Digitizing Bernard Herrmann’s Recordings with the CBS Symphony
The UCSB Library’s Special Research Collections will preserve, digitize, and make accessible the groundbreaking radio broadcasts of the CBS Symphony conducted by Bernard Herrmann in the 1930s and 1940s.
While Herrmann is known today as one of the preeminent film composers of the 20th century (Psycho, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver), his early career was as a composer and symphonic conductor for radio, and these recordings are the primary collection of his innovative and progressive approach to the symphonic repertoire.
He championed the work of a then under-appreciated Charles Ives, British composers including Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Americans like Robert Russell Bennett and William Grant Still. These aluminum- and glass-based broadcast airchecks of 135 radio broadcasts were donated to UCSB by his estate after Herrmann’s death and document this important aspect of his career.
Thanks to Bob Kosovsky for the information