Sir Adrian Cedric Boult, CH was a British conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family, he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was conductor of the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1924. When the British Broadcasting Corporation appointed him director of music in 1930, he established the BBC Symphony Orchestra and became its chief conductor. The orchestra set standards of excellence that were rivalled in Britain only by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), founded two years later.
William Havergal Brian was a prominent 20th-century English composer, librettist, and church organist.
The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra conceived by David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America, the parent corporation of the National Broadcasting Company especially for the conductor Arturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony Orchestra performed weekly radio broadcast concerts with Toscanini and other conductors and several of its players served in the house orchestra for the NBC Radio Network. 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.”
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career, he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–1954), and this led to his becoming a household name, especially in the United States, through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born American conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He was especially noted for his free-hand conducting style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from the orchestras he directed.
Bernard Johan Herman Haitink was a Dutch conductor and violinist. He was the principal conductor of several international orchestras, beginning with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961. He moved to London, as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1967 to 1979, music director at Glyndebourne Opera from 1978 to 1988 and of the Royal Opera House from 1987 to 2002, when he became principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Finally, he was principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2010. The focus of his prolific recording was classical symphonies and orchestral works, but he also conducted operas. He conducted 90 concerts at The Proms in London, the last on 3 September 2019 with the Vienna Philharmonic. His awards include Grammy Awards and the 2015 Gramophone Award for his lifetime achievements.
Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar. Many mezzo-sopranos have sung the piece.
Robert Lawson Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. He was known for drawing public attention to choral music through his wide-ranging influence and mentoring of younger conductors, the high standard of his recordings, his support for racial integration in his choruses, and his support for modern music, winning many awards throughout his career.
The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras.
Pines of Rome, P 141, is a tone poem in four movements for orchestra completed in 1924 by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. It is the second of his three tone poems about Rome, following Fontane di Roma (1916) and preceding Feste Romane (1928). Each movement depicts a setting in the city with pine trees, specifically those in the Villa Borghese gardens, near a catacomb, on the Janiculum Hill, and along the Appian Way. The premiere was held at the Teatro Augusteo in Rome on 14 December 1924, with Bernardino Molinari conducting the Augusteo Orchestra, and the piece was published by Casa Ricordi in 1925.
Augustin Zulma Alphonse "André" Cluytens was a Belgian-born French conductor who was active in the concert hall, opera house and recording studio. His repertoire extended from Viennese classics through French composers to 20th century works. Although much of his career was spent in France, he was the first French conductor at Bayreuth in 1955; he also conducted The Ring and Parsifal at La Scala.
John Royds Culshaw, OBE was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He produced a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.
Philippe Quint is an American classical violinist.
Historical classical music recordings are generally classical music recordings made prior to the stereo era of vinyl disc recording, which began around 1957.
Stabat Mater is a work by Gioachino Rossini based on the traditional structure of the Stabat Mater sequence for chorus and soloists. It was composed late in his career after retiring from the composition of opera. He began the work in 1831 but did not complete it until 1841.
The first recording of Edward Elgar's Symphony No 1 was made by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1930, conducted by the composer for His Master's Voice. The recording was reissued on long-playing record (LP) in 1970, and on compact disc in 1992 as part of EMI's "Elgar Edition" of all the composer's electrical recordings of his works.
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century. Toscanini was a prolific recording artist, having conducted many recordings from 1920 until his retirement in 1954.
The Rio Grande is a secular cantata by English composer Constant Lambert. Written in 1927, it is a setting of the poem by Sacheverell Sitwell. The piece achieved instant and long-lasting popularity on its appearance on the concert stage in 1929. It is an example of symphonic jazz, not unlike the style of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, although it is very much Lambert's individual conception. It combines jazzy syncopation with lithe Latin American dance rhythms that create an air of haunting nostalgia. The Rio Grande takes roughly 15 to 20 minutes to perform. It was dedicated to Angus Morrison, who played at its first (broadcast) performance.
Steven Richman is a GRAMMY Award-nominated American conductor and writer. He is music director of Harmonie Ensemble/New York, which he founded in 1979, and the Dvořák Festival Orchestra of New York.
Harmonie Ensemble/New York is a musical organization based in New York City that performs and records an eclectic repertoire ranging from classical to jazz. Founded in 1979 by its conductor, Steven Richman, HE/NY has performed orchestra, chamber orchestra, symphonic jazz, big band, chamber, and wind ensemble works in virtually all of New York's concert halls, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Merkin Concert Hall, and St. Peter's, and throughout the United States under Columbia Artists Management. It also appears on radio and television. HE/NY has received numerous awards, including a GRAMMY Award nomination, the Classical Recording Foundation Award in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Community Arts Project, and the WQXR Action for the Arts Award.
