What is Arturo Toscanini?
[[File:Toscanini5.jpg|thumb|Arturo Toscanini]] '''Arturo Toscanini''' (25 March 1867 – 16 January 1957) was an [[Italians|Italian]] [[Conductor (music)|conductor]]. Most musicians think he was the greatest conductor of his time. His fame was legendary: he was probably the first conductor to become a world superstar. He had an incredibly good [[memory]] and could remember every single [[note (music)|note]] of the large number of works he conducted. He had a photographic memory so that he could remember what the pages looked like. Sometimes he found little mistakes in the [[sheet music|scores]] which no one else had ever noticed. He had a very keen sense of hearing and knew exactly what each instrument was doing. He also had a fiery temperament and there are movies of him shouting angrily at his orchestra in rehearsals. In the early days of gramophone recordings he made some of the first recordings of famous orchestral works. ==Life== ===Early years=== Toscanini was born in [[Parma]] in Italy. He won a [[scholarship]] to the local music conservatory, where he learned to play the [[cello]]. He joined the [[orchestra]] of an opera company and he toured South America with them in 1886. While performing [[Verdi]]’s opera ''[[Aida]]'' in [[Rio de Janeiro]] the [[audience]] did not like the [[Conductor (music)|conductor]] and they [[boo]]ed him so that he had to leave the stage. No one knew what to do at first, but then they persuaded Toscanini, who was only 19 years old, to put down his cello and conduct the orchestra. He did this brilliantly from [[memory]] (without looking at the music) and that night he became famous. When he got back to Italy Toscanini returned to his chair in the cello section, and took part as cellist in the first performance of [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]]'s ''[[Otello]]'' ([[La Scala]], 1887). Verdi was there and was very impressed when Toscanini asked him about a mistake he noticed in the score. Soon the young musician's reputation as a brilliant conductor of opera grew. He conduct