Victor de Sabata

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Victor de Sabata (born April 10, 1892 in Trieste; died December 11, 1967 in Santa Margherita, Liguria) was an Italian conductor and composer. De Sabata is widely recognized as one of the greatest conductors of Italian opera, especially Verdi and Puccini, and is also acclaimed for his conducting of Wagner and of orchestral music from the 19th and 20th centuries. Like his near contemporary Wilhelm Furtwängler, de Sabata regarded composition as more important than conducting but achieved more lasting recognition as a conductor. Some critics see de Sabata as a rival to Toscanini for the title of greatest Italian conductor of the twentieth century [1].

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[edit] Early life

De Sabata was born in the cosmopolitan city of Trieste, Austria (today in Italy) to a Roman Catholic father and a Jewish mother. Both his parents were musicians: his father was a professional singing teacher and chorus master while his mother was a keen amateur. His formal musical studies began after his family moved to Milan around 1900. While at Milan, de Sabata studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, excelling at piano, violin, theory, composition and conducting. At the age of eighteen he graduated cum laude in composition, piano and violin. In 1911 he performed in an orchestra under the baton of Arturo Toscanini who influenced him to become a conductor.

[edit] Conducting career

[edit] 1918–1929

In 1918 de Sabata was appointed conductor of the Monte Carlo Opera, performing a wide variety of late-19th century and contemporary works. In 1925, he conducted the world premiere of L'enfant et les sortilèges by Ravel. The next day Ravel wrote a note to the conductor saying that "You have given me one of the most complete joys of my career" [2]. In 1921, while still conducting opera at Monte Carlo, de Sabata began his career as a symphonic conductor with the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 1929 he made his U.S. debut with the Cincinnati Symphony [3].

[edit] 1929–1945

De Sabata conducted the orchestra of La Scala in Milan for the first time in 1926, and conducted opera there from 1929, soon becoming the music director, a post he would hold for over 20 years. During the 1930s, de Sabata conducted widely in Italy and Central Europe. In 1933 he made his first commercial recordings with the Orchestra of the Italian Broadcasting Authority in Turin, including his own composition Juventus. In 1939, he became only the second conductor from outside the German-speaking world to conduct at Bayreuth when he led Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (Toscanini was the first, in 1930 and 1931) [4]. Among the audience at Bayreuth was the young Sergiu Celibidache who hid in the lavatory overnight in order to surreptitiously attend rehearsals [5]. That same year he made celebrated recordings of Brahms, Wagner and Richard Strauss with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. It is unclear why de Sabata was allowed to work in Germany by the Nazi regime despite his part-Jewish background.

[edit] 1945–1953

Promotional poster from 1947 advertising de Sabata's first recordings for HMV
Enlarge
Promotional poster from 1947 advertising de Sabata's first recordings for HMV

After World War II, de Sabata's career expanded internationally. He was a frequent guest conductor in London, New York and other American cities. In 1946 he recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the Decca recording company. In 1947 he made his first recordings for HMV, with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome. He would go on to make more recordings with the same orchestra in 1948. In 1950 he was temporarily detained at Ellis Island along with several other Europeans under the newly-passed McCarran Act (the reason was his work in Italy during Mussolini's Fascist regime) [6]. In March 1950 and March 1951 de Sabata conducted the New York Philharmonic in a series of concerts in Carnegie Hall, many of which were preserved from radio transcriptions to form some of the most valuable items in his recorded legacy.

De Sabata's base remained La Scala, Milan, and he had the opportunity to work with two upwardly-mobile sopranos: Renata Tebaldi and Maria Callas. In August 1953 he collaborated with Callas in his only commercial opera recording: Puccini's Tosca for HMV (also featuring Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi along with the La Scala orchestra and chorus). This disc is widely regarded as one of the greatest opera recordings of all time [7], [8] [9].

[edit] Heart attack and retirement

The Callas Tosca recording was planned to be only the first of a series of recordings in which HMV would set down much of de Sabata's operatic repertoire. However, soon after the sessions he suffered a heart attack that prompted him to stop performing in public. He resigned his conducting post at La Scala and was succeeded by his assistant Carlo Maria Giulini. He held the administrative position of "Artistic Director" at La Scala between 1953 and 1957.

De Sabata only conducted twice again, once in a studio recording of Verdi's Requiem from June 1954 for HMV, and for the last time at Toscanini's memorial services (conducting the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony in La Scala opera house followed by Verdi's Requiem in Milan Cathedral [10]) in 1957. The last decade of his life was devoted to composition, but with few results. De Sabata died alone of heart disease in obscurity in Santa Margherita, Liguria, Italy in 1967. At his memorial service, the Orchestra of La Scala performed without a conductor as a mark of respect.

[edit] Conducting Style

De Sabata's conducting style combined the fiery temperament, iron control and technical precision of Toscanini with a spontaneity and flexibility of phrasing more reminiscent of Furtwängler. He was exceptionally demanding of his players: according to one musician: "Those eyes and ears missed nothing…the players had been made to work harder than ever before and they knew that, without having been asked to play alone, they had been individually assessed" [11]. On the podium he "seemed to be dancing everything from a tarantella to a sabre dance" [12]. Norman Lebrecht describes him as "a musician whose mild manners turned to raging fury whenever he took stick in hand". [13] A violinist in the London Philharmonic Orchestra compared de Sabata with Thomas Beecham, saying that while Beecham made the orchestra "red hot", de Sabata made it white hot [14]. Another player described de Sabata's appearance when conducting as "a cross between Julius Caesar and Satan". [15] Double-bass player Robert Meyer, who has played under conductors including Furtwängler, Karajan, Klemperer, Giulini, Walter, Koussevitzky and Stokowski [16], describes de Sabata as "undoubtedly the finest conductor I have ever encountered". [17].

[edit] Musical Abilities

There are several amazing anecdotes of de Sabata's musical abilities. Among them:

  • After de Sabata was shown the score of Elgar's Enigma Variations for the first time, the very next day he conducted a rehearsal of the work from memory and pointed out several errors in the orchestral parts which no-one, including Elgar himself, had noticed before. [18]
  • During a rehearsal of Respighi's Pines of Rome in London, de Sabata "demonstrated the bowing and fingering of the high cello part in the first movement by playing it -- without even a glance at the part. The pianist asked for advice about the solo cadenza, which de Sabata also played by heart. In the rehearsal interval, he asked the flicorni for the final movement to play their brass fanfares. They did. 'What are you playing?' he asked. 'It is an octave higher.' 'Can't be done, Maestro.' ... The Maestro borrowed one of their instruments and blew the correct notes in the right octave." [19] (this anecdote is all the more impressive when one knows that the flicorno (saxhorn) is an instrument usually associated with brass bands and very rarely used in a symphony orchestra).
  • "A visitor [to La Scala] rehearsing Tristan asked Victor de Sabata to take the baton while he tested the sound from the centre of the auditorium. Needless to say, the sound he heard was totally different from the one he produced. De Sabata, without uttering a word, asserted his dominance of the orchestra just by standing there". [20]

[edit] List of Notable Recordings of de Sabata's Conducting

Album cover from Pearl's CD release of de Sabata's 1939 Berlin Philharmonic recordings
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Album cover from Pearl's CD release of de Sabata's 1939 Berlin Philharmonic recordings
See also Victor de Sabata discography

The recordings that de Sabata made in the studio are, with some exceptions, considered less gripping than the best of his work in the concert-hall and opera-house. (This may be connected with the fact that he is said to have hated making recordings). [21] Fortunately there are now several unauthorized "live" recordings that demonstrate just how exciting de Sabata could be on the podium (although the sound quality can be problematic). This contrast comes through in the two different versions of Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration and Verdi's Requiem listed below.

  • Debussy, Jeux, studio recording with the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, HMV, 1947. The premiere recording of this work. (currently available on Pristine Audio and Testament)
  • Puccini, Tosca, studio recording with Callas, HMV 1953. De Sabata's and Callas's most famous recording. (currently available on EMI and Naxos)
  • Respighi, Fountains of Rome, studio recording with the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome, HMV, 1947 (currently available on Testament)
  • Verdi, Falstaff, live performance with Tebaldi and Stabile, La Scala, Milan, 1951 (currently available on Music and Arts, and Urania)
  • Verdi, Macbeth, live performance with Callas, La Scala, Milan, 1952 (currently available on EMI)
  • Verdi, Requiem, live performance with Tebaldi, La Scala, Milan, 1951 (currently available on Urania)
  • Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, live performance with Grob-Prandl, La Scala, Milan, 1951 (currently available on Archipel)

[edit] Media

[edit] Composition Style

De Sabata's compostions are written in a late-romantic style reminiscent of Respighi and Richard Strauss. They were quite successful in the 1920s, being performed by conductors such as Toscanini and Walter Damrosch, but are little-known today. One reason may be that de Sabata did relatively little to perform and publicize his own works, preferring that his music should succeed or fail on its own merits. Critical opinion on the merits of his compositions has long been divided. For example, a 1926 Time Magazine review described his Gethsemani as "shallow, unoriginal music for which even the philanthropic genius of a Toscanini could not achieve distinction" ([22]), while a critic for International Record Review, writing in the early 2000s, said that the same work "contains some of the loveliest orchestral sounds I have heard in years" ([23]).

[edit] List of Notable Compositions

  • Il macigno (opera, 1917)
  • Juventus (symphonic poem for orchestra, 1919)
  • La notte di Platon (for orchestra, 1923)
  • Gethsemani (for orchestra, 1925)

[edit] Recordings of de Sabata's Compositions

  • Juventus, studio recording with the Turin Orchestra of the Italian Broadcasting Authority conducted by the composer, Naxos, 1933

[edit] Family connections

De Sabata's daughter Eliana (a film screenwriter [24]) is married to conductor Aldo Ceccato, who was also de Sabata's pupil [25]. His granddaughter Isabella de Sabata is married to conductor John Eliot Gardiner [26]. De Sabata's grandson Cristiano Ceccato, son of Eliana, is a former student of CAD pioneer John Frazer.

[edit] Quotes

  • "I have in my mind a million notes, and every one which is not perfect makes me mad" [27]
  • "Conducting is a beastly profession" ([28])

[edit] Spelling of name

The capitalizations Victor de Sabata and Victor De Sabata are both found, and the first name is often given in the Italian form Vittorio, especially in Italy. However, examples of the conductor's autograph signature clearly show that he spelt his name Victor de Sabata with a lower-case "d" [29], [30] and contemporary playbills indicate that he used the first name Victor, even when performing in Italy [31].

[edit] Notable premieres

[edit] In concert

[edit] On record

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ↑  Felix Aprahamian, booklet notes for Testament CD SBT 1108 (Debussy/Respighi)
  2. ↑  Norman Lebrecht, The Maestro Myth, p. 218
  3. ↑  Norman Lebrecht, The Maestro Myth, p. 218
  4. ↑  Norman Lebrecht, The Maestro Myth, p. 8
Preceded by:
Arturo Toscanini		 Musical Directors, La Scala, Milan
1929–1953		 Succeeded by:
Carlo Maria Giulini
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