Wonderful Obit

NRO's Jay Nordlinger points to this obituary in the Telegraph (U.K.):

Massimo Freccia, the Italo-American conductor who has died aged 98. . .

He was one of the last men to fight a duel. Staying on a Mediterranean island in 1934, he was attacked by a rival for the attentions of a woman. Freccia (illegally) challenged his assailant to a duel. The weapon chosen was swords - his opponent was a cavalry officer, but Freccia had merely had fencing lessons as a boy and went for a "crash course" at a fencing school in Naples in the week before the encounter. They met at 5 a.m. and Freccia's sword pierced his rival's right arm. After 15 minutes of medical treatment, defeat was admitted.

A few months earlier Freccia had conducted the Budapest Symphony Orchestra on an Italian tour. Mussolini attended the concert, in Rome, and summoned Freccia to meet him next day in the Palazzo Venezia. The Duce received him in his vast study and talked about the orchestra's string section (he was a violinist) and the precision of the violins in Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. At this point he broke off, the balcony windows were opened and he harangued the crowd below for 20 minutes. He then returned to his desk and resumed the conversation exactly where he had left it. . .

Freccia's candid views on other conductors are a major part of the enjoyment afforded by his autobiography, The Sounds of Memory, published in 1990 when he was 84. Most of them, he wrote, were too conceited, mistrustful and even occasionally vicious. Sir Thomas Beecham, for instance, "emphasised his pomposity" by his poses and pretensions. "Not once have I been touched by his performances. I always found his artistry superficial." Karajan was "not a nice man". Leopold Stokowski produced a lush sound, yet "one had the feeling that underneath there was something false. His speech was particularly affected... He gave the impression of a glittering, multi-coloured painted shell; when one looked inside one found an infinite emptiness." Only Toscanini escaped savage censure, although Freccia conceded that his reputation for strict observance of the score was a myth.

They don't make 'um like that no more. RIP, Massimo Freccia.