Peter Rosen’s film was made in 1985. It appeared on video in 1991. Here it is again, packaged in two unattractive shades of dirty brown. There is no booklet and all the production details, such as they are, are crammed on to the back cover of the DVD. Modish minimalism it might be, but it looks cheap and visually unappealing. As far as the quality of the colour, sound and picture of the film is concerned, I would guess the source is second generation, derived from a 20-year old video tape.

Having said that, the contents are unmissable, a jewel-box of stills, archive film clips – ‘Gosh, that’s Verdi’s funeral procession’ – and family movies – ‘Look, there’s Horowitz and Wanda at Isolino’. A succession of orchestral players and opera singers, most of whom have sadly departed for the great green room in the sky since 1985, all testify to ‘Maestro’s’ unique art, the art with which he was synonymous.

Courageous opponent of fascism, a true dictator of the baton with an uncontrollable temper (we hear an example on the soundtrack), a bit of a tinker with the ladies and a direct link to the creative lives of Verdi and Puccini – it is an extraordinary story, efficiently if superficially told. There is no mention of Toscanini’s failure as a father or his many affairs: the script is by Toscanini’s biographer Harvey Sachs with the conductor’s grandson Walfredo billed as ‘advisor’. Setting the scenes are an off-screen narrator and an on-screen James Levine (more svelte and lissom than now, and without that towel round his shoulders). An actor reads some of Toscanini’s sayings rather badly.

Watching the great man conduct is an unsettling experience. Most of the archive footage is of live performances with the camera close up on Toscanini’s face. The unchanging, unsym-pathetic, penetrating gaze, the immobile body and surprisingly stiff arm movements yield some unattractive, steel-edged performances. Once, briefly and fascinatingly, he is caught unawares in rehearsal when his gestures are fluent, flamboyant and expressive.

Towards the end is a performance of Verdi’s Hymn of the Nations, shorn of its introductory pages, recorded in 1943 with tenor Jan Peerce. Immediately after the documentary comes the same film of the same work, this time complete. BMG has slipped in a bit of brown paper containing the words of the Hymn in four languages. Super. Disc 2 is an arbitrary selection of Toscanini’s greatest hits (‘Va pensiero’, La forza Overture, first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth and so on) on a CD lasting 48'09". There are no recording details. Bizarre and, as I said, pretty shabby presentation for a celebration of such a towering figure.