podium: Toscanini in America" in International Classical Record Collector (1998, 15 8–21) and Christopher Dyment's "Toscanini's European Inheritance" in International Classical Record Collector (1998, 15 22–8). Frank and Dyment also discuss Maestro Toscanini's performance history in the 50th anniversary issue of Classic Record Collector (2006, 47) Frank with 'Toscanini – Myth and Reality' (10–14) and Dyment 'A Whirlwind in London' (15–21) This issue also contains interviews with people who performed with Toscanini – Jon Tolansky 'Licia Albanese – Maestro and Me' (22–6) and 'A Mesmerising Beat: John Tolansky talks to some of those who worked with Arturo Toscanini, to discover some of the secrets of his hold over singers, orchestras and audiences.' (34–7). There is also a feature article on Toscanini's interpretation of Brahms's First Symphony – Norman C. Nelson, 'First Among Equals ... Toscanini's interpretation of Brahms's First Symphony in the context of others' (28–33)

In 1969, Clyde J. Key acted on a dream he had of meeting Toscanini by starting the Arturo Toscanini Society to release a number of "unapproved" live performances by Toscanini. As the magazine Time reported, Key scoured the U.S. and Europe for off-the-air transcriptions of Toscanini broadcasts, acquiring almost 5,000 transcriptions (all transferred to tape) of previously unreleased material—a complete catalogue of broadcasts by the Maestro between 1933 and 1954. It included about 50 concerts that were never broadcast, but which were recorded surreptitiously by engineers supposedly testing their equipment.

A private, nonprofit club based in Dumas, Texas, it offered members five or six LPs annually for a $25-a-year membership fee. Key's first package offering included Brahms' German Requiem, Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 88 and 104, and Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben, all NBC Symphony broadcasts dating from the late 1930s or early 1940s. In 1970, the Society releases included Sibelius' Symphony No. 4, Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony, dating from the same NBC period; and a Rossini-Verdi-Puccini LP emanating from the post-War reopening of La Scala on May 11, 1946, with the Maestro conducting. That same year it released a Beethoven bicentennial set that included the 1935 Missa Solemnis with the Philharmonic and LPs of the 1948 televised concert of the ninth symphony taken from an FM radio transcription, complete with Ben Grauer's comments. (In the early 1990s, the kinescopes of these and the other televised concerts were released by RCA with soundtracks dubbed in from the NBC radio transcriptions; in 2006, they were re-released by Testament on DVD.)

Additional releases included a number of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the New York Philharmonic during the 1930s, a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27 on February 20, 1936, at which Rudolf Serkin made his New York debut, and a 1940 broadcast version of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.

Because the Arturo Toscanini Society was nonprofit, Key said he believed he had successfully bypassed both copyright restrictions and the maze of contractual ties between RCA and the Maestro's family. RCA's attorneys were soon looking into the matter to see if they agreed. As long as it stayed small, the Society appeared to offer little real competition to RCA. But classical-LP profits were low enough even in 1970, and piracy by fly-by-night firms so prevalent within the industry at that time (an estimated $100 million in tape sales for 1969 alone), that even a benevolent buccaneer outfit like the Arturo Toscanini Society had to be looked at twice before it could be tolerated.[45]

Magazine and newspaper reports subsequently detailed legal action taken against Key and the Society, presumably after some of the LPs began to appear in retail stores. Toscanini fans and record collectors were dismayed because, although Toscanini had not approved the release of these performances in every case, many of them were found to be further proof of the greatness of the Maestro's musical talents. One outstanding example of a remarkable performance not approved by the Maestro was his December 1948 NBC broadcast of Dvořák's Symphonic Variations, released on an LP by the Society. (A kinescope of the same performance, from the television simulcast, has been released on VHS and laser disc by RCA/BMG and on DVD by Testament.) There was speculation that the Toscanini family itself, prodded by his daughter Wanda, had sought to defend the Maestro's original decisions (made mostly during his last years) on what should be released. Walter Toscanini later admitted that his father likely rejected performances that were satisfactory. Whatever the real reasons, the Arturo Toscanini Society was forced to disband and cease releasing any further recordings.