The Columbia Symphony Orchestra was an orchestra formed by Columbia Records for the purpose of making recordings. In the 1950s, it provided a vehicle for some of Columbia's better known conductors and recording artists to record using only company resources.[1] The musicians in the orchestra were contracted as needed for individual sessions and consisted of free-lance artists and often members of either the New York Philharmonic or the Los Angeles Philharmonic, depending on whether the recording was being made in Columbia's East Coast or West Coast studios.
Early history
Some of the first recordings featuring the Columbia Symphony Orchestra were made in New York in February 1913.[a]Felix Weingartner made five acoustic sides in New York with the soprano Lucille Marcel (the third of his five marriages)[3] Only one take was subsequently issued, "Ave Maria" from Verdi's Otello on Columbia US A-5482, matrix number 36622. The other unissued takes included two of Weingartner's own songs, "Vergangenheit" and "Welke Rose", Schumann's "Die Lotosblume", op. 25, no. 7 and Olga von Radecki's "Frisches Grun".[4][5]
Frank Bridge made a single (unissued) take of Grieg's Shepherd Boy, op. 54 with the orchestra for Columbia UK on matrix AX 268, in London on 14 December 1923.[6][b]
The composer and conductor Robert Hood Bowers made around 15 double-sided 78 rpm recordings with the orchestra in September 1927.[8]
Howard D. Barlow (May 1, 1892 – January 31, 1972)[11] made a recording of Deems Taylor's suite Through the Looking Glass[12] with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra in New York in November 1938. Released on Columbia Masterworks set M-350.[13]
Conductors
Over the decades, several noted conductors and soloists collaborated with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra including:[14][15]
From 1941 until 1971 Alfredo Antonini also served as a principal conductor of the CBS Symphony Orchestra while collaborating with noted soloists including Richard Tucker. In 1972 he was cited with an Emmy Award for conducting the orchestra in the television premier of Ezra Laderman's opera And David Wept.[16][17]
From 1955 onwards, he made many recordings with the CSO, in CBS-projects that were intended to record the Second Viennese School for the first time integrally. In this period, Robert Craft also produced most of the Varèse works with the Columbia Ensemble.
In 1977, a recording of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra playing the "Sacrificial Dance" from The Rite of Spring, conducted by Stravinsky, was selected by NASA to be included on the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated copper record that was sent into space on the Voyager space craft. The record contained sounds and images which had been selected as examples of the diversity of life and culture on Earth.[31][32][33]
The term Columbia Symphony Orchestra was also used when, for contractual reasons, another orchestra could not appear under its own name. Many Los Angeles Philharmonic musicians also played under the Columbia Symphony name, and some reports mention that the entire Philharmonic frequently played as the Columbia Symphony when recorded on the west coast.
CBS Symphony Orchestra
There was also the Columbia Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, sometimes called the CBS Symphony Orchestra. This group was formed to perform on CBS Radio broadcasts and also made 78-rpm recordings for Columbia Records during the 1940s. It was frequently conducted by Howard Barlow, who later became the music director of "The Voice of Firestone" radio and television programs.[11] One of the Columbia Records releases by the CBS Symphony with Barlow conducting was the "Indian Suites" by Edward MacDowell, recorded on May 15, 1939; this recording can be heard on YouTube.[35] The composer Bernard Herrmann conducted the orchestra for some broadcasts, especially The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse programs presented by Orson Welles.[36]
In addition, CBS' Columbia Concert Orchestra recorded both classical and popular music for Columbia Masterworks in the 1920s-1950s.[37] Live concerts by the orchestra were also broadcast throughout the United States and to South America via shortwave radio over the International Radio Station WCBX in New York City and the International Radio Station WCAB in Philadelphia from 1939-1940 during World War II.[38] Included among the noted collaborators were such operatic luminaries as: Eileen Farrell, Lily Pons, Paul Robeson and Richard Tucker under the direction of several conductors including: Alfredo Antonini, Emanuel Balaban, Howard Barlow, Bernard Herrmann, Andre Kostelanetz, Charles Lichter and Alexander Semmler.[39][40]
^Advanced search on CHARM (all lower case only) for Performer: bowers, and Performer: columbia symphony orchestra.
^Advanced search on CHARM (all lower case only) for Composer: délibes [NB with accent, although this is technically wrong], and Performer: columbia symphony orchestra.
^Columbia's contemporary matrix logs state "Columbia Symphony Orchestra", possibly to circumvent a recording contract.[9]
^ abEriksson, Erik. "Howard Barlow". AllMusic. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
^Advanced search on CHARM (all lower case only) for Performer: howard barlow, Sort Results by: Date. [NB This search also returns Barlow's recordings with the CBS Symphony Orchestra mentioned below.]
