NBC Symphony Orchestra

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The NBC Symphony Orchestra was an orchestra established in 1937 by General David Sarnoff of NBC as a vehicle for conductor Arturo Toscanini. Sarnoff spared no expense in recruiting and training the orchestra. Artur Rodziński, a noted disciplinarian and task master in his own right, was hired to mould and train the new orchestra especially for Toscanini. The French conductor Pierre Monteux was hired, as well, to help in the effort. It has been alleged that one of the purposes of creating the orchestra was to deflect a Congressional inquiry into broadcasting standards.<ref name = "lebrecht"> Lebrecht, Norman (2001). The Maestro Myth. Citadel Press, page 73. ISBN 0-8065-2088-4. </ref>

1 History
2 Symphony of the Air
3 Listen to
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Under Toscanini's direction, the orchestra's first broadcast concert aired from NBC's Studio 8H on Christmas Day, 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 1952. In the fall of 1950, NBC moved the broadcast concerts to Carnegie Hall, where many of the orchestra's recording sessions and special concerts had taken place. The final broadcast concert (recorded in both mono and stereo) took place there on April 4, 1954, and the final recording sessions were in early June 1954.

Toscanini led the NBC Symphony for 17 years. Under his direction the orchestra toured South America in 1940 and the USA in 1950. It performed with a veritable who's who of the top conductors of the day, including Monteux, Ernest Ansermet, Erich Kleiber, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Fritz Reiner, Leopold Stokowski, George Szell, Bruno Walter, the young Lorin Maazel, and the promising young Italian conductor Guido Cantelli. Upon Toscanini's retirement in the spring of 1954, NBC disbanded the orchestra, much to Toscanini's distress.

[edit] Symphony of the Air

Some NBC Symphony 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 NBC Symphony Orchestra members regrouped to become the Symphony of the Air, making their first recording on September 21, 1954, and giving their first public concert at the United Nations 9th Anniversary Celebration on October 24.<ref> McLaughlin, Kathleen, "9th U.N. Birthday Widely Observed," 25 October 1954, New York Times, 1"</ref> 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 to 1963. During this same period, the orchestra recorded (on Columbia, RCA, United Artists and Vanguard) under many famous conductors, including Bernstein, Monteux, Reiner, Stokowski, Walter, Thomas Beecham and Josef Krips, before it disbanded in 1963.