Editing NBC Symphony Orchestra (section)

==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, 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. Sarnoff proposed to create a radio orchestra and hire Arturo Toscanini to conduct it. Toscanini had recently resigned from the [[New York Philharmonic]] at age 69 and was considering retirement; Sarnoff sent [[Samuel Chotzinoff]] as an emissary to Italy and he managed to convince the wary Toscanini to accept Sarnoff's offer. On Christmas night, 1937, the NBC Symphony Orchestra gave its first performance with Toscanini in an entirely refurbished studio at NBC located in the [[30 Rockefeller Plaza|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.<ref>Lewis, Tom. "'A Godlike Presence': The Impact of Radio on the 1920s and 1930s", ''[[Organization of American Historians]] Magazine of History'' 6, Spring 1992.</ref>

[[File:Hymn of the Nations 1944 OWI film (10 Arturo Toscanini conducting Verdi's La Forza del Destino 10).jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Arturo Toscanini conducting Verdi's ''[[La forza del destino]]'' overture]]
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.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.discogs.com/artist/279614-NBC-Symphony-Orchestra| title = NBC Symphony Orchestra {{!}} Discography {{!}} Discogs| website = [[Discogs]]}}</ref> Prominent musicians from major orchestras around the country were recruited and the conductor [[Pierre 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's [[NBC Radio City Studios|Radio City Studios]] in [[Rockefeller 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.<ref name = "lebrecht">{{cite book | last = Lebrecht | first = Norman|author-link=Norman Lebrecht| year = 2001 | title = The Maestro Myth | publisher = Citadel Press| isbn = 0-8065-2088-4 | page = 73}}</ref>{{better source needed |date=June 2023}}
[[File:Hymn of the Nations 1944 OWI film (25 NBC Symphony Orchestra playing Verdi's Inno delle nazioni).jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra playing Verdi's ''[[Inno delle nazioni|Hymn of the Nations]]'' in 1943]]
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 for [[RCA 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 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.<ref>[[Harvey Sachs]], ii ''Toscanini''{{full citation needed|date=June 2023}}</ref>

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. The [[American Federation of Musicians]] union minimum for such staff work at NBC was $105 weekly, but many instrumentalists were paid considerably more. [[Fortune (magazine)|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.<ref>Russell Davenport and Maria Davenport, “Toscanini on the Air,” Fortune, January 1938, 116.</ref>

[[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 the '''Symphony 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.

===Musicians===
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 (conductor)|Benjamin Steinberg]], Herman Spielberg, [[Boris Koutzen]] and [[Andor Toth]]; violists [[Carlton Cooley]], [[Milton Katims]], [[William Primrose]], and [[Tibor Serly]]; cellists [[Frank Miller (cellist)|Frank Miller]], [[Leonard Rose]], [[Harvey Shapiro (cellist)|Harvey Shapiro]], [[Alan Shulman]], George Koutzen and [[David Soyer]]; [[double bass]]ists [[Homer Mensch]] and [[Oscar G. Zimmerman]]; flutists [[Carmine Coppola]], [[D. Antoinette Handy]], [[Arthur Lora]] and Paul Renzi; clarinetists Augustin Duques, [[Al Gallodoro]], [[David Weber (clarinetist)|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 (tubist)|William Bell]], among others.<ref>{{Citation|title=Arturo Toscanini: the NBC years|author=Frank, Mortimer H.|publisher=Amadeus Press|year=2003|isbn=978-1-57467-069-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/arturotoscanini00mort/page/278 278]|url=https://archive.org/details/arturotoscanini00mort/page/278|url-access=registration}}</ref>

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 802 [[American 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.<ref>Meyer, Donald Carl. ''The NBC Symphony Orchestra''. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California-Davis, 1994.</ref>