Toscannini and The 16 Year Old

by Paul Polivnick
(Florida)

When I was 16 I had been a member of a wonderful youth orchestra in the New York area since I was 8, playing both violin and trumpet. The conductor, Norman Leyden was doing his Doctoral Thesis on the stick technique of Arturo Toscannini. He formed a conducting class for members of the orchestra and I was naturally one of them. We watched films of the "old man" and visited his house in Riverside, New York, among other activities. Needless to say I was entranced by this powerful and passionate conductor.

One day, Norman brought in the film of Toscannini and the NBC Symphony playing the Funeral Music from Gotterdammerung of Wagner to our rehearsal studio. He projected the film of Maestro on the wall and we actually played the piece following this great conductor! In those early days of orchestral filming not much panning around to instrumentalists was done. We had a clear view Toscannini's conducting the whole time. I was playing 1st trumpet that morning and when the majestic sword motif came up with me playing it as the orchestra did a huge crescendo, there I was playing for Toscannin!! His eyes were all ablaze and I felt his emotion and strength. This was a defining moment in my early musical life. He still remains as one of the key influences on my development.