Toscanini received me in the most charming fashion. He called the choruses and asked me to accompany them on the piano in order to give them such instructions as I might think necessary. I was struck by the deep knowledge he had of the score in its smallest details, and by his meticulous study of every work which he undertook to conduct. This quality of his is universally recognized, but this was the first time that I had a chance of seeing it applied to one of my own compositions. / Everyone knows that Toscanini always conducts from memory. This is attributed to his shortsightedness. But in our days, when the number of showy conductors has so greatly increased, though in inverse ratio to their technical merits and their general culture, conducting an orchestra without the score had become the fashion, and is often a matter of mere display. There is, however, nothing marvellous about this apparent ‘tour de force’ (unless the work is complicated by changes of tempo or rhythm, and in such cases it is not done, and for very good reasons); one risks little and with a modicum of assurance and coolness a conductor can easily get away with it. It does not really prove that he knows the orchestration of the score. But there can be no doubt on that point in the case of Toscanini. His memory is proverbial; there is not a detail that escapes him, as attendance at one of his rehearsals is enough to demonstrate. / I have never encountered in a conductor of such world repute such a degree of self-effacement, conscientiousness, and artistic honesty. What a pity it is that his inexhaustible energy and his marvellous talents should almost always be wasted on such eternally repeated works that no general idea can be discerned in the compositions of his programs, and that he should be so unexacting in the selection of his modern repertory! I do not, however, wish to be misunderstood. I am far from reproaching Toscanini for introducing, let us say, the works of Verdi into his concerts. On the contrary, I wish that he did so oftener, since he conducts them in so pure a tradition. By so doing he might freshen all those symphonic programs which are built on one pattern and are all becoming unbearably moldy. If I am told that I have chosen my example badly, because Verdi is the author of purely vocal music, I reply that the Wagnerian fragments which have been specially adapted for the concert platform and are forever being repeated are also taken from so-called vocal works, and are equally devoid of symphonic form in the proper sense of the term. / Rejoicing in the knowledge that my work was in the hands of so eminent a ‘maestro’, I returned to Nice, but only a month later I got a telegram from the Scala saying that Toscanini had fallen ill and asking me to conduct the performances myself. I consented, and went to Milan at the beginning of May and conducted a series of performances which included my opera, Le Rossignol, with the incomparable Laura Pasini, and ‘Petroushka’, staged in the best tradition by the ballet master, Romanov. I was astounded by the high standard and rigorous discipline of the Scala orchestra, with which a month later I enjoyed making fresh contact when, at the invitation of Count G. Cicogna, president of the Societa de Ente Concerti Orchestrali, I returned to Milan again to play my ‘Concerto’. << less