Pg. 43 of David Markson’s copy of Conversations with Toscanini by B. H. Haggin:
On which Markson has placed a line next to the following passage:
“It is my impression that intelligent orchestra players didn’t regard Toscanini’s rages as mere self-indulgence by a man who could be reasonable and patient but felt privileged to…”
The passage continues onto the next page which is not in the above scan:
“…be unreasonable and impatient. I think they understood that he was, in his relation to music, a man obsessed and possessed, and that such a man was not rational and reasonable—not in music nor in anything else.”
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Toscanini was known for his “rages.”
And Markson made sure to mention these a few times in his tetralogy.
“Orchestra play like pig.
Being an Arturo Toscanini explanation of why he would not apologize to his Metropolitan Opera musicians after cursing at them in Italian.” (Vanishing Point, pg. 2).
“Orchestra play like pig.”
Markson repeated the line on pg. 191 of that same novel.
“When I die, I open a bordello. You know what is a bordello, no? But against every one of you—all—I lock shut the door.
Said Arturo Toscanini, to a recalcitrant orchestra.” (The Last Novel, pg. 1).
But as the above scan claims:
“It is my impression that intelligent orchestra players didn’t regard Toscanini’s rages as mere self-indulgence by a man who could be reasonable and patient but felt privileged to be unreasonable and impatient. I think they understood that he was, in his relation to music, a man obsessed and possessed, and that such a man was not rational and reasonable—not in music nor in anything else.”
A man obsessed and possessed…