On today’s date in 1942, on a radio broadcast by the NBC Symphony, the 75-year-old Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini led a performance of El salón Mexico by the then 41-year-old American composer Aaron Copland.  Copland, who attended the performance, was amazed to see that Toscanini knew his score by heart, apparently unaware that the extremely nearsighted Toscanini always memorized the scores he conducted.

After the performance, Copland was invited backstage to the Green Room to meet Toscanini. “He addressed me as “maestro,” recalled Copland. “That was a shock. It was rather fun to be addressed as ‘maestro’ by the ‘maestro.’”

“But Toscanini seemed disturbed,” said Copland.  “I wondered what was bothering him and apparently the rhythmic complications of my piece had caused him considerable headache, trying to remember all these changes of rhythms in the piece by heart, and made him a little unsure of his memory.”

Years later, among Toscanini’s papers, a copy of Copland’s score was found, written out in Toscanini’s own hand, from first note to last, apparently made as an aide to – or test of – his memory. Copland asked Toscanini’s son Walter, for a photocopy, and it remained one of Copland’s prized possessions.

Aaron Copland (1900 –1990) — El salòn Mèxico (NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor.)