The collection consists of noncommercial recordings of radio broadcasts of primarily classical music. The largest portion of the collection consists of broadcast of The New York Philharmonic, with selected concerts from 1952-1963. Conductors of the New York Philharmonic concerts on these recordings include Franco Autori, Leonard Bernstein, Guido Cantelli, Dmitri Mitropoulos, Paul Paray, George Szell, and Bruno Walter. Guest soloists include Claudio Arrau, Robert Casadesus, Van Cliburn, Clifford Curzon, Rudolf Firkušný, Zino Francescatti, Jascha Heifetz, Myra Hess, Byron Janis, Martha Lipton, Artur Rubinstein, Irmgard Seefried, Rudolf Serkin, and Richard Tucker. Orchestras with a smaller representation of recordings in the collection include the Boston Symphony Orchestra in concerts conducted by Pierre Monteux and Charles Munch, the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Guido Cantelli and Pierre Monteux, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Eduard van Beinum, Josef Krips, and Rafael Kubelík. Opera recordings include selected Salzburg Festival broadcasts from 1952-1958, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Rudolf Baumgartner, Karl Böhm, Joseph Keilberth, and Herbert von Karajan. Böhm also conducts for the 1956 reopening of the Vienna State Opera House. Bayreuth Festival productions from 1953 and 1954 are conducted by Joseph Keilberth, Hans Knappertsbusch, and Clemens Krauss. Bayreuth vocalists include Hans Braun, Gré Brouwenstijn, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Josef Greindl, Hans Hotter, Martha Mödl, and Eleanor Steber. Recordings of selected Firestone Hour (later the Voice of Firestone) programs from 1952 to 1956 contain opera, operetta, and orchestral selections as well as popular songs. Featured vocalists include Eugene Conley, Nadine Conner, Jerome Hines, Roberta Peters, Risë Stevens, and Ferruccio Tagliavini.
Content types:
Sounds and Other
Extent:
195 recordings
Repository/Collector:
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center