National Philharmonic Orchestra

Like the <a href="spotify:artist:69H7juXRprAnTnSx7VmU9H">RCA Victor</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1iNPygduJOu0JnzasoDVLE">Columbia Symphony</a> Orchestras stateside, the National Philharmonic Orchestra (sometimes "of London," sometimes not) was a nom du disque. The orchestra was popular for its recordings of film scores as well as standard repertoire, and it was led by many of the major conductors of its era.

The National Philharmonic Orchestra grew out of the eponymous <a href="spotify:artist:69H7juXRprAnTnSx7VmU9H">RCA Orchestra</a> in London that producer/arranger/conductor <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Charles Gerhardt</a> (1928-1999) assembled after 1960. Following several years at <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a> as an engineer and editor, <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> had been sent to England by George Marek, then the director of <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Red+Seal%22">Red Seal</a> artists and repertoire, to produce recordings for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Readers+Digest%22">Readers Digest</a> label, an <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a> ally at the time. For these recordings, <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> engaged Kenneth Wilkerson as his recording engineer and the late Sir <a href="spotify:artist:04kScQiBaLpLuCR1rh20Dd">Thomas Beecham</a>'s <a href="spotify:artist:0MvSBMGRQJY3mRwIbJsqF1">Royal Philharmonic</a>. His conductors in the early 1960s included <a href="spotify:artist:4nsMLwMcViXAqwTLJ71y8i">Fritz Reiner</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0XIdXIXGsrXFu3DIVnOYTr">René Leibowitz</a>, Sir <a href="spotify:artist:5X3hmAle6klG0VvstAnvyD">John Barbirolli</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7fa3rN13UOA9Y1GzdtSJHv">Jascha Horenstein</a>, Massimo Freccia, and on occasion, <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> himself (whom <a href="spotify:artist:4xpgBZSojKNEQqQHXrwSXA">Toscanini</a> had admired and encouraged in his last years). For projects of lighter music, however, <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> assembled freelance musicians along with players from various London orchestras -- always a plenitude in the U.K. capital, where stringent U.S. union restrictions did not apply and salaries were cheaper, with fewer permanent jobs available nationwide. Early on, he called these recording orchestras the <a href="spotify:artist:4KHCUrhzbmGUkp9mZhQMhZ">London Promenade</a> or the <a href="spotify:artist:3k5jXckGxVF5jvZ6wap7fh">RCASO</a>. In addition to the concert, concerto, and bon-bon repertoire, <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> arranged and conducted ten stereo LPs of film music for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Digest%22">Digest</a> that were released in two volumes. Their quality so impressed Marek's successor, R. Peter Munves, that he commissioned <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> to make an LP of The Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA+Red+Seal%22">RCA Red Seal</a> label.

Enter the ad hoc National Philharmonic, contracted for at least a decade by Sydney Sax. Under <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a>'s direction, it played his arrangements of motion picture music by <a href="spotify:artist:3llWEEOW2xNfiKsXXWjrwl">Max Steiner</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5bUj39bg0zEbRzjUEISMG9">Bernard Herrmann</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3GMsAIP1uVCx0yNz2kmXFw">Franz Waxman</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3ulUkIj0owxd4Qedpfock2">Miklos Rozsa</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6MbdnYlaRAlKxVJMzFcm69">Dmitri Tiomkin</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3dRfiJ2650SZu6GbydcHNb">John Williams</a> (the first three Star Wars scores), <a href="spotify:artist:2e7myQwGa7Vyp7sss8brVC">Alfred Newman</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3HqN7Sq7rmpOEI9UV5ERuz">Victor Young</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:7ctAOUlIAs7yuMODWE2Fyz">John Barry</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0Irsrumdkb64W1qPMYI9su">Leonard Rosenman</a>, and of course <a href="spotify:artist:3UaJz1tq0BBPzJBPgkBarb">Korngold</a>. Subsequently, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Chesky+Records%22">Chesky Records</a> leased some of the earlier <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Readers+Digest%22">Readers Digest</a> material for a superbly remastered and custom-pressed series of discs, on one of which the name National Philharmonic first appeared, dated 1967. The actual year of origin, however, seems to have been 1972, starting with the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a> <a href="spotify:artist:3UaJz1tq0BBPzJBPgkBarb">Korngold</a> collection. That trailblazing film series was completed by 1985, although <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> himself recorded a <a href="spotify:artist:1C1x4MVkql8AiABuTw6DgE">Wagner</a> collection with the NPO for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Chesky%22">Chesky</a> as late as 1995.

The National Philharmonic, however, ceased to be <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a>'s or the producer's personal orchestra when <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> replaced Sax as concertmaster, feeling that his playing had deteriorated beyond repair. Thus, <a href="spotify:artist:6JAPOSeaWl61UBRKZYgAeZ">Richard Bonynge</a> conducted the NPO extensively for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Decca%22">Decca</a>/<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22London%22">London</a> recordings of opera and ballet, as well as <a href="spotify:artist:4Kjr1MPMUfuH3QKXtAljNy">Riccardo Chailly</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5bUj39bg0zEbRzjUEISMG9">Bernard Herrmann</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0q361GTlmwBoXupFQc0T8v">Nicola Rescigno</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3dUXTzPxjC0mgZbxieKQLF">Gianandrea Gavazzeni</a>, and even Sir <a href="spotify:artist:0dicUFoK5LIbqu6OoHu8VH">Georg Solti</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:4qFQgEF1rg6a9WvJM0MQIa">James Levine</a> led operas and recital discs for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22RCA%22">RCA</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sony%22">Sony</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:52sDxFX9DvIxUupTy8f1yx">Leopold Stokowski</a> also led the NPO on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sony%22">Sony</a> in final-period recordings until the day before his death in 1977 at the age of 95. After his farewell <a href="spotify:artist:1C1x4MVkql8AiABuTw6DgE">Wagner</a> recording, <a href="spotify:artist:0KYTOaijsJq1rL0PC43LcQ">Gerhardt</a> retired to California, and from the available evidence, his informal NPO disbanded after 25 years, when the classical market went soft worldwide in the later 1990s, and London players with permanent posts clung to them like becalmed sailors, waiting for a breeze to rescue them from irrelevance as a professional breed.