Music: Underground Toscanini

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Whether it is tolerated or not, there certainly is a place for the society. The current RCA catalogue offers a good share of the works Toscanini loved and performed most often (such as Debussy's La Mer, the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies), but it does not represent the full range of his interests. One will not find Stravinsky's Petrouchka or Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F on RCA's lists, for example, but Clyde Key has them and hopes to release them one of these days.

Toscanini was fervently interested in the music of his own time, except that his own time was the early 20th century. The young Toscanini led the world premieres of Puccini's Turandot, La Fanciulla del West and La Boheme; of those, he issued a commercial recording of only the last. Toscanini had the most logical conducting mind in history; yet within that logic—or, more precisely, within the strict meters he often set for himself in later years—ran strong currents of feeling, expressed in heartbreak-heavy phrases.

Key's labor is clearly not for loot but for love. Last year he quit his job as an air-conditioner repairman to devote full time to the society. His parents have helped with the finances. Says Clyde's mother, Birdie Mae Key, explaining it all, "We figure it's both the Lord's will and the Lord's work to do so. And anyway, Clyde just has to keep his promise to Toscanini."

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