[TOSCANINI ARTURO]: (1867-1957) Italian Conductor. Rare baton, being one of Toscanini´s batons during his NBC ...

[TOSCANINI ARTURO]: (1867-1957) Italian Conductor. Rare baton, being one of Toscanini´s batons during his NBC orchestra touring in 1950. An 11.5 baton (30cm), with wooden handgrip, attractively displayed beneath a 9.5 x 7 photograph, the image showing Toscanini standing, in a half-length pose and wearing his hat, alongside James Dolan. Framed in black, and glazed (plastic) to an overall of 12 x 15 (30cm x 38cm). Together with a 12mo clipped piece, bearing a seven bars of music with annotations in Toscanini´s hand. Also including an original unsigned 7 x 5 photograph of Toscanini showing him during rehearsals, two admittance cards to the late Toscanini´s services at the St. Patrick´s Cathedral in New York on 19th January 1957, and two original typed pages listing the honorary pallbearers. The list included among many others, Italian Ambassador Manlio Brosio, Mayor of New York Robert Wagner, Composer Samuel Barber, Director of the Metropolitan Opera Rudolf Bing, Tenor Giovanni Martinelli, Rudolf Serkin, etc… VG, 5 Provenance, the present baton comes from the estate of the late James B. Dolan (1915-2006) Librarian and Archivist of the NBC Orchestra under Toscanini 1942-54 and a friend of the Italian conductor. Dolan took care of all Toscanini´s scores and batons during and after his 1950 touring with the NBC Orchestra. Dolan would later be the Los Angeles Philharmonic´s librarian for 32 years. Dolan traveled with Toscanini on the symphony's 1950 cross-country tour. He was personally responsible for five large trunks of music for the 110 musicians who would perform 50 works during 21 concerts. On the special 12-car train, Dolan commanded an entire car for the music library. He was also the custodian of Toscanini's batons, which a Philadelphia dentist made by hand from the finest materials. Being in charge of them was no easy task, considering that the temperamental conductor could break several batons in anger during the course of a rehearsal. Dolan developed a hobby of making copies of scores with the conductor's notations, ''all the editing and markings of his genius,'' Dolan wrote in a 1967 article. Other conductors have studied Dolan's copies to understand how the man considered the most brilliant conductor of his era shaped a particular piece of music.