NBC Symphony Orchestra
NBC encouraged the public’s perception of the Orchestra as a full-time organization exclusively at Toscanini’s beck and call, but Fortune 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.
During the summer of 1950, NBC converted Studio 8-H into a television studio (the broadcast home of NBC's late-night comedy program Saturday Night Live since 1975) and moved the broadcast concerts to Carnegie Hall, where many of the orchestra's recording sessions and special concerts had already taken place.
The American Federation of Musicians union minimum for such staff work at NBC was $105 weekly, but many instrumentalists were paid considerably more.
During this time Toscanini continued to lead the orchestra in a series of public benefit concerts for war relief.
Some notable musicians who were members of the orchestra include violinists Samuel 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 and Andor Toth; violists Carlton Cooley, Milton Katims, William Primrose, and Tibor Serly; cellists Frank Miller, Leonard Rose, Harvey Shapiro, Alan Shulman, George Koutzen and David Soyer; double bassists Homer Mensch and Oscar G. Zimmerman; flutists Carmine Coppola, D. Antoinette Handy, Arthur Lora and Paul Renzi; clarinetists Augustin Duques, Al Gallodoro, David Weber and Alexander Williams; trombonist Norberto (Robert) Paolucci; saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer; oboists Robert Bloom, Paolo Renzi and Chauncey Vernon Kelley, Jr.; bassoonists Elias Carmen, Benjamin Kohon, William Polisi, Leonard Sharrow and Arthur Weisberg; French horn players Arthur Berv, Harry Berv, Jack Berv and Albert Stagliano; Harry Glantz, Bernard Baker, and Raymond Crisara trumpets and tuba player William Bell, among others.
From the autumn of 1950 until June 1954, all NBC Symphony radio broadcasts and RCA Victor recording sessions took place in Carnegie Hall.
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.
The complete series of ten NBC Symphony telecasts has been issued on VHS and LaserDisc by RCA in 1990 and on DVD by Testament in 2006.
While the videos derive from kinescopes, the sound tracks were carefully synchronized from the highest fidelity transcriptions and tapes that exist.
On April 6, 1954, just two days after Toscanini's final concert with the orchestra, Guido Cantelli made a recording in Carnegie Hall of César Franck's Symphony in D minor.
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.
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.
[11] For nearly a decade, the Symphony of the Air performed many concerts led by Stokowski, 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, Sir Thomas Beecham, Alfred Wallenstein and Josef Krips.
Only once more did they use their old name, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, in the 1963 telecast of Gian Carlo Menotti's written-for-television opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, with an all-new cast.
