Ernst Toch (1887-1964): Pinocchio: A Merry Overture (1935)

Christmas is the time for pantomimes and fairy tales, as well as the sometimes-overlooked Christian celebration! It is also the time for watching old favourite films, such as A Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn and Miracle on 34^th Street. And then there are the Walt Disney films which are always treats, especially the ‘classics.’ (For me, that is anything up until The Aristocrats 1970). One of my favourite Disney movies to watch over the Yuletide season is Pinocchio, first screened in 1940. 

I count Ernst Toch (1887-1964) as an “honorary” British composer, one of several émigré musicians who made their life in the United Kingdom, or passed through, usually on their way to the United States. In 1933, Toch had left Germany and went into exile, first in Paris and then to London. To make ends meet, he composed some film music. Whilst in London he wrote the score for three films: Little Friend, The Rise of Catherine the Great and The Private Life of Don Juan.

The following year he was appointed to a teaching-post at the New School for Social Research – the ‘University in Exile’ in New York. In the United States he found that, financially, he still needed to compose music for the movies. Yet, unlike Erich Wolfgang Korngold, he never saw the limelight.

The Director of the New School for Social Research, Alvin Johnson, gave Toch’s daughter, Franzi, a present of an illustrated edition of the Italian folk tale, Pinocchio. Carlo Collodi’s (pen name of Carlo Lorenzino) delightful book caught the composer’s eye. It was first published in 1883 but had many reprints and with several sets of illustrations. There is no way of knowing which edition Franzi received, however one contender must be the 1926 edition published by Albert Whitman and Company, Chicago, with illustrations by Violet Moore Higgins. When Ernst saw the book, he immediately decided to write an overture celebrating childhood. The work is dedicated “To Dr and Mrs Alvin Johnson in cordial admiration.”

Diane Peacock Jezic (1989, p.73) confirms that “the popular appeal of the work lies in its programmatic content, making Pinocchio a kind of tone-poem.” To this end, Ernst Toch has prefaced the score with a short verse:

Italian lore would have us know

That gay marionette Pinocchio!

With deviltry and gamin grace,

He led them all a merry chase!

The score also includes a brief, non-technical overview of the overture, written by the composer:

"Pinocchio is a legendary figure in Italian folk-lore created by Carlo Collodi. According to the story, he was fashioned by old Gepetto, a wood carver, from a curiously animated piece of wood. His rascally demeanor and mischievous escapades gave his creator many an anxious moment. His particular failing was fibbing, each lie prompting his already long nose to grow longer. He is a sort of brother-in-mischief to the German Till Eulenspiegel. To this day, Italian children are warned by their elders that their noses will grow as long as Pinocchio's if they do not tell the truth."

The piece is subtitled a “merry overture.” This characterises the progress of the music. It is a light-hearted work that provides a “piquant and saucy portrait of the mischievous Pinocchio as well as a vivid and ironic description of his escapades.” Furthermore, the Overture “is conceived in the most distinct and concise form, its themes are characteristic to a degree, its orchestration is witty and transparent.” (David Ewen, 1945, p.588).

The structure of the work is tri-partite with the outer sections presenting scurrilous “fanfares and flourishes” bookending a vibrant fugal passage.

The work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion (triangle, xylophone, snare drum, and cymbals), and strings.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Otto Klemperer gave the premiere on 10 December 1936. The Los Angles Examiner considered it “a gay, whimsical number of distinctly pleasing quality…” Equally complimentary was the Los Angeles Times, which felt that the piece was written “in the most delightful dizzy Disney style, only musically of course [!]” Finally, the Los Angeles Evening News felt the work was composed “in the vivid modern vein that characterizes the composer’s works…refreshingly novel throughout.”

The earliest recording was Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was recorded on 26 April, 1941and released on Columbia Masterworks 11665-D, one 78-rpm record. The review in The New Records (December 1941, p.3) is worth quoting in full: “An amusing orchestral selection by the contemporary German composer, Ernst Toch, who is now making his home in America. A charming little piece that almost everyone will like – beautifully played by the Chicago Symphony under the direction of its distinguished conductor Frederick Stock. Recording excellent.”  This vibrant recording has been uploaded to YouTube (accessed 16 October 2021).

In 2002, New World Records (80609) issued a CD dedicated to Toch’s orchestral music. The disc also included the ‘early’ Piano Concerto op. 38, (1926), Peter Pan, A Fairy Tale for Orchestra, op. 76 (1956) and Big Ben: Variation-Fantasy on the Westminster Chimes (1934). The piano soloist was Todd Crow, and the Hamburg North German Radio Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Leon Botstein. The entire CD provides a splendid introduction to Toch’s less cerebral music from over a 30-year period. Guy Rickards, writing in The Gramophone (October 2003, p.54f) states that New World’s “new disc collects four of Toch’s most vibrant and appealing orchestral scores.” This is especially so with Big Ben and Pinocchio which “date from the troubled early years of Toch’s exile” with the latter being “a lively affair, pure entertainment.”      

Clearly, Toch’s Pinocchio would be an ideal companion piece to Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel or Igor Stravinsky’s Petruska. From a British perspective, an ideal pairing would be Richard Arnell’s Punch and the Child or Harlequin in April.

A lively modern performance of Ernst Toch’s Pinocchio is available on YouTube (accessed on 16 October 2021). The Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Max Hobart in a lovely performance.

Bibliography:
Ewen, David, Music for the Millions: The Encyclopaedia of Musical Masterpieces, Arco Publishing Company, New York, 1945)
Jezic, Diane Peacock, The Musical Migration and Ernst Toch (Iowa State University Press, Ames, 1989)