National Symphony Orchestra

The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), founded in 1931, is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C.. Its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

History

For the first period of its history, the NSO performed in Constitution Hall. During the tenure of the first music director, Hans Kindler, the musicians received a salary of $40.00 per week, for three rehearsals and one concert, for five months of the year. The first female member of the NSO was a harpist, Sylvia Meyer, who joined in 1933.

Kindler and the NSO made several 78-rpm recordings for RCA Victor, including the two Roumanian Rhapsodies by George Enescu; much later, in 1960, the NSO would perform the first of these works under the baton of the visiting Romanian conductor George Georgescu, a close associate and favored exponent of the composer. One of the more unusual RCA recordings with the orchestra was of the complete ballet music from the opera King Henry VIII by Camille Saint-Saëns, one of the very few recordings conducted by Walter Damrosch. Years later, Howard Mitchell made a series of stereophonic recordings with the orchestra for RCA. Antal Doráti recorded with the orchestra for Decca Records. Mstislav Rostropovich made recordings for Teldec, Sony Records, and Erato. The orchestra returned to RCA Victor under Leonard Slatkin, until RCA abandoned new classical recordings.

Orchestra

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble used in classical music that contains sections of string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the 20th century.

National

National may refer to:

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often written by composers for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are scored for string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30–100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their instrument. A small number of symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony).

Origins

The word symphony is derived from Greek συμφωνία (symphonia), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of vocal or instrumental music", from σύμφωνος (symphōnos), "harmonious". The word referred to an astonishing variety of different things, before ultimately settling on its current meaning designating a musical form.

Danish National Symphony Orchestra

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Danish: DR SymfoniOrkestret; English abbreviation "DNSO"), is a Danish orchestra based in Copenhagen. The DNSO is the principal orchestra of DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation). The DRSO is based at the Copenhagen Concert Hall.

History

The roots of the orchestra date back to the singer Emil Holm, who expressed a wish to establish a full-time symphony orchestra in Denmark. In collaboration with fellow musicians Otto Fessel, Rudolf Dietz Mann and Folmer Jensen, the orchestra was founded in 1925, with 11 players in the ensemble and conductor Launy Grøndahl having a leadership role, though without a formal title. The orchestra grew to 30 players within a year. The orchestra performed its first public concert was in 1927, and began to give weekly concerts in 1928. In 1930, Holm recruited Nikolai Malko to a similar key role like Grøndahl as conductor with the orchestra, though again without Malko having a formal title. Early concerts were at the Axelborg building. In 1931, the orchestra began to give concerts at the Stærekassen hall of the Royal Danish Theatre. After going into exile from Germany in the 1930s, Fritz Busch worked extensively as a major conductor of the orchestra in parallel with Malko, though again with no formal title. By 1948, the orchestra had attained membership of 92 musicians.