An Orchestral Treat from a Master of Easy Listening Music.
Russian émigré Andre Kostelanetz began making Easy Listening Music before there was a category called Easy Listening. Kostelanetz got his start in performance a child in the Petrograd choir. He would later lead the choir. Fleeing the Russian Revolution, he came to the U.S. in 1922. Taking work at first as an accompanist, he made his radio debut in 1924 as an orchestral conductor. During the 1930's he put together a 65-piece orchestra, the largest in radio at the time, for the program, "Andre Kostelanetz Presents."
Innovative as well as popular, Kostelanetz was early to grasp the importance of recording as a means for music to reach large audiences. He made great stride in promoting the value of recording engineers. Best known for his orchestral arrangements of show-tunes as well as arranging classical music pieces for mass audiences, Kostelanetz has had record sales exceeding 52 million.
Kostelanetz passed away in Haiti in January, 1980, soon after his final performance, the concert "A Night in Old Vienna", with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the War Memorial Opera House on New Year's Eve.
For additional classical and opera radio shows, see also:
These classic recordings are available in the following formats:
Show Rating
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COMMENTS
Excellent.
I am a kostelanetz fan. I like all of his old Columbia Masterworks recordings on 78 rpm and his Lp recordings. I hoped someone would find recordings of his broadcasts. You folks did.
Great stuff
Hope you can find some more Voice of Firestone and the Telephone Hour broadcasts that could be cleaned up sound wise and made available
Thanks
Ray Muther Concord, California
Ray Verified Purchase
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Easy listening music. There's an elegance about the programs that reminds me of a simpler time, and of a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I enjoy listening to these programs, especially when I tire of "surfing" tv channels trying to find something apart from all the "chatter".
Jimmie Verified Purchase
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Beautiful music for listening in the garden on a Sunday afternoon, the sound quality is amazing considering its from the 1940's
Kevin Verified Purchase
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