''The Bell Telephone Hour'' (also known as ''The Telephone Hour'') is a concert series that began April 29, 1940, on

NBC Radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first tw ...

, and was heard on NBC until June 30, 1958. Sponsored by Bell Telephone as the name implies, it showcased the best in classical and Broadway music, reaching eight to nine million listeners each week. It continued on television from 1959 to 1968. Throughout the program's run on both radio and television, the studio orchestra on the program was conducted by Donald Voorhees.

Synopsis

After early shows featuring James Melton and Francia White as soloists, producer Wallace Magill restructured the format on April 27, 1942, into the "Great Artists Series" of concert and opera performers, beginning with

Jascha Heifetz Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz ...

. The list of talents heard over the years includes

Marian Anderson Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897April 8, 1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throughout the United ...

Bing Crosby Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...

Margaret Daum Margaret Daum (March 25, 1906 – February 23, 1977) was an American classical soprano. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Daum studied singing at the Ithaca Conservatory of Music where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1928. ...

Nelson Eddy Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American actor and baritone singer who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclub ...

Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His conc ...

Josef Hofmann Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876February 16, 1957) was a Polish-American pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor. Biography Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze (a district of Kraków), in Au ...

, José Iturbi,

Fritz Kreisler Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler (February 2, 1875 – January 29, 1962) was an Austrian-born American violinist and composer. One of the most noted violin masters of his day, and regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time, he was know ...

, Gregor Piatigorsky,

Oscar Levant Oscar Levant (December 27, 1906August 14, 1972) was an American concert pianist, composer, conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian and actor. He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for rec ...

, Ezio Pinza,

Lily Pons Alice Joséphine Pons (April 12, 1898 – February 13, 1976), known professionally as Lily Pons, was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer, she s ...

Gladys Swarthout Gladys Swarthout (December 25, 1900 in Deepwater, Missouri – July 7, 1969 in Florence, Italy) was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer and actress. Career While studying at the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, a group of friends arran ...

, and Helen Traubel. The series returned to radio in 1968-69 as ''Encores from the Bell Telephone Hour'' featuring highlights and interviews from the original series. The Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra included clarinetist and saxophonist Joe Allard, who is well known as a saxophone teacher at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely ...

and the New England Conservatory of Music. His list of students includes Stan Getz, Eric Dolphy, Dave Liebman, Ricky Ford, Bob Hanlon, Dave Tofani, Mike Brecker, Roger Rosenberg, John Coltrane, and Steve Grossman. Warner Anderson was the program's announcer, and Floyd Mack the narrator.

Television

The TV show, seen on NBC from January 12, 1959, to the summer of 1968, was one of the first TV series to be telecast exclusively in color, using the

color TV Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white t ...

system perfected by

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

in 1954. It aired every week on Friday evenings at 10:00 pm, then was switched to Tuesday evenings at 10:00 pm in 1963. It was noted for its

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

specials, frequently featuring

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

stars and stars of musical theater and

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form ...

. In the fall of 1965, the show was switched to an earlier time, Sundays at 6:30 pm. In 1960, the program alternated weeks with '' Sing Along with Mitch''. Beginning in 1965, the program sometimes had to share its time slot with an NBC news series called '' Actuality Specials'' on NBC, and was telecast every other week. In the fall of 1963, the program alternated with '' The Andy Williams Show''. During its last season, 1967–1968, the program was switched back to its old Friday-night time slot and the format changed from a videotaped and mostly musical presentation to filmed documentaries about classical musicians made on location. By this point, ''The Bell Telephone Hour'' was seen as a relic of a bygone era in television history. One of the most notable of the ''Bell Telephone Hour'' documentary programs combined a tour of the

Museo del Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from th ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, with performances by such noted Spanish musicians as

Andrés Segovia Andrés Segovia Torres, 1st Marquis of Salobreña (21 February 1893 – 2 June 1987) was a Spanish virtuoso classical guitarist. Many professional classical guitarists were students of Segovia or their students. Segovia's contribution to the m ...

, Alicia de Larrocha, and Victoria de los Ángeles. Another was a profile of

Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Se ...

conductor

George Szell George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is widely considered one of the twentieth century's greatest condu ...

. This one was not a biography of Szell, but a documentary showing how he worked with the orchestra. One of the last, and most notable episodes done in the videotape format, was "First Ladies of Opera", featuring

Joan Sutherland Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. She possesse ...

Leontyne Price Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American soprano who was the first African American soprano to receive international acclaim. From 1961 she began a long association with the Metropolitan Opera, where she was the first Af ...

Renata Tebaldi Renata Tebaldi ( , ; 1 February 1922 – 19 December 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post- war period, and especially prominent as one of the stars of La Scala, San Carlo and, especially, the Metropolitan Opera. ...

, and

Birgit Nilsson Märta Birgit Nilsson (17 May 1918 – 25 December 2005) was a celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano. Although she sang a wide répertoire of operatic and vocal works, Nilsson was best known for her performances in the operas of Richard Wagner ...

, all on one program. In 1976, footage from the TV series was edited into a 90-minute retrospective TV special entitled ''The Bell Telephone Jubilee'', hosted by Bing Crosby and

Liza Minnelli Liza May Minnelli ( ; born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy ...

. NBC staff announcer Mel Brandt was the series announcer. ABC staff announcer

Scott Vincent Scott Vincent (December 24, 1922 – May 31, 1979) was an American radio and television announcer and newscaster. Radio Scott Vincent was a staff announcer for nearly 25 years at ABC's flagship owned-and-operated station WABC-TV in New York ...

hosted the 1962 season finale, "Till Autumn".Archived a
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine

Reissues on DVD

Beginning in 2001, DVDs of performances from the television series have been released by

Video Artists International Video Artists International (VAI), is an independent American DVD-label specializing in classical music performances founded in 1983, and based in Pleasantville, NY. The company started as one of the first labels to release complete operas and b ...

. To date, VAI has issued more than two dozen DVD compilations, and a number of complete telecasts, most notably the episode of April 29, 1960, which presented a lavishly staged production of ''

The Mikado ''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the ...

'' starring

Groucho Marx Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (; October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit an ...

. The stunning array of performers who appeared on ''The Bell Telephone Hour'' television program includes: • Singers:

Barbara Cook Barbara Cook (October 25, 1927 – August 8, 2017) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals '' Plain and Fancy'' (1955), ''Candide'' (1956) and ''The Music Man'' ( ...

Franco Corelli Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was an Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was cel ...

Régine Crespin Régine Crespin (23 February 1927 – 5 July 2007) was a French singer who had a major international career in opera and on the concert stage between 1950 and 1989. She started her career singing roles in the dramatic soprano and spinto sopran ...

Victoria De Los Angeles Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychell ...

, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Eileen Farrell, Nicolai Gedda, Dolores Gray,

Mahalia Jackson Mahalia Jackson ( ; born Mahala Jackson; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to t ...

, Carol Lawrence, George London, Thomas Hayward,

Gordon MacRae Albert Gordon MacRae (March 12, 1921 – January 24, 1986) was an American actor, singer and radio/television host who appeared in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals '' Oklahoma!'' (1955) and ''Carousel'' (1956) and who p ...

, Ethel Merman,

Robert Merrill Robert Merrill (June 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American operatic baritone and actor, who was also active in the musical theatre circuit. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1993. Early life Merrill was born Moishe Miller, ...

Anna Moffo Anna Moffo (June 27, 1932 – March 9, 2006) was an American opera singer, television personality, and actress. One of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation, she possessed a warm and radiant voice of considerable range and agili ...

Roberta Peters Roberta Peters (May 4, 1930 – January 18, 2017) was an American coloratura soprano. One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Oper ...

, John Raitt,

Dinah Shore Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during ...

, Risë Stevens,

, Richard Tucker, Leslie Uggams, Jon Vickers,

Mildred Miller Mildred Miller (born December 16, 1924) is an American classical mezzo-soprano who had a major career performing in operas, concerts, and recitals during the mid twentieth century. She was notably a principal artist at the Metropolitan Opera from ...

and

Gretchen Wyler Gretchen Wyler (born Gretchen Patricia Wienecke; February 16, 1932 – May 27, 2007) was an American actress and dancer. She was also an animal rights advocate and founder of the Genesis Awards for animal protection. Biography Early life ...

• Pianists:

Claudio Arrau Claudio Arrau León (; February 6, 1903June 9, 1991) was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and B ...

Jorge Bolet Jorge Bolet (November 15, 1914October 16, 1990) was a Cuban-born American virtuoso pianist and teacher. Among his teachers were Leopold Godowsky, and Moriz Rosenthal – the latter an outstanding pupil of Franz Liszt. Life Bolet was born in Havan ...

Robert Casadesus Robert Marcel Casadesus (7 April 1899 – 19 September 1972) was a renowned 20th-century French pianist and composer. He was the most prominent member of a distinguished musical family, being the nephew of Henri Casadesus and Marius Casadesus, ...

, Alicia de Larrocha, Van Cliburn, Philippe Entremont,

Lorin Hollander Lorin Hollander (born July 19, 1944) is an American classical concert pianist. He has performed with virtually all of the major symphony orchestras in the United States and many around the world. A ''New York Times'' critic called him in 1964 "the ...

, Byron Janis, Grant Johannesen, and José Iturbi • Violinists:

Mischa Elman Mischa (Mikhail Saulovich) Elman (russian: Михаил Саулович Эльман; January 20, 1891April 5, 1967) was a Russian-born American violinist famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality. E ...

Zino Francescatti René-Charles "Zino" Francescatti (August 9, 1902 – September 17, 1991) was a French virtuoso violinist. Zino Francescatti was born in Marseilles, to a musical family. Both parents were violinists. His father, who also played the cello, had stu ...

Yehudi Menuhin Yehudi or Jehudi (Hebrew: יהודי, endonym for Jew) is a common Hebrew name: * Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999), violinist and conductor ** Yehudi Menuhin School, a music school in Surrey, England ** Who's Yehoodi?, a catchphrase referring to t ...

Erica Morini Erika Morini Siracusano (January 5, 1904 – October 31 or November 1, 1995) was a Jewish Austrian violinist. Early life and family Morini was born in Vienna, and received her first instruction from her father, Oscar Morini (originally spelle ...

David Oistrakh David Fyodorovich Oistrakh (; – 24 October 1974), was a Soviet classical violinist, violist and conductor. Oistrakh collaborated with major orchestras and musicians from many parts of the world and was the dedicatee of numerous violin ...

, Michael Rabin,

Ruggiero Ricci Ruggiero Ricci (24 July 1918 – 5 August 2012) was an American violinist known for performances and recordings of the works of Paganini. Biography He was born in San Bruno, California, the son of Italian immigrants who first named him Woodrow ...

, and

Isaac Stern Isaac Stern (July 21, 1920 – September 22, 2001) was an American violinist. Born in Poland, Stern came to the US when he was 14 months old. Stern performed both nationally and internationally, notably touring the Soviet Union and China, and ...

(Also, famed cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and master of the guitar

) • Dancers: Alicia Alonso,

Erik Bruhn Erik Belton Evers Bruhn (3 October 1928 – 1 April 1986) was a Danish danseur, choreographer, artistic director, actor, and author. Early life Erik Bruhn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the fourth child and first son of Ellen (née Evers), ...

, Jacques d'Amboise, Carla Fracci,

Rudolf Nureyev Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev ( ; Tatar/ Bashkir: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; rus, Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, p=rʊˈdolʲf xɐˈmʲetəvʲɪtɕ nʊˈrʲejɪf; 17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet ...

, Matt Mattox,

Edward Villella Edward Villella (born October 1, 1936) is an American ballet dancer and choreographer. He is frequently cited as America's most celebrated male dancer of ballet at the time. He has won numerous awards, including the Daytime Emmy Award for Out ...

Violette Verdy Violette Verdy (born Nelly Armande Guillerm; 1 December 1933 – 8 February 2016) was a French ballerina, choreographer, teacher, and writer who worked as a dance company director with the Paris Opera Ballet in France and the Boston Ballet in t ...

, and Maria Tallchief

Awards

The series won two

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s and was nominated for seven others.

''Rehearsal: The Telephone Hour''

In 1947, a 27-minute, black-and-white

short subject A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

entitled ''Rehearsal: The Telephone Hour'', was released to theaters. Originating in NBC's Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the film featured, in addition to Voorhees and the orchestra, operatic bass Ezio Pinza and opera mezzo-soprano

Blanche Thebom Blanche Thebom (September 19, 1915March 23, 2010) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. She was part of the first wave of American opera singers that had highly successful international careers. In her own cou ...

singing arias. It simulated a rehearsal of the popular program, complete with a commercial announcement, and then, near the end, segued to what was presumably the actual radio broadcast.

Listen to

Internet Archive: ''The Bell Telephone Hour''

Watch

The Telephone Hour''

References

External links

*
''The Bell Telephone Hour'' collection of sound recordings, 1940-1968
at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

* ttp://vaimusic.com/product/4554.html Groucho Marx in The Mikado* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell Telephone Hour, The 1959 American television series debuts 1968 American television series endings 1930s American radio programs 1940s American radio programs American classical music radio programs American music television series Bell System Black-and-white American television shows English-language television shows NBC original programming Peabody Award-winning radio programs Peabody Award-winning television programs 1940 radio programme debuts 1958 radio programme endings NBC radio programs