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Many titles have been invented for recording orchestras (we have recently explored Leopold Stokowski and His Symphony Orchestra), but the Columbia Symphony Orchestra presents a particularly challenging case. The title was employed for many reasons at different times. It is not always possible to identify the performers in a given recording; we follow available clues as far as they can lead us.
The idea of compiling a discography of an orchestra that doesn't exist - an invention of attorneys and marketing executives - seems ridiculous, yet the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (hereafter CoSO, to distinguish it from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) was such a widespread phenomenon that it cannot be ignored. It is, however, a multi-headed Hydra, such a slippery beast that we must abandon the word discography. As we will see, it is not always possible to define what is a CoSO recording and what is not. Let's call this merely an investigation: a thorough study, we hope, but not necessarily an exhaustive one. We should explain: When studying the recording history of a major performing arts group, say, the New York Philharmonic, there is a folder in Sony Music Archives containing "artist cards," for either Victor or Columbia. These concern contracts and payments, but they also take note of recording sessions, about which they contain varying amounts of information. It's a start, and one pursues other historical papers and the physical discs to fill out the details. Perhaps 90 to 95% of the organization's recording sessions might be listed in its folder; to complete such a study, one must look also at artist cards of instrumental as well as vocal soloists - based primarily but not exclusively on who performed in concert with the orchestra. The folder for the CoSO, however, contains but a single page: The Witch of Endor, a "ballet for orchestra" by William Schuman which was withdrawn before publication, was recorded by Robert Irving and the CoSO at Columbia's 30th Street studios on 28 September and 1 October 1965 but was never issued. So, one must imagine which conductors, which soloists, which singers might have recorded with the CoSO. Our starting point was the full roster of Columbia artists from 1939 to 1980, when Columbia Records' classical division became CBS...