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| NBC Symphony Orchestra | |
|---|---|
| Radio orchestra | |
| Founded | 1937; 88 years ago (1937) |
| Disbanded | 1954 (1954) (original) 1963 (1963) (renamed) |
| Later name | Symphony of the Air |
| Location | NBC Studio 8H andCarnegie Hall, New York City |
| Principal conductor | Arturo Toscanini |
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TheNBC Symphony Orchestra was aradio orchestra conceived byDavid Sarnoff, the president of theRadio Corporation of America, the parent corporation of theNational Broadcasting Company especially for the conductorArturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony Orchestra performed weekly radio broadcast concerts with Toscanini and other conductors and several of its players served in the house orchestra for theNBC Radio Network. NBC encouraged the public’s perception of the Orchestra as a full-time organization exclusively at Toscanini’s beck and call, butFortune disclosed in 1938 that these instrumentalists played other radio—and, later, television—broadcasts: “the Toscanini concerts have been allocated only fifteen of the thirty hours a week each man works, including rehearsals.”[1]
The orchestra's first broadcast was on November 13, 1937, and it continued until disbanded in April 1954. A new ensemble, independent of the network, called theSymphony of the Air, followed. It was made up of former members of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and performed from 1954 to 1963, particularly underLeopold Stokowski.
Tom Lewis, in theOrganization of American Historians Magazine of History, described NBC's plan for cultural programming and the origin of the NBC Symphony:
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Sarnoff devoted considerable effort and resources to create an orchestra of the first rank for Toscanini and NBC.Artur Rodziński, an orchestra builder and musical task master in his own right, was engaged to mold and train the new orchestra in anticipation of the arrival of Toscanini. It offered the highest salaries of any orchestra at the time and a 52-week contract.[3] Prominent musicians from major orchestras around the country were recruited and the conductorPierre Monteux was hired as well to work with the orchestra in its formative months. A new large broadcast studio was built for the orchestra at NBC'sRadio City Studios inRockefeller Center, New York, Studio 8-H. In addition to creating prestige for the network, there has been speculation that one of the reasons NBC created the orchestra was to deflect a congressional inquiry into broadcasting standards.[4][better source needed]
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The orchestra's first broadcast concert aired on November 13, 1937, under the direction of Monteux. Toscanini conducted ten concerts that first season, making his NBC debut on December 25, 1937. In addition to weekly broadcasts on the NBC Red and Blue networks, the NBC Symphony Orchestra made many recordings forRCA Victor. Televised concerts began in March 1948 and continued until March 1952. During the summer of 1950, NBC converted Studio 8-H into a television studio (the broadcast home of NBC's late-night comedy programSaturday Night Live since 1975) and moved the broadcast concerts toCarnegie Hall, where many of the orchestra's recording sessions and special concerts had already taken place.[5]
For the new ensemble, many NBC staff musicians were auditioned by Rodzinski and Chotzinoff, along with about 700 members of other orchestras or chamber-music groups; 31 NBC players were retained in the new orchestra. TheAmerican Federation of Musicians union minimum for such staff work at NBC was $105 weekly, but many instrumentalists were paid considerably more.Fortune magazine disclosed that the NBC's extra cost for all the above-scale musicians, plus Toscanini’s salary—as compared with a typical staff conductor’s—amounted to about $250K more than an orchestra of union-scale players under typical staff conductors.[6]
Leopold Stokowski served as principal conductor from 1941 to 1944 on a three-year contract following a dispute between Toscanini and NBC. During this time Toscanini continued to lead the orchestra in a series of public benefit concerts for war relief. He returned as Stokowski's co-conductor for the 1942–43 and 1943–44 seasons, resuming full control thereafter. Upon Toscanini's retirement in the spring of 1954, NBC officially disbanded the orchestra, much to Toscanini's distress, though it continued for several years independent of NBC, as theSymphony of the Air. Toscanini's final broadcast concert with the orchestra took place at Carnegie Hall on April 4, 1954, and he conducted the orchestra for the last time during RCA Victor recording sessions held June 3 and 5, 1954.
Some notable musicians who were members of the orchestra include violinistsSamuel Antek, Leonid Bolotine, Henry Clifton,Felix Galimir,Josef Gingold,Daniel Guilet (concertmaster 1952–54),Harry Lookofsky,Mischa Mischakoff (concertmaster 1937–1952),Albert Pratz,David Sarser,Oscar Shumsky,Benjamin Steinberg, Herman Spielberg,Boris Koutzen andAndor Toth; violistsCarlton Cooley,Milton Katims,William Primrose, andTibor Serly; cellistsFrank Miller,Leonard Rose,Harvey Shapiro,Alan Shulman, George Koutzen andDavid Soyer;double bassistsHomer Mensch andOscar G. Zimmerman; flutistsCarmine Coppola,D. Antoinette Handy,Arthur Lora and Paul Renzi; clarinetists Augustin Duques,Al Gallodoro,David Weber and Alexander Williams; trombonist Norberto (Robert) Paolucci; saxophonistFrankie Trumbauer; oboists Robert Bloom, Paolo Renzi and Chauncey Vernon Kelley, Jr.; bassoonists Elias Carmen, Benjamin Kohon, William Polisi,Leonard Sharrow andArthur Weisberg; French horn players Arthur Berv, Harry Berv, Jack Berv and Albert Stagliano; Harry Glantz, Bernard Baker, andRaymond Crisara trumpets and tuba playerWilliam Bell, among others.[7]
Not all of the NBC Symphony performers were under full-time contracts to NBC. In the early 1950s, for example, only about 55 of these musicians were salaried; the rest were hired under per-service contracts (in line with Local 802American Federation of Musicians wage scales) to bring the orchestra's performing and recording strength up to the 85 to 100 seen in period photographs and video footage. Even for the salaried members, NBC Symphony duties constituted barely half of their work obligations for NBC; these musicians played in orchestras for other NBC radio and television programs, with many of the wind players also serving with the Cities Service "Band of America" conducted by Paul Lavalle.[8]
In the first several seasons the NBC Symphony broadcasts were "sustaining" programs, meaning that they were paid for and presented by NBC itself. In later years the broadcasts were commercially sponsored, primarily byGeneral Motors. Under GM's sponsorship the NBC Symphony broadcasts went out under the title of General Motors Symphony of the Air, not to be confused with the later orchestra of the same name. Other sponsors included theHouse of Squibb, theReynolds Metals Company, and the Socony Vacuum Oil Company (Mobil).
RCA Victor began making studio recordings of Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra for commercial release early in 1938;Mozart'sSymphony No. 40,Haydn'sSymphony No. 88,Rossini'sWilliam Tell Overture and the second and third movements fromBeethoven'sString Quartet, Op. 135, were among the first works to be recorded. The orchestra recorded initially in Studio 8-H, but RCA Victor producer Charles O'Connell soon decided to hold most of the studio recording sessions in Carnegie Hall. However, many live broadcast performances originating in Studio 8H were also released on records, and subsequently on CD. The dry acoustics of Studio 8-H, designed for broadcasting, were found to be less than ideal for recording. Acoustical modifications began in 1939 were thought to have greatly improved the sound of Studio 8H; although most NBC Symphony recording sessions were shifted to Carnegie Hall in 1940, the orchestra recorded in 8-H sporadically as late as June 1950, after which the studio was converted fortelevision broadcasting. From the autumn of 1950 until June 1954, all NBC Symphony radio broadcasts and RCA Victor recording sessions took place in Carnegie Hall.
RCA Victor released the orchestra's recordings on its flagshipRed Seal label on the then-standard 78-rpm record format. In 1950, a 1945 recording ofFerde Grofé'sGrand Canyon Suite became the NBC Symphony's first LP release (LM-1004). A mainstay of RCA Victor's Red Seal catalog through the 1950s, most of the Toscanini/NBC Symphony recordings were reissued on the lower-pricedRCA Victrola label to celebrate Toscanini'scentenary in 1967. In the 1980s, RCA began digitally remastering recordings of the orchestra for release oncompact disc. A complete reissue of all Toscanini's RCA Victor recordings was released on CD and cassette between 1990 and 1992 and again in 2012. Later advances in digital technology has led RCA (now owned bySony Music) to claim further enhancement of the sound of the magnetic tapes for later reissues, changing original equalization balances and adding acoustical enhancement, but critics are divided in their judgment. RCA Victor has only reissued recordings that were personally approved by Toscanini, including some broadcast performances such as the seven complete operas he conducted at NBC between 1944 and 1954; however, several other labels have released discs taken from off-the-air recordings of NBC broadcast concerts. Toscanini's final two broadcast programs, in the spring of 1954, were experimentally recorded in stereo, but he did not approve their release; many years passed before they were finally issued unofficially by labels other than RCA Victor. Recorded in rather primitive and "minimalist" two-channel sound, the stereo antiphonal effect is striking (if crude); but the complete performance from March 21, 1954, of the Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 ("Pathetique") is not entirely stereo as the master 2-track tape of the entire 'Allegro molto vivace' third movement had apparently been lost; an artificial stereo synthesis is substituted.[citation needed] The missing portion of the stereo recording of the third movement was later found.
The complete series of ten NBC Symphony telecasts has been issued onVHS andLaserDisc by RCA in 1990 and on DVD byTestament in 2006. While the videos derive fromkinescopes, the sound tracks were carefully synchronized from the highest fidelity transcriptions and tapes that exist.
One of the NBC Symphony Orchestra's most ambitious projects was the recording of the 13-hour musical score for NBC Television's 1952–53 seriesVictory at Sea.Robert Russell Bennett conducted the orchestra in his arrangements ofRichard Rodgers' musical themes for the 26 documentary programs (recorded in Rockefeller Center'sCenter Theatre). The series is currently available on DVD. The first RCA Victor LP of excerpts was recorded by Bennett and the NBC SO musicians in July 1953. Bennett would later lead stereo recordings of volume 2 in 1957, a re-make of volume 1 in 1959, and a concluding volume 3 in 1961, conducting the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra (members of the Symphony of the Air). RCA has reissued all of these recordings on CD.
In 1954, shortly after the orchestra's final concerts with Toscanini, Stokowski made stereo recordings for RCA Victor of excerpts fromProkofiev's balletRomeo and Juliet andGian Carlo Menotti's balletSebastian. The recordings were originally issued (monophonically) as "Leopold Stokowski and his orchestra", but reissued as "members of the NBC Symphony Orchestra". On April 6, 1954, just two days after Toscanini's final concert with the orchestra, Guido Cantelli made a recording in Carnegie Hall ofCésar Franck'sSymphony in D minor. Though the performance was recorded in stereo, RCA Victor initially issued the recording in mono. The label finally issued the stereo version in 1978.
After the NBC Symphony Orchestra disbanded, some members went on to play with other orchestras, such asFrank Miller (principalcello) andLeonard Sharrow (principalbassoon) with theChicago Symphony Orchestra. However, many former NBC Symphony members, in an attempt to stay together and preserve the orchestra, regrouped as a new ensemble called the "Symphony of the Air". They made their first recording on September 21, 1954, and gave their first public concert at theUnited Nations 9th Anniversary Celebration on October 24.[9] On November 14, they appeared on the acclaimedOmnibus TV program in whichLeonard Bernstein, making his first television appearance, discussedBeethoven'sFifth Symphony, and Bernstein led the Symphony of the Air during its first season. With an Asian tour under the auspices of the State Department and an attendance of 60,000 at concerts in theCatskills that summer, the first season was a huge success.[citation needed]
In 1957, Symphony of the Air concerts or recordings used 80% or more veteran NBC Symphony musicians. Some 70 of the 75 players having steady "binder contracts" were former NBC players; when more were needed for an engagement, it was reported "the SOA tries whenever possible to obtain ex-NBC musicians on a free-lance basis."[10]
In 1960, theCBS Television network also featured the Symphony of the Air in its televised prime-time specialSpring Festival of Music under the direction of the conductorAlfredo Antonini. In collaboration with the concert pianistJohn Browning, producerRobert Herridge and directorRoger Englander, the orchestra presented a virtuoso live presentation ofSergei Rachmaninoff'sSecond Piano Concerto.[11]
For nearly a decade, the Symphony of the Air performed many concerts led byStokowski, the orchestra's music director from 1955. The orchestra recorded widely (on RCA Victor, Columbia, Vanguard and United Artists) under leading conductors, including Stokowski,Bernstein,Monteux,Fritz Reiner,Bruno Walter,Kirill Kondrashin, SirThomas Beecham,Alfred Wallenstein andJosef Krips. Only once more did they use their old name, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, in the 1963 telecast ofGian Carlo Menotti's written-for-television opera,Amahl and the Night Visitors, with an all-new cast.[12] The orchestra disbanded in 1963.
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