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Some facts...

Here are the first chair players of the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (a Hollywood pick-up ensemble created in the late '50s expressly for the purpose of recording BW in stereo):

Concertmaster - Israel Baker (frequent chamber-music collaborator with Jascha Heifetz)
Principal second violin - Harold Dicterow (father of the present concertmaster of the NY Philharmonic)
Principal viola - Sanford Schoenbach
Principal cello - George Neikrug
Principal double bass - Anton Torello (formerly principal of the Philadelphia Orchestra)
Principal flute - Arthur Gleghorn
Principal oboe - Bert Gassman
Principal clarinet - Kalman Bloch
Principal bassoon - Fred Moritz
Principal horn - Sinclair Lott
Principal trumpet - Robert DiVall
Principal trombone - Robert Marsteller

Although the CSO was (is) often maligned for its occasional lack of ensemble finesse, there were some outstanding players in this line-up, especially the woodwinds and horns. It should be noted that all the principal woodwinds of the CSO were principals in the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the time.

To give you just two examples of the outstanding talent in the CSO, principal bassoon Fred (Fritz) Moritz was, prior to his emigration to the U.S., principal of the Berlin Philharmonic for several years. There he played under such luminaries as Nikisch, Furtwaengler and Weingartner. In the U.S. he single-handedly founded a style of bassoon-playing which centered around a neglected aspect of technique called "flicking". In contrast to many East Coast bassoonists (including those in New York, Philly and Boston), Moritz's playing was marked by flawless technique, clear, resonant tone, and a total absence of the ugly "chuffing" on many notes that was characteristic of American bassoon sound at that time. Listen to his phenomenal rendition of the bassoon solo in the last movement of Beethoven's Fourth to hear how good he was.

Sinclair Lott was the preeminent horn player in a town that boasted some of the finest horn-playing in the world at the time. People rave about British horn playing of the '50s and '60s (Dennis Brain, Barry Tuckwell, etc.), but the Los Angeles players were equally as strong, IMO. Lott's rendition of the treacherous little horn solo at the beginning of the fifth movement of the Pastorale is flawlessly beautiful.

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  Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.  

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