The barricade

Toscanini's accommodating attitude on the occasion of his press conference was not in evidence during the parallel efforts to secure commercial recordings of his London concerts. He was aware from the outset that broadcasting the concerts was part and parcel of his bargain with the BBC, but his opposition to making records was adamant and of long standing. Since the series of recordings with the Philharmonic in 1929 (further described in Chapter 12) which, like all his released recordings up to that date, he heartily disliked, he had issued a consistent stream of negatives in response to requests for more. The attempts in the early 1930s to induce a change of attitude on his part are an integral element of the story of HMV's struggles before and after his arrival in London.

In the course of this story the authentic voice of Toscanini himself is heard only once, and then in addressing indirectly HMV's current rival, the Columbia company, whose recording manager, Arthur Brooks, was in Bayreuth for the 1930 Festival when Toscanini conducted Tannhäuser and Tristan. Brooks successfully recorded extensive and impressive extracts from Bayreuth Festival productions of Parsifal in 1927 and Tristan in 1928. But he had no such good fortune with Toscanini, with whom he communicated through the conductor's friend Blandine von Bülow, Wagner's stepdaughter and widow of the Italian Count Gravina, who as a long-time resident of Florence spoke fluent Italian.