The
NBC Symphony Orchestra was a
radio orchestra established by
David Sarnoff of the
National
Broadcasting Company especially for conductor
Arturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony
performed weekly radio concert broadcasts with Toscanini and other
conductors and served as house orchestra for the network, beginning
November 13, 1937 and continuing until 1954.
History
Tom Lewis, in the
Organization of American Historians Magazine
of History, described NBC's plan for cultural programming and
the origin of the NBC Symphony:
- David Sarnoff, the president of RCA who had first proposed the
"radio music box" in 1916 so that listeners might enjoy "concerts,
lectures, music, recitals," felt that the medium was failing to do
this. By 1937, RCA had recovered enough from the effects of the
Depression for it to make a dramatic commitment to cultural
programming. With the most liberal terms Sarnoff hired Arturo
Toscanini to create an entire orchestra and conduct it. On
Christmas night, 1937, the NBC orchestra gave its first
performance—Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso in D Minor—in an
entirely refurbished studio in the RCA Building. "The National
Broadcasting Company is an American business organization. It has
employees and stockholders. It serves their interests best when it
serves the public best." That Christmas night, and whenever the NBC
orchestra played over the next 17 years, he was right.
Mr. Sarnoff spared no expense in creating the NBC Symphony.
Artur Rodziński, a noted
orchestra builder and musical task master in his own right, was
hired to mold and train the new orchestra especially for Toscanini.
Prominent musicians from major orchestras around the country were
recruited for the orchestra. Conductor
Pierre Monteux was engaged to help in the
effort as well. 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.
The orchestra's first broadcast concert aired from NBC's
Studio 8H on November 13, 1937 under
the direction of Pierre Monteux. Toscanini conducted 10 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 for
RCA Victor of
symphonies,
choral music and
operas.
Televised concerts began in March 1948 and continued until March
1952.
In
the fall of 1950, NBC converted Studio 8H into a television studio
and moved the broadcast concerts to Carnegie Hall
, where many of the orchestra's recording sessions
and special concerts had already taken place.
Toscanini led the NBC Symphony for 17 years. Under his direction
the orchestra toured South America in 1940 and the United States in
1950. It also performed with a veritable who's who of the world's
top conductors, including Monteux,
Ernest Ansermet,
Erich Kleiber,
Erich Leinsdorf,
Charles Münch,
Fritz Reiner,
George
Szell,
Bruno Walter, the young
Lorin Maazel and the promising young
Italian conductor
Guido
Cantelli.
Leopold Stokowski served as
principal conductor from 1941-1942 during a contract dispute
between Toscanini and NBC. During this time Toscanini continued to
lead the orchestra in a series of hugely successful public benefit
concerts for war relief. Upon Toscanini's retirement in the spring
of 1954, NBC disbanded the orchestra, much to Toscanini's distress.
The final broadcast concert (recorded in both mono and stereo) took
place at Carnegie Hall on April 4, 1954, and the final recording
sessions were in early June 1954.
Sponsorship
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 by
General 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 the
House of Squib, the
Reynolds Metals Company, and the
Socony Vacuum Oil
Company.
Symphony of the Air
After the NBC Symphony Orchestra disbanded, some members went on to
play with other orchestras, notably
Frank Miller (principal
cello) and
Leonard
Sharrow (principal
bassoon) with the
Chicago 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 the
United Nations 9th
Anniversary Celebration on October 24. On November 14 they appeared
on
Leonard Bernstein's acclaimed
Omnibus TV show
about
Beethoven's
Fifth 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 the
Catskills that summer, the first season
was a huge success.
For nearly a decade, the Symphony of the Air performed many
concerts led by Leopold Stokowski, the orchestra's music director
from 1955. The orchestra recorded widely (on Columbia, RCA, United
Artists and Vanguard) under leading conductors, including
Bernstein, Monteux, Reiner, Stokowski, Walter,
Kyrill Kondrashin,
Thomas Beecham, and
Josef Krips. The orchestra disbanded in
1963.
Recorded Legacy
RCA Victor began making studio recordings
of the NBC Symphony for commercial release in 1938. The orchestra
recorded initially in Studio 8-H but producer Charles O'Connell
soon decided to hold most of the recording sessions in Carnegie
Hall. The famously dry acoustics of Studio 8-H, designed for
broadcasting, were found to be less than ideal for recording.
Nevertheless, some recording sessions were held in the radio studio
as late as June 1950. Acoustical modifications in 1939 were thought
to have greatly improved the sound of Studio 8H. From the fall of
1950 until the orchestra was disbanded, all concerts and recording
sessions took place in Carnegie Hall.
RCA released the orchestra's recordings on its
flagship Red Seal label on the then standard 78-rpm records. In
1950, a 1945 recording of
Ferde
Grofé's
Grand Canyon
Suite became the NBC Symphony's first LP release
(LM-1004). A mainstay of RCA's catalog through the 1950s, many of
the NBC Symphony's recordings were later reissued on the lower
priced
RCA Victrola label, where they
remained until the demise of the LP. In the 1980s RCA began issuing
digitally remastered recordings of the orchestra, including a
complete issue of all Toscanini's RCA recordings in 1990 on CD and
audio cassette. Later advances in
digital technology has led RCA (now Sony/BMG Classics) to further
enhance the sound of the magnetic tapes for additional reissues.
RCA has only reissued recordings that were personally approved by
Toscanini, however other labels have released discs taken from
off-the-air recordings of NBC broadcast concerts.
The complete series of ten NBC Symphony telecasts has twice been
issued on home video: On VHS and Laser Disc by RCA in 1990 and on
DVD by Testament in 2006.
One of the NBC Symphony Orchestra's most ambitious projects was the
recording of the 13-hour musical score for NBC Television's 1952
series
Victory at Sea.
Robert Russell Bennett
conducted the orchestra in the arrangements he had done of
Richard Rodgers' musical themes for the 26
documentary programs (recorded in Rockefeller Center's
Center Theatre). The series is currently
available on DVD. Some of the music was released by RCA Victor on
LP. In the early 1960s, Bennett re-recorded music from
Victory
at Sea in a famed series of three stereo records for RCA
Victor, conducting a studio orchestra, the RCA Victor Symphony
Orchestra (actually the Symphony of the Air). These have all been
reissued by RCA on CD.
Listen to
References
- Lewis, Tom. "'A Godlike Presence': The Impact of Radio on
the 1920s and 1930s," Organization of American Historians
Magazine of History 6, Spring 1992.
- McLaughlin, Kathleen, "9th U.N. Birthday Widely Observed", 25
October 1954, New York Times, 1"
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