Arturo Toscanini

"When Toscanini conducted, it was like fate striking, infallible, inexorable. His innate sense of rhythm, his memory, were prodigious. Operas and concerts, he conducted them all from memory, without a score."

"[Upon learning of the beating of Toscanini by a group of Fascist Blackshirts] I am really happy. It will teach a good lesson to these boorish musicians."

"Every conductor–even those who, like me, were born in Britain and raised in the United States–must sooner or later confront the ghost of Arturo Toscanini."

"He projected the figure of the conductor beyond the stage. Every legend has a surplus, an excess of image. However, when he conducted, he was spare, he knew how to extract the essence from a score without adding any artifice."

"La Scala is the lover who made me despair the most"

"They ask me what my secret is. My secret is very simple: it consists in having the music performed, note by note, as the author wrote it."

"[While witnessing Cantelli conduct for the first time] That's me!"

"[After hearing Marian Anderson perform] What I heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years."

"Everyone here is celebrating me—everyone is raving about me! […] Tonight I have my first concert. It's useless for me to say it, but you can imagine how nervous I am... I'm the eternal beginner. Perhaps the only person who doesn't hold myself in esteem..."

"Every rehearsal is like a concert, and every concert like a debut."

"Qui finisce l'opera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto."

"I feel the necessity to tell you for once how much I admire and honor you. You are not only the unmatchable interpreter of the world’s musical literature [...] In the fight against the fascist criminals, too, you have shown yourself to be a man of greatest dignity [...] The fact that such a contemporary exists balances many of the delusions one must continually experience from the species minorum gentium."

"1909, the Edwardian golden days. Genteel civilization had come to England, the continent, and the eastern United States. New York rivaled London and Paris as one of the great metropolises of the world. Albert Einstein had expounded his theory of relativity back in 1905, and science had brought us the wonders of the modern world. Culture and refinement had arrived on the east coast of America. Caruso was singing Pagliacci at the Met. Arturo Toscanini was conducting. The Barrymores were performing and a Ziegfeld girl was the rage."

"He was a great conductor, a true "servant" of music, he was the one who taught us to respect the scores, but he was also a great man, who never used music for self-interest... He was one of the three artists who radically changed the history of musical interpretation. The other two great names are Liszt, for his way of playing the piano, and Paganini for his revolutionary way of playing the violin."

"My dear Maestro, my great friend, come to Fiume d'Italia, if you can. Here today is the most resonant air in the world. And the soul of the people is as symphonic as your orchestra. The Legionaries await the Fighter who once led the warrior chorus."

"Look at him. He is one of your kind, gaunt like you. His head is carved in hard bone, between chin and forehead, with those deep hollows that form between ear and nose when he clenches his lips and jaw, with that frown that brings to mind the wild gaze of a swan beneath the swelling of its beak, with that neck that energy dilates as if to fill it with unspoken commands. Look at him. Look at his hand holding the scepter. His scepter is a wand as light as an elder rod; and it raises the great waves of the orchestra, releases the great torrents of harmony, opens the cataracts of the great river, digs the forces from the depths and carries them to the summit, restrains the tumults and reduces them to whispers, creates light and shadow, creates serenity and storm, creates mourning and jubilation… Who is he then? He is a Chief as I am a Chief, O my people."

"[Arturo Toscanini is] the greatest conductor in the world."

"Ich bin kein Genie. Ich habe nichts geschaffen. Ich spiele die Musik anderer Leute. Ich bin nur ein Musiker."

""Hier endet die Oper, die aufgrund des Todes des Maestro unvollendet geblieben ist." - Uraufführung von Puccinis Oper Turandot am 25. April 1926 in der Mailänder Scala, Worte zum Publikum am Schluss des unvollendeten dritten Aktes, nach Marcus Felsner: Operatica. Annäherungen an die Welt der Oper, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2008, S. 274 Fn. 303 books.google"

"Eine Stimme wie ihre trifft man einmal in 100 Jahren!"