These acoustic recordings may seem archaic but such was the mastery of those early Victor engineers that it would be wrong to dismiss them, for in this collection, which brings together all the recordings made during that tour, we hear music – often by contemporaries – which Toscanini never again committed to disc, alongside his earliest recordings of Beethoven symphonies.

Several years later, Toscanini was back in New York, on being appointed musical director of the New York Philharmonic – our collection of the Maestro’s earliest recordings is completed by the two tracks he recorded with the Philharmonic for Brunswick in 1926. The sound on these latest transfers of course remains acoustic at source – but the music-lover can readily sense the excellent musicianship of both orchestras, one hundred years ago, now collected for the first time on one modern compact disc.