James H. North: Leopold Stokowski and "His Symphony Orchestra"

Leopold Stokowski and "His Symphony Orchestra"

Personnel Rosters for the RCA Victor Recordings as Described by James H. North

Leopold Stokowski and "His Symphony Orchestra" by James H. North

From 1947 to 1953, "Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra" made about 100 recordings for RCA Victor. Conventional wisdom has it that this orchestra was a mix of players from the New York Philharmonic, the NBC Symphony, and local freelancers. That turns out to be very misleading. This article identifies the musicians in all but one of the RCA recordings, specifies their professional association at the time, and draws some unexpected conclusions.

On 21 April 1945, Leopold Stokowski married debutante Gloria Vanderbilt, often described as the most beautiful girl in the world; he was 58, she 21. In 1947 they moved into one of two magnificent penthouses atop 10 Gracie Square in New York City. Across the way lived a famous, popular conductor with an awkward foreign accent who was known for arranging other people’s music and was looked down upon by musical snobs, one who made many best-selling recordings with "His Orchestra" and lived with his gorgeous, glamorous wife: Andre Kostelanetz and Lily Pons were a mirror image of the Stokowskis.

While disentangling himself from the Philadelphia Orchestra in the late 1930s, Stokowski led a peripatetic existence: Hollywood, Garbo, Fantasia. Like Sir Thomas Beecham, he founded and conducted new orchestras at every turn: the All-American Youth Orchestra, the New York City Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, and eventually the American Symphony Orchestra.

Stokowski and Greta Garbo featured in a 1938 movie magazine

He needed a major orchestra of his own, and he seemed to get it when Toscanini left the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1941, but the old maestro returned in 1944. Stokowski’s four-year campaign to take over the New York Philharmonic failed, probably because its board of directors felt they would not be able to control him. Victor, America’s only major classical-music recording company, rested on its laurels in the late 1930s, and the young upstart Columbia Records stole many of Victor’s prize orchestras. Columbia signed the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, plus the orchestras of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and - briefly - Chicago. RCA was left with the Boston Symphony and its own NBC Symphony, but both their superstar conductors were nearing retirement, ageing fast. Thus "Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra" was created out of smoke and mirrors. Who were those masked men (and women)? Endless discussions have been waged about members of the Philharmonic, the NBC, and local freelance musicians. It is time to set the record straight.

This was not a permanent orchestra, and it did not give regular public concerts (a few special performances using the title were given later in the 1950s). It was contracted for each recording session by Joseph Fabbroni, who also contracted many sessions for the RCA Victor Symphony and similarly named ensembles, as well as assembling the original New York City Opera Orchestra ¹. Every musician who played in all but one of these recordings is identified here, and we track their "day job" at the time of each session. At least 22 musicians played in both the NBC Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. One group followed Toscanini from the Philharmonic to NBC in 1937; others started as founding members of the NBC and went over to the Philharmonic in the early 1940s, when Toscanini was in semi-retirement and Artur Rodzinski was rebuilding the Philharmonic. Rodzinski, a Stokowski protege, knew whom to recruit, as he - at Toscanini’s request - had auditioned and hired the initial personnel of the NBC Symphony. Stokowski too knew all the musicians well: He had been the NBC Symphony’s principal conductor during Toscanini’s absence, and he conducted 158 performances with the Philharmonic from 1946 to 1950 (the final one, on 9 April 1950, was Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, which the author was privileged to attend).

Stokowski's 1950 Mahler Symphony no 8 issued on Music & Arts CD1130

Among former NBC members who played for the Philharmonic at the time of these sessions were Carl Stern, cello; John Wummer and Benjamin Gaskins, flute; William Polisi, bassoon; and William Bell, tuba. Several freelancers played for Stokowski before joining the Philharmonic (violinists Alfred Breuning and David Nadien, flutist Julius Baker, oboist Robert Lehrfeld, and trumpeter Carmine Fornarotto), others such as Nicolai Berezowsky and Calmen Fleisig after they left the Philharmonic, so they too are counted as freelancers. Special mention must be made of Robert Bloom, who was first oboe for almost every session of Stokowski’s orchestra. Bloom played for Stokowski in the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1930 to 1936; he began as second oboe, but the conductor asked him to switch to English horn, which he did, playing the solo in the 1934 Dvorak "New World" recording. After a year as first oboe in the Rochester Philharmonic under Jose Iturbi, Bloom became founding principal oboe of the NBC Symphony. He retired from all orchestral positions in 1946, a year before these sessions began. Bloom’s soft, warm oboe was the primary reason that Stokowski’s orchestra did not sound like the Philharmonic, which was sparked by Harold Gomberg’s bright, piquant tone.

Most of the data presented here are taken from RCA recording logs, examined at Sony Music Archives. Musicians' names appear there with only first initials, and misspelled names are so rampant as to suggest that they were typed - by a secretary unfamiliar with musicians - from lists scribbled in an abysmal handwriting: Arrowsmith becomes Arrewemit; bassoonist Harold Goltzer appears twice, spelled H. Coltzer the first time and H. Gootzer the second. Payment sheets, available only for the earliest sessions, offer more reliable spelling.

1947 RCA session log with personnel list

The primary problem in presenting this information is space: How to list every performer in all 76 sessions without creating a book-length tome? Tables of performers/sessions prove impractical, as most personnel rosters exceed the length of a page. A slightly awkward compromise has been adapted: Recording sessions are listed chronologically, but groups of from two to six consecutive sessions with similar personnel have been combined into one list. Each session is assigned a letter: A, B, C, D, E. When a musician appeared in less than all of those sessions, his name is followed by letters indicting which ones: Marcus Fischer (ABDE) means that the horn player participated in all but the third of the five sessions under consideration; Ross W. Taylor (E) indicates a single appearance, in the fifth session. The first time a player appears, a given name is included; thereafter, only a last name. A first initial is used wherever confusion might result (several families of musicians are represented here). The first-listed violin is concertmaster for that session. On two or three occasions, a first violinist in one session plays second violin in another session on the same list; this distinction is not always made, as the lists are already too complex. Another compression tactic is to list recorded works in a briefest recognizable form; any misunderstandings may be cleared up by reference to one of the many Stokowski discographies. A final space-saver is to use roman characters for Philharmonic members and italics for all others (NBC players are individually cited).

The idea of "Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra" originated about 1944. RCA recording sheets use that title for a number of 1944 and 1945 sessions, but the issued records were labeled "New York City Symphony Orchestra". The major works recorded were:

A similar situation occurred in California the following summer. Stokowski recorded several works at Republic Studios in Hollywood, with the musicians of the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra. The issued records identified that ensemble.

The real "His Symphony Orchestra" began with twelve sessions in 1947. The first three were held in the ballroom of the Lotos Club, at 5 East 66th Street in New York City; they then moved to Manhattan Center, 311 West 34th Street. The orchestra’s final RCA recording, Dances from The Three-Cornered Hat, was made at Webster Hall, 119-125 East 11th Street. Sessions lasted from three to five hours, and were held at all times of day, including after midnight. Richard Gilbert was RCA’s producer in 1947. No recordings were made in 1948, due to a strike by the American Federation of Musicians. In 1949, Richard Mohr took over, producing the remaining sessions.

Recording Sessions

The first session supports the common assumption that the ensemble was made up of musicians from the Philharmonic (15), the NBC Symphony (seven: Philip Frank, Herbert Borodkin, Frank Miller, Milton Prinz, Arthur Lora, Harry Moskovitch, and Richard Moore), and freelancers (21). That would soon change.

RCA Victor 45 RPM 49-0296 Tchaikovsky Andante

For the next two 1947 sessions, the tally is Philharmonic: 29, NBC: four (Frank, Borodkin, Lora, and Moskovitch), freelance: 26.

RCA Victor LM-2042: Toccata and Fugue BWV 565

In November 1947, the sessions moved to Manhattan Center. No NBC member appears on the roster.

Victor WDM-1205 45 RPM of the Sleeping Beauty

RCA recording sheets for Stokowski‘s 1947 recording of Dvořák’s "New World" Symphony are particularly revealing. The first movement was done on 10 December, the other three on 12 December. Mitch Miller joined for the English horn solo in the Largo. Miller had played in several previous sessions and been paid union scale ($55.00 for a three-and-a-half-hour session); for the Dvořák solo, he was paid $80, equal to that of concertmaster John Corigliano. Most surprising is the size of the ensemble: eight first violins, six second violins, four violas, four celli, and two double basses; each section is less than half the size of its counterpart in major symphony orchestras of the day. That anomaly continued throughout these "His Orchestra" recordings of the standard repertoire (Stokowski soon added a third double bass). Richard Mohr, who would produce most of these recordings, said "Stokowski had that unique knack of making it sound as though it were 18-16-14-12-10" ³, but some critics disagreed, finding the orchestra thin and underpowered. On the Dvořák roster, the musicians are all from the New York Philharmonic, except for fifteen free-lancers, whose names are italicized. No member of the NBC Symphony is present (violinist Philip Frank of the NBC played in the 11 December session, NBC Flutist Arthur Lora on 30 December).

Eileen Farrell with Leopold Stokowski and RCA recording director Richard Gilbert during recording of the Five Wesendonck Lieder in December 1947

There were five sessions in 1949. The orchestra now consisted almost entirely of members of the New York Philharmonic, with a nearly identical roster for all five sessions: No members of the NBC Symphony and only four freelancers are present (Walter Hendl was Assistant Conductor of the Philharmonic at this time).

RCA WDM 1327 45 RPM album

There were 29 sessions in 1950. The first five are still nearly all-Philharmonic: Frank Miller, NBC cellist, appears on 24 March.

Victor LM 1066 Tannhäuser (Paris version): Act I Prelude & Bacchanale

The next four sessions saw nine new players from the Philharmonic and three (Philip Frank, Harry Glickman, and Herman Weinberg) from the NBC Symphony:

Victor LM-1083 "Heart of the Ballet": Delibes, Adam, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz

In the next two sessions. Philip Frank is the only NBC member:

Victor LM-9029 of the 1919 Firebird suite and His Master's Voice issue of Grainger

Philip Frank, Isidore Gussikov, Sabatanio Masucci, and Laura Newell are the only NBC members in the next four sessions. Julius Baker and Carmine Fornarotto were freelancers who would later join the Philharmonic.

Victor LM-1175 Petrushka

For the following six sessions, the NBC members are Philip Frank, Sylvan Shulman, Harry Glickman, Isidore Gussikov, and Sabatino Masucci. Note that oboist Robert Bloom was absent from these sessions.

Victor LM-1125 Sibelius Symphony no 1

This Bach Suite has only five Philharmonic members, four at first desks. There are six NBC players: Philip Frank, Shulman, Glickman, Isidore Gussikov, Philip Sklar, and Walter Botti.

the Bach-Stokowski Sarabande was included in the Victor album "Restful Good Music"

The next sessions includes NBC members Philip Frank and Isidore Gussikov

Victor LM-1174 Tristan & Isolde

Edward Johnson and Andrew Roser for Pristine Classical have made a fine restoration of Tristan und Isolde on PASC167.

The final three sessions of 1950 include four NBC Symphony members: Philip Frank, Frank Miller, Isidore Gussikov, and Sabatino Masucci.

Victor LM-1154 Debussy Nocturnes

On 8 February 1951, at Manhattan Center, Licia Albanese recorded Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras no 5, with Stokowski conducting eight cellists. This was not "His Symphony Orchestra" and is not so identified on the session log. For the record, the cellists were: Frank Miller (solo), Bernard Greenhouse, Harvey Shapiro, Laszlo Varga, Isudore Gussikov, Charles McCracken, Esther Gruhn, and Bernardo Altmann.

Victor LM-142 10 inch (25 cm) LP: Villa-Lobos and Tchaikovsky: "Eugene Onegin"

For the two "His Orchestra" sessions of 1951, the NBC Symphony members are Philip Frank and Sylvan Shulman, violin; Frank Miller and Harvey Shapiro, cello.

Victor LM-151 10 inch (25 cm) LP: Esales

1952 would see a typical Stokowski mix of popular and esoteric repertoire. Philip Frank, Oscar Shumsky, and Harvey Shapiro represent NBC in the first four sessions:

Victor LM 1706 L'Arlésienne Suite

A March 1952 session was devoted to Giovanni Gabrieli brass music. A recording log appears in the "Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra" folder, but the ensemble is identified there and on records simply as "Brass Choir and Chorus."

Cellist Harvey Shapiro represents NBC in the next three orchestral sessions.

Victor LM 1721 Stokowski transcriptions of Italian baroque music

Mark Obert-Thorn has made a fine restorations these recordings for Pristine Classical on PASC391.

Oliver Daniel states ⁵ that Roger Goeb’s Symphony no 3, recorded on 29 April 1952, was played by the "augmented CBS Symphony," which had performed it at a new-music festival on 27 April, but that RCA labeled it "Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra." This makes musical and economic sense, but this session report rounds up the usual suspects: 33 from the New York Philharmonic and 14 freelancers; cellist Harvey Shapiro is the lone NBC member. This does not necessarily contradict Daniel; that CBS radio ensemble, like Stokowski’s orchestra, was a conglomerate of New York musicians. But see 29 October 1952 for a situation that fits Daniel’s statement more closely.

Victor LM-1727 Roger Goeb: Symphony no 3

For the Tallis Fantasia, Stokowski beefed up the lower strings with NBC cellist Harvey Shapiro and two bassists, the NBC’s Gerald Fiore and Walter Botti, who had left the NBC Symphony and joined the Philharmonic (where he would play for 50 years).

Victor LM-1739 the Vaughan Williams Fantasia coupled with Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht

Recording sheets for neither Parsifal session list the players, payment sheets have not survived, and Local 802 of the AFM has long since discarded documents from this era, so we may never discover who played here, except that Louis Gabowitz was concertmaster. The instrumentation was: 13 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos, 3 basses, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and harp.

Victor LM-1730 Parsifal

Three after-midnight sessions closed recordings for 1952. This was an orchestra contracted for a concert of these two works at the Museum of Modern Art on 28 October 1952, just hours before the first midnight recording session. Louis Sheebe was the contractor for the performances, and the sessions were held at the American Composer’s Alliance, 580 Fifth Avenue, in New York City. Oliver Daniel’s comment about the CBS Symphony (see 29 April 1952) would seem more appropriate here, as there are no Philharmonic members, only two (Harvey Shapiro and Robert E. Morris) from NBC, and no Robert Bloom. Furthermore, eleven of the thirteen freelancers - nine of whom never appear again - are newcomers to these Stokowski sessions.

Composer's Recordings CRI 114 of Harrison coupled with 1957 Henry Cowell 'Persian Set' (also issued on Victor LM-1785)

Victor LM-1785 Ben Weber coupled with Lou Harrison

James Chambers plays the French horn solo in the Andante cantabile of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. The NBC members are Emanuel Vardi and Harvey Shapiro. Ben Gaskins left the Philharmonic in 1952 and was now a freelancer. Who played on which day is not specified; ^*denotes one session, ^**means two sessions.

French HMV FALP-104

Edward Johnson and Andrew Roser for Pristine Classical have made a fine restoration of the Tchaikovsky: Symphony no 5 on PASC188.

For these February 1953 sessions, Max Hollander, Emanuel Vardi, Harvey Shapiro, and Harry Moskovitch are the NBCers.

HMV Mussorgsky Gliere

There are six NBC members in these April 1953 sessions: Max Hollander, Emanuel Vardi, Frank Miller, Harvey Shapiro, Arthur Lora, and Harry Moskovitch.

RCA France 630 215 of Russian music

Edward Johnson and Andrew Roser for Pristine Classical have made a fine restoration of Tristan und Isolde on PASC167.

At the 1 October 1953 session, Stokowski abandoned the Philharmonic, even the double bass, trombone, and tuba players who had graced almost every previous session. There are now seven NBC Symphony men (Max Hollander, George Ciompi, Emanuel Vardi, Frank Brieff, Harvey Shapiro, Gerald Fiore, and Richard Moore) along with 42 freelancers. A nearly identical cast (a fifth French horn was added) reassembled at Manhattan Center on 6 October for a "binaural [stereo] experiment." No matrix numbers or takes are shown, and nothing from the stereo session was issued.

Victor LM-2042 containing the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin

RCA’s final recording session with "Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra" took place at Webster Hall. Strings are now ten first violins, eight seconds, six violas, six cellos, four double basses. A mostly new group of little-known freelancers participates, along with seven NBC members (Philip Frank, Emmanuel Vardi, Frank Brieff, Harvey Shapiro, Jacob Bernstein, Emmerich Gara, and Joseph Rescigno) and one from the Philharmonic (Albert Goltzer). Did Stokowski, who was always interested in young performers, fill out this session with students?

Stokowski in 1954

Stokowski recorded Mozart and Beethoven Turkish Marches with the NBC Symphony on 9 June 1955. These were initially issued on a popularly marketed LP (LM 2042) entitled "In the Lighter Vein." The front cover says only "Stokowski," but the back credits "His Symphony Orchestra," probably because many other items on the disc were from sessions reported here. Later issues of the marches properly reinstated the NBC orchestra, but a few so-called discographies never got the word.

Discussion

The first surprise revealed by this data is that the New York Philharmonic dominated Stokowski’s orchestra, contributing more than 13 times as much as the NBC Symphony (the number of appearances may be off by two or three, as we were not always able to establish the exact date that a player joined or left the NBC Symphony):

Eighty four of the freelancers were visiting firemen who appeared in no more than three sessions. Violinist Louis Gabowitz played in 62 sessions (33 as concertmaster), oboist Robert Bloom in 61. Concertmasters and section leaders of other orchestras often put in a token appearance at a single session.

The qualifications of the musicians from the Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony speak for themselves, but what of the so-called "local freelancers?" Many were stars in their own right, who deserve bountiful paragraphs rather than one-line tweets:

Others played in local orchestras, at the Met, and at New York City Opera and Ballet. Many were long-time teachers in one or more of New York’s conservatories: The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes College. Some became successful businessmen: David Oppenheim, president of Columbia Masterworks, became Dean of New York University’s School of the Arts. Carroll Bratman founded his own percussion rental and sales business in 1945, which still thrives today. Many played popular music and jazz – the more gigs, the more money, in an era when musicians were grossly underpaid. More than a dozen of Stokowski’s players appeared on Tony Bennett 78s, and a 1969 Paul Desmond LP lists Paul Gershman, Charles McCracken, George Ricci, George Ockner, Raoul Poliakin, Max Pollikoff, Matthew Raimondi, and Sylvan Shulman. One can be sure that Stokowski instructed Joe Fabbroni to hire only the best.

These monaural recordings made "Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra" a household (or at least a record-store) name; they were very popular at the time but had a short shelf life due to the impact of stereo LPs beginning in 1958. Most of them are now available on CD, on specialist historical labels such as Cala. Some "His Orchestra" live recordings come from the few concerts given using that title. In Stokowski’s discography, "His Symphony Orchestra" continues to appear well beyond the RCA years, on labels of EMI (Capitol, Seraphim), Vanguard (Bach Guild), and CRI. Whether or not these recordings are considered to be by the same orchestra is moot; they do not fit here but offer a subject for further exploration.

Acknowledgements

The author expresses grateful appreciation to Tom Tierney, Director of Sony Music Archives Library, and to Barbara Haws, New York Philharmonic Archivist/Historian. Clarinetist Stanley Drucker supplied memories of contractor Joseph Fabbroni. Norman Schweikert, Dick O’Connor, and Dennis D. Rooney identified various musicians. Jon Samuels offered advice and information. Richard A. Kaplan supplied one crucial piece of information: the translation of "piston" on a recording sheet to "cornet à pistons."

Sources

RCA Victor session logs and payment sheets at Sony Music Archives, New York City. Dated personnel lists in New York Philharmonic: The Historic Broadcasts 1923-1987. Mortimer H. Frank Arturo Toscanini: The NBC Years (Amadeus Press, 2002). Oliver Daniel Stokowski: A Counterpoint of View (Dodd, Mead & Company, 1982). The New York Times (12 February 1944).

James H. North was for 35 years a member of IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory. His work in the 1950s has been called a foundation stone of artificial intelligence, and his development of automated problem-solving software enabled the physical design of computer logic chips. Since 1988 he has been a freelance music critic, writing for such publications as Fanfare, ARSC Journal, and Classic Record Collector. He has written program notes for a number of labels, plus discographies in four of the five New York Philharmonic historical CD sets. Mr. North’s publications, two of which have received ARSC Awards, include discographies of the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and Andre Kostelanetz.

Click here to read the Edward Johnson article on Stokowski and Vaughan Williams .

Click here to read the Edward Johnson article on Leopold Stokowski Letters .

Click here to read the Edward Johnson article on Stokowski's Return to Britain .

Click here to read the José Serebrier article on Stokowki Transcriptions

Click here to read the James H. North article on Stokowski and "His Symphony Orchestra"

Click here to go to the Home Page of stokowski.org .

If you have any comments or questions about this Leopold Stokowski site, please e-mail me (Larry Huffman) at e-mail address: leopold.stokowski@gmail.com  

¹  The New York Times. New York, New York. 12 February 1944.

²  pages 15-33. North, James H. Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra: Personnel Rosters for the RCA Victor Recordings ARCS Journal. 44:1 2013.

³  Daniel, Oliver.  Stokowski A Counterpoint of View.  Dodd, Mead & Company New York 1982 ISBN 0-396-07936-9

⁴  page 449.  Kottick, Edward.  A History of the Harpsichord.  Indiana University Press. Bloomington, Indiana. 2003. ISBN-13: 9780253341662

⁵  page 561  Daniel, Oliver.  Stokowski A Counterpoint of View.  op. cit.

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