The Visual Side Of a Musical Mind

Conductor Arturo Toscanini was known for his vast command of the orchestral repertoire and his firm grip on the players under his baton. But a less familiar side of the legendary maestro was a passion for art that became a visual counterpoint to his musical life.Toscanini, who died 50 years ago at age 89, owned 200 drawings and paintings that he arranged on his walls like a symphonic score, according to his grandson, Walfredo Toscanini. “He’d hang 30 to 40 in a room, and if he was awake at night, he’d get up and look at them,” Mr. Toscanini said. “He’d move them around, because he thought if you leave them in one place, you don’t notice them anymore.”This more intimate view of one of music’s most colossal figures, a conductor given to rages and reflection, can be seen in the exhibition “Maestro’s Secret Music: The Artwork Collected by Arturo Toscanini” at Avery Fisher Hall between January 16 and March 31. The show, available to the public for the first time, is part of the New York Philharmonic’s tribute to Toscanini, who led the orchestra between 1926 and 1945 and was its principal conductor between 1928 and 1936. The exhibition coincides with a joint concert by the Philharmonic and the Italian group Symphonica Toscanini, to be held on January 16, the anniversary of Toscanini’s death.Toscanini, who was born in Parma, Italy, and immigrated to America in 1938, collected mostly late-19th- and early-20th-century Italian art made in a representational style that veered toward Impressionism. The works celebrated the beauty of the Italian landscape shortly after the disparate states of the Italian peninsula were unified into a single nation. The exhibition consists of 60 drawings, paintings, and sculpture works as well as video excerpts of Toscanini’s televised performances and home movies of the Philharmonic from the 1930s. The collection includes muted landscapes and bucolic scenes by Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, Gaetano Previati, Giovanni Fattori and Umberto Boccioni. Toscanini also collected works by the American artists George Inness and Alfred East; a New York sunset by Inness and a moody view of the Flatiron Building by East are included in the show.Renato Miracco, a freelance curator of Italian art who also directs the Chiostro del Bramante Museum in Rome, said he organized the exhibit as a “different way” to celebrate Toscanini. Knowing that Walfredo Toscanini had inherited many of his grandfather’s works, Mr. Miracco arranged a visit to the 77-year old architect’s New Rochelle home, where he kept much of the collection. “It was unbelievable, I found this treasure,” Mr. Miracco said. Mr. Toscanini lent some of the works for the show, while others are on loan from Italian museums, Mr. Miracco said.One of the painters, Grubicy, who was a critic as well as a Divisionist painter who worked in a style similar to Pointillism, became a mentor to Toscanini the collector. “There was a good relationship between the two,” Mr. Toscanini said. “Grubicy would come to the house and advise grandfather. He was opposed to the French style — he didn’t like Modigliani or Picasso or Braque. He believed in the representation of nature.”Paraphrasing a letter from Toscanini to Grubicy, Mr. Miracco described the conductor’s pleasure at rearranging his paintings and considering them from various places in a room: “When I stay in this corner, I feel some energy coming from the paintings. I close my eyes and feel the energy coming, like music.”“It was like hearing a symphony with the paintings,” Mr. Miracco said.Toscanini called on his grandson, the visual artist in the family, to do restoration work if paint chipped off a painting. But Toscanini was also hands on. In an ill-advised habit that tended to darken the canvases, Toscanini would lacquer the painting, his grandson said. “He was really hands on. It was his hobby and his delight.”Until March 29 (Lincoln Center, 212-875-5930).

The Visual Side Of a Musical Mind

The Visual Side Of a Musical Mind

More from the New York Sun

Trump Will Never Give Up His Free Enterprise Policies to the Democrats

Trump Kicks Off Southern Swing in Florida, Warning Voters Against Returning to ‘Dark Age’ of Democratic Rule

Exclusive: The Green Card Holder Who Proves New Jersey Democrats Haven’t Cleaned Up Voter Rolls

France’s Blame Game Begins

Mike Tyson, the Middle East, and Fashion’s Skewed Moral Standards

Israel Is on High Alert After Terror Attack Amid Fears War Will Disrupt Election

Truth and Consequences Out of Tulsa Return To Torment Ethan Hawke in ‘The Lowdown’

Billion Dollar Startup Claims It’s Genetically Engineering and Cloning Dogs To Be Battle-Ready by End of Decade

More from the New York Sun

Trump Will Never Give Up His Free Enterprise Policies to the Democrats

Trump Kicks Off Southern Swing in Florida, Warning Voters Against Returning to ‘Dark Age’ of Democratic Rule

Exclusive: The Green Card Holder Who Proves New Jersey Democrats Haven’t Cleaned Up Voter Rolls

France’s Blame Game Begins

Mike Tyson, the Middle East, and Fashion’s Skewed Moral Standards

Israel Is on High Alert After Terror Attack Amid Fears War Will Disrupt Election

Truth and Consequences Out of Tulsa Return To Torment Ethan Hawke in ‘The Lowdown’

Billion Dollar Startup Claims It’s Genetically Engineering and Cloning Dogs To Be Battle-Ready by End of Decade