The Other Toscanini: The Life and Works of Héctor Panizza Sebastiano De Filippi and Daniel Varacalli Costas

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Other Toscanini: The Life and Works of Héctor Panizza Sebastiano De Filippi and Daniel Varacalli Costas James Michael Floyd The Other Toscanini: The Life and Works of Héctor Panizza. By Sebastiano De Filippi and Daniel Varacalli Costas. Translation by Jessica Sequeria. (North Texas Lives of Musicians, no. 13.) Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2019. [xiii, 363 p. ISBN 9781574417746 (hardcover), $29.95; ISBN 9781574417845 (e-book), price varies]. Photographs, facsimiles, illustrations, anecdotes, works list, chronologies, discography, bibliography, index. The Other Toscanini is the only biography published in English on the Argentine-born conductor–composer Héctor (Ettore) Panizza (1875–1967). It is a translation of the authors’ Spanish-language Alta en el cielo: Vida y obra de Héctor Panizza, published in 2017 in Buenos Aires by the Instituto Italiano de Cultura. It is a welcome addition to the North Texas Lives of Musicians series, which includes biographies of instrumental performers William Vacchiano and Dennis Brain, choral conductor Lloyd Pfautsch, the Madrigal Ensemble Singers, and several jazz and Texas musicians. The Other Toscanini is a clever title. It succinctly conveys that the subject of the book, Héctor Panizza, was once considered on the same standing as his better-known colleague and acclaimed Italian conductor, Arturo Toscanini. The title creates added interest in the subject. If the title had simply been The Life and Works of Héctor Panizza, the volume would have been less inviting. But the study does not spend many of its pages comparing the two conductors. The focus is on Panizza and his accomplishments as a composer and conductor and his associations with numerous musicians and other individuals, including some political figures. The biography is organized into three sections: “The Life,” “The Work,” and “Appendices” of no fewer than fifty pages. “The Life” consists of six chapters, beginning with the introductory chapter, “Music in 19th Century Argentina,” which provides a background of the musical climate in Argentina approximately fifty years before Panizza’s birth. The following chapters discuss the Panizza family, the young Panizza’s formative years, his conducting career in Europe and the Americas, and his return to his homeland. Expanding on material presented in the preceding section, “The Work” is organized into four chapters: “The Composer,” “The Conductor,” “Panizza and the Colón,” and “The Toscaninian Legacy.” As a composer, Panizza composed instrumental chamber and orchestral works, four operas, and arranged other composers’ works. An arrangement of Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces for orchestra received Grieg’s positive attention in a letter, which is included in facsimile (p. 138). Although Panizza’s music received praise in his time, the aria “Canción de la bandera,” from his opera Aurora, is his best-known work, especially among Argentine school children, who know it as the song to sing as the flag is raised. Panizza’s early association with composer Pietro Mascagni led to increased responsibility as a conductor. Being both a composer and a conductor, however, proved too demanding. “The frantic pace of his intense activity on the podium,” the authors write, “was already beginning to sweep him along and gradually confine his musical creation to a limited degree” (p. 34). “The Conductor” and “Panizza and the Colón” discuss Panizza’s career abroad and his work with the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, from which he received praise from his countrymen. “We thought we would find ourselves before a true Italian, who hardly knows our own language,” one critic wrote, “and have had the pleasant surprise of confirming that despite his long residence in Europe, in Italy above all, he is a creole, [End Page 396] more so than some sons of foreigners who have not left Argentina” (p. 216). “The Toscaninian Legacy” ties up the study nicely, discussing Toscanini’s influence on Panizza and sharing a perspective of past and present conductors influenced by Toscanini and Panizza’s artistic work together. “This influence continued even after [Toscanini’s] death,” the authors note, “given that there existed and still exist maestros who, directly or indirectly, follow the Toscanini and Panizza line: artists who strongly identify with the type of work they both displayed while working together...