Signed 1920 "Fiume d'Italia" Concert Program to Adriano Lualdi, later denounced by Toscanini

Original 1920 program for the "Orchestra Arturo Toscanini", signed and inscribed "All'amico mio Lualdi" and dated "Fiume d'Italia / 30-11-1920" by Toscanini at the head of the front cover which bears two vibrant futurist-style woodcuts printed in red ink. 4 pp., each with an additional woodcut printed by Grafiche Zanetti, Venezia. Central horizontal and vertical folds, small nicks, stains and tears to the edges including one touching the first line of the inscription, else fine.

Toscanini, who sympathized with the incorporation of Fiume into Italy, travelled there to perform with his newly-assembled La Scala Orchestra in November of 1920, during the short period in which D'Annunzio ruled the city as Duce of the (never-recognized) Italian Regency of Carnaro. The inscription here to the Italian composer and condutor Adriano Lualdi (1885 - 1971) - whose composition Il diavolo nel campanile, based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Devil in the Belfry" Toscanini premiered - is significant, as Toscanini came to greatly regret his association with the man who became an avid supporter of Mussolini and Italian fascism. In a letter dated some 25 years later (27 May, 1945), Toscanini writes: "More than a quarter century ago I met and acted on behalf of Adriano Lualdi - and I think I was even of use to him. At the time, I believed him to be an honest man, a humble and sincere artist. I was wrong. The advent of fascism, and its spread, ruined him. All the ugliness and rot that had lain dormant in him were stirred up, so that the humility that I had found in him was transformed into limitless vanity, and he became a shameless Fascist, superaccumulator of positions, unworthy of my esteem. He was also a Fascist member of parliament for years, and in 1931 he attempted to engineer a rapprochement between his Duce and me. The wretch!!" (Harvey Sachs, "The Letters of Arturo Toscanini," p. 403) (11442)

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Signed Document/Item

Classical Music

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