Hymn of the Nations (1944)

User Rating:

5.2/10   

Writers:

Genre:

Short | Documentary | Music

Plot:

Conductor Arturo Toscanini is shown at his home in New York City and leading tenor Jan Peerce and the...

Plot Keywords:

New York City | Tenor | Orchestra | Radio City Music Hall | Radio Broadcast

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Arturo Toscanini
Jan Peerce
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Burgess Meredith	...	Narrator (voice)
Walfredo Toscanini

Also Known As:

Arturo Toscanini (USA) (video title)
Arturo Toscanini Conducts Music of Giuseppe Verdi (USA) (video title)
Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations (USA) (copyright title)

Runtime:

31 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Berkshires, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Office of War Information (OWI)

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Art of Conducting: Great Conductors of the Past (1995) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Inno delle Nazioni

Fascinating wartime concert and morale booster

I have not seen the current edition of "Hymn of the Nations".This review refers to the authentic, uncut original version issued by Blackhawk in the 1980's.

This was the only true theatrical "film" that the great maestro Arturo Toscanini agreed to make. It differs from his live TV concerts-preserved on kinescope -- in many significant ways. In the kinescopes,everything was live, and there was no going back to alter "awkward" moments. The kinescopes, made during the early days of TV, are just as fascinating, but the antiquated camera technique misses many opportunities that would become standard practice with experience (i.e., some closeups of the different instrumentalists at crucial parts in the score, like the tympanist in the second movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony).

This film, however, is much more smooth and professional. The NBC Symphony Orchestra and the singers are obviously synching to their own pre-recorded track,as evidenced by the frequent cutaways in the "Forza del Destino" overture, where we see huge closeups of a radio mike, of pipes and tubing through which the "radio broadcast" is presumably being transmitted, and a long shot of a radio tower. Toscanini, however,turns out to be a fine "actor", effortlessly recreating his conducting performance in Studio 8-H for the benefit of the camera.

Because this film was produced during World War II and is supposed to be a commemoration of the fall of Mussolini, we are then treated, in the original version, to an intentionally propagandistic account, spoken dramatically by an anonymous narrator, of the role played by famous Italian immigrants of the time against Fascist Italy. The scenes of Toscanini fumbling with a 1940's phonograph and listening with his grandson to the "Garibaldi Hymn" are amusing to watch, but they, together with the dramatically jingoistic narration are what hopelessly date the original version of this short subject, not to mention the awful and patently artificial re-enactment of Mussolini's overthrow as announced on NBC. (There is now a CD available which contains the real announcement as part of a Toscanini concert, and there is a world of difference between the two versions.) Another element which might even shock modern-day audiences, and which apparently has been eliminated from the current print, is the use of the Russian Revolution anthem "The Internationale", to honor our then allies, the Russians.(Incidentally, Toscanini was emphatically NOT a Communist, nor a Fascist.)

The narrator is often claimed to be Burgess Meredith, and it may very well be him in the edited version, but in my copy, it sounds for all the world like Knox Manning, who narrates many shorts which are shown on Turner Classic Movies.

The current version of the tape probably has removed all the wartime propaganda, and what remains is the music, magnificently performed.