Hi Don,
It's possible that who ever created the database made a mistake, and doubled up the name of the conductor and the soloist,
thus turning Hackett and Bonelli into conductors! (I did notice a couple instances of pianists listed as both soloist and conductor).
If that's the case, then whoever conducted the prior or subsequent week was probably the actual conductor.
I didn't have time to list the soloists, but since most of these performances were for singers and/or chorus, all the big names of the time were there - Marian Anderson, Ezio Pinza, Lily Pons, Nelson Eddy, etc. Also a couple appearances by Jascha Heifetz, Hephzibah Menuhin, Joseph Szigeti, and even one with Andres Segovia - I would like to have been there for that one!
Yes, I think '47 was about the time of the breakup - before the resurrection in 1952 under the magnificent Paul Paray, who made about 70 recordings with the DSO.
-- Leo Gillis
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On Thu, 3/20/14, Don Tait ([log in to unmask]) <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Ford Sunday Evening Hour broadcasts
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, March 20, 2014, 12:40 AM
Fascinating , informative! Thank you,
Leo. I learned things I didn't know.
What a range of conductors, and so the orchestra for these
broadcasts was
indeed made up of DSO members, at least until March 1947.
Might that have
been when the DSO was disbanded? And the listed
conductors included Charles
Hackett and Richard Bonelli? Jeepers...they were singers and
I'd never known
before that they conducted. (I seem to remember reading
years ago that
Richard Bonelli was the uncle of the actor Robert Stack,
especially famous
for the television series "The Untouchables," and that
Bonelli was one of
those talented non-Italian singers who changed his or
her name before World
War II to seem to be Italian.)
I can't get to Philip Hart's biography of Reiner now,
but I seem to
recall that he recounted Reiner's 1940s trips to Detroit to
conduct the Ford
Sunday Evening Hour broadcasts.
Don Tait
In a message dated 3/19/2014 6:07:57 P.M. Central Daylight
Time,
[log in to unmask]
writes:
The online archives of the DSO for the Ford Sunday
Evening Hour goes from
2/16/1934 to 3/8/1947. A couple are listed for 1923, but
I’m not sure if
those are correct.
http://www.dso.org/performanceTitle.aspx?page_id=648
The list of conductors includes: Victor Kolar,
Fritz Reiner, Mischa
Levitsky, Alexander Smallens, Charles Hackett, Richard
Bonelli, Sir Ernest
MacMillan, Emma Otero, Franco Ghione, Elwyn Carter, Andre
Kostelanetz, Sir John
Barbirolli, Sir Thomas Beecham, Wilfrid Pelletier, Jose
Iturbi, George
Szell, Sir Eugene Ormandy, Reginald Stewart, Artur,
Rodzinaksi, Eugene
Goossens, Victor Kolar, Harold Koch, Dmitri Mitropoulos,
Karl Krueger, William
Steinberg, Leonard Bernstein, Efrem Kurtz, and C. Valter
Poole.
The first few years were all Kolar, (DSO principal
conductor) then Reiner
and Ormandy began appearing. Kolar, Reiner, Ormandy,
Iturbi, Pelletier and
Beecham did numerous performances, and many of these
in later years were
held at the Music Hall, another fine, small venue in
downtown Detroit, still
in operation. Several of the listings unfortunately do
not include the
performance venue.
-- Leo Gillis
On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 7:38 PM, Don Tait ([log in to unmask])
<
[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> I have tapes or private CD-Rs of some of those
broadcasts. From circa
> 1941/2. Each 30 minutes. All I have are conducted by
Fritz Reiner, who
> presumably took the train up from Pittsburgh for
the
gig. I got the
> recordings
> from fellow Reiner collectors and have no
idea
who might have conducted
> other
> programs. As one might expect, the selections are
short
and the musical
> gruel is pretty thin. The "theme music" for each
program is the French
> horn
> "bedtime" music from Hansel und Gretel.
>
> I do not remember whether the
announcer(s) said from where the
> broadcasts originated. Sorry.
>
> Don Tait
>
>
> In a message dated 3/18/2014 3:38:10 P.M.
Central
Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask]
writes:
>
> Starting in 1934 and continuing for a
number of
years thereafter, the
> Detroit Symphony appeared on a radio
program, the
Ford Symphony Hour.
> Some
> of the most distinguished conductors of
that time
regularly guested on
> this
> show, which also featured big name soloists.
Preserved broadcasts show
> that the orchestra was an excellent one during
this
period, and the
> acoustics audible on these recordings sound OK,
with a
touch of nice hall
> ambiance. A number of these broadcasts are
sought
after by collectors. I
> don't know where these shows were recorded, but I
assume they predate the
> Ford Auditorium referred to previously.
>
> Best,
> John Haley
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