RCA Victor Orchestra
This eponymous orchestra had its roots in a salon ensemble created by Nat Shilkret, music director of the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1916 and 1935. Based in Camden, NJ, across the river from Philadelphia, Victor (which merged with RCA) was able to use players from Stokowski's orchestra on an ad hoc basis as late as 1940. By then it was called the "RCA Victor Orchestra" -- not, however, to be confused with another ad hoc group, called simply the Victor Orchestra, in NYC for lighter music on the company's budget black and blue labels.
The merger with RCA, the Great Depression, union-czar's James Petrillo's ban on stateside recording in the early 1940s, and the Philadelphia Orchestra's defection in 1943 to Columbia Records (a CBS affiliate) changed the playing field. New alliances between overseas and U.S. labels complicated matters after WWII, exacerbated by Columbia's acquisition of the Metropolitan Opera, many of whose singers were already RCA artists. The "RCA Victor Symphony" suddenly became a major player, based chiefly but not solely in Manhattan, which boasted a vast reservoir of players.
The RCA SO wasn't, however, just an operatic project. Leonard Bernstein made his first records with it as a Victor artist (1944-1950). Stravinsky, based in Hollywood, also conducted RCA SO records, both there and in Mexico City. Jascha Heifetz recorded several concertos with conductors William Steinberg and Izler Solomon. All of Robert Shaw's RCA recordings drew from the New York pool. However, the principal conductor of RCA's complete operas in a war with Columbia was Renato Cellini, until Fritz Reiner left Columbia for RCA in 1950.
Victor's NYC players came from the Philharmonic, the Met, the City Center and NBC Orchestras and radio staff musicians. When Reiner entered the picture, contractors of his choosing engaged the requisite number of players -- thereby guaranteeing performance consistency -- whether in Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, Strauss' tone poems, concerto accompaniments, or opera excerpts (with several of the Met's leading singers in then-current productions of Die Fledermaus and Der Rosenkavalier, plus a complete Carmen). But while Reiner may have been primus inter pares, others recorded with the RCA SO including Stokowski, Krips, Kondrashin, and Wallenstein. Los Angeles was the second center for eponymous recording orchestras -- there were Columbia and MGM symphony orchestras as well as the one at RCA. The area had a pool of first-class studio players and Philharmonic personnel (who anchored most of Bruno Walter's last hurrahs, and whatever Stravinsky did not record in Toronto or New York).
Until the simultaneous advent of stereo and year-round contracts, major U.S. symphony orchestras played summer concerts. Thus, Everest could record the NY Phil as the Stadium SO; RCA could record Philadelphia as the Robin Hood Dell SO, and the LA Phil as the Hollywood Bowl SO. But those were aliases, not commercial eponyms.
However, when film production headed overseas in the 1960s to economize, so did RCA, whose U.S. Symphony Orchestra was replaced by an RCA Italiana Orchestra, off-season Rome Opera players recruited for operas by Verdi, Puccini, et al. In 1963, after Chicago, Reiner recorded Haydn symphonies in NYC with "his orchestra" (a Stokowski nom du disque dating back to the 1940s). Although U.S. record companies retained "name" orchestras to challenge a flood-tide of product from Europe, classical music sales dried up in the 1990s like the Serengeti. Bertelsmann, a German media conglomerate, bought RCA Red Seal Records but put its century-old backlog to the sword in 2001, so that the last published issue of Schwann Artists had no listing of the RCA Victor SO per se.
© TiVo
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Schumann, Beethoven, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Ravel...
Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra
Symphonieorchester - Erschienen bei Les Indispensables de Diapason am 25.06.2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
DVORAK / GLAZUNOV: Violin Concertos (Milstein) (1949-1951)
Nathan Milstein, Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra, Antal Doráti, Vladimir Golschmann, William Steinberg
Klassik - Erschienen bei Naxos am 01.01.1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: La bohème
Victoria de los Angeles, Jussi Björling, RCA Victor Orchestra, Thomas Beecham
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.1956
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour violon
Jascha Heifetz, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Malcolm Sargent
Klassik - Erschienen bei Naxos am 01.01.2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven, L. Van: Symphony No. 7 / Gershwin, G.: An American in Paris (Boston Symphony, Rca Victor Orchestra, Bernstein) (1957, 1957) (Ludwig van Beethoven - George Gershwin)
Klassik - Erschienen bei IDIS am 25.11.2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Suites pour orchestre Nos. 2 & 3 (Mono Version)
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor
Arthur Rubinstein, NBC Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg, RCA Victor Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music Maestros am 01.08.2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bizet: Carmen
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, Risë Stevens, Jan Peerce
Oper - Erschienen bei The Art Of Singing am 29.09.2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata BWV 56 Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen - BWV 52 - Ich habe genug (Album of 1960)
Robert Shaw, RCA Victor Orchestra, Mack Harrell
Klassik - Erschienen bei GazzaLadra am 20.03.2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Orchestral Suites 1-4 conducted by Fritz Reiner
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, Julius Baker
Klassik - Erschienen bei Archipel am 11.02.2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: La bohème, extraits (Mono Version)
Giuseppe Di Stefano, George Cehanovsky, RCA Victor Orchestra, Renato Cellini
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.1956
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bizet: Carmen (Mono Version)
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, Risë Stevens, Jan Peerce
Verschiedenes - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Leoncavallo: Paillasse - Verdi, Bizet, Mascagni: Chœurs d'opéra (Mono Version)
RCA Victor Orchestra, Renato Cellini, Victoria de los Angeles, Jussi Björling
Klassik - Erschienen bei BNF Collection am 01.01.2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
William Primrose Collection, Vol. 4
William Primrose, RCA Victor Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini, Franz Rupp, Frieder Weissmann, NBC Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei DOREMI am 01.01.2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Kurt Weill: Down in the Valley (10inch Album of 1950)
Pop - Erschienen bei September Song am 30.06.2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Patrice Munsel Sings Strauss Waltzes (Album of 1951)
Patrice Munsel, Arthur Fiedler, RCA Victor Orchestra
Pop - Erschienen bei Light Music am 31.12.2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps - Apollon Musagete
RCA Victor Orchestra, Igor Markevitch
Symphonieorchester - Erschienen bei Puzzle Productions am 01.01.2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruch: Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46
Klassik - Erschienen bei Past Classics am 26.02.2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach, J.S.: Overtures (Suites) Nos. 1, 3, 4 (Reiner) (1952)
RCA Victor Orchestra, Fritz Reiner
Klassik - Erschienen bei Naxos Classical Archives am 01.01.2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel & Bernstein: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra & Fascimile - A Choreographic Essay
The Philharmonia Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Discover Classical Music am 01.02.2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Les grandes sopranos de la musique classique : Leontyne Price, Vol. 3 (American Folk Songs)
RCA Victor Orchestra, Leontyne Price
Pop - Erschienen bei Mon patrimoine musical am 21.04.2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo