NET Presents Festival Orchestra of New York

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This record is featured in “National Educational Television.”
Program
NET Presents Festival Orchestra of New York
Producing Organization
National Educational Television and Radio Center
Contributing Organization
Library of Congress (Washington, District of Columbia)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/512-fb4wh2f790
NOLA Code
NFNF
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Description
Program Description
This concert by the Festival Orchestra of New York under Thomas Dunn is devoted entirely to a performance of George Frideric Handels complete Water Music. The delightful work is made even more lively for the viewer through numerous illustrations of eighteenth century scenes which are worked into the score between fast-moving camera coverage of the orchestra as it plays. Martin Bookspan, Music Director at the New York radio station, WQXR, is the on-camera host. Although the Festival Orchestra of New York played its first full season in 1964, the ensemble, made up of some of New Yorks finest instrumentalists first started concertizing, under the directorion of Thomas Dunn in 1961. The Festival Orchestra never numbers more than fifty players and specailizes n a rich musical literature written for small orchestra, particulary compositions of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries and the works of such Twentieeth Century composers as Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Menotti. With the guidance of its conductor, Mr. Dunn, the orchestra, in concerts at Carnegie and Philharmonic Halls, is seeking to broaden public appreciation of this large classic and contemporary repertoire. This program is the ensembles first appearance on network television. Thomas Dunn, born Berdeen, South Dakota, received the Certificate in organ from Peabody Conservatory of Music, and a BS from Johns Hopkins University in 1946; a year later he received an MA from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University. After a yaers study as a Fulbright Scholar at the Royal Conservatory in Amsterdam, he earned the Netherlands highest award in music, the Diploma in Orchestral Conducting. In 1957, he became Director of Music at the Church of the Incarnation in New York; in 1959, Conductor of the Cantata Singers, and soon thereafter began his work as music director of the Festival Orchestra of New York. TIME Magazine has said of him: Dunn is free of all bravura mannerisms. He conducts with a spare clarity of line that emphasizes the beauty of the music through its style and structure. His approach is that of modesty in the face of genius, seeking out the composers intent, never willfully imposing his own interpretation. .... Whatever Thomas Dunn tackles mausically will be worth doing and done memorably well. On a July night almost 250 years ago King George I of England and a party of courtiers embarked at Whitehall for an evening of festivities on the Thames River. Beside the royal barge bearing the king and his retinue was a larger boat in which an orchestra of 50 musicians played a piece writeen especially for the entertainment of the elegant partygoers ... George Frideric Handels Water Music. ... During the Eighteenth Century the Thames was one of Londons major highways. Day and night it was a scene of constant activity: British merchant ships form all over the world anchored there, rbiging back exotic purchases and more exotic tales; noblemen dress wigs and satin greatcoats commanded their acquatic chauffers to row faster upstream to Hampton so as not to be late for tea; and boatmen carrying loads of vegetables, hemp, or squawking chickens shuttled from one shore to the other . It was a meeting place of rich and poor, a thoroughfare of never-ending industry. ... George I liked the river. And he had a great appetite for social functions. ... From what we can judge from newspaper accounts and journals of the day the fete was a great success. The water was literally covered with boats. From aristocrats to commoners London had turned out to watch the royal progress to Chelsea and -- when the wind was right -- to catch strains of Handels festive music conducted by the composer himself. .. The trip got underway at around eight in the evening, George, seated happily in his barge, surrounded by is favority women ... The royal party arrived at Chelsea by eleven, where the king and his guests went ashore for a big dinner. The return trip got underway at about three in the morning and the king was back at St. James by four-thirty. ... Handels music, aroudn which the evening was planned, was a great success. The king liked it so well that he ordered the work to be played three times during the trip. ... Musically this rendition of the Water Music differs in two ways from teh performance conducted by Handel in 1717. First, the original orchestration, although the score has been lost, is said to have been weighted more heavily toward wind instruments -- horns, trumpets, oboes, flutes, and recorders (The composer knew he needed to choose the strongest instruments he could find to overcome the distractions of the river). And second, Mr. Dunn has chosen to place Suite Three before Suite Two (The work has twenty movements, divided into three suites), feeling this order provides the greatest dramatic impact. In any order the individual parts of the Water Music add up to a sparkling whole. (taken from the script of this program). NET Presents the Festival Orchestra of New York is a 1965 production of National Educational Television. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Program Description
1 hour piece, produced by NET and initially distributed by NET in 1965. It was originally shot on videotape.
Broadcast Date
1965-10-01
Asset type
Program
Genres
Performance
Special
Topics
Music
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
01:00:06
Credits
Assistant to the Producer: Bowman, Sandra
Assistant to the Producer: Gray, Virginia
Composer: Handel, George Frideric, 1685-1759
Conductor: Dunn, Thomas
Director: Thetford, Dinah
Host: Bookspan, Martin
Performing Group: New York Festival Orchestra
Producer: Toobin, Jerome, 1919-1984
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Writer: Keller, Anthony
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2333633-1 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 1 inch videotape: SMPTE Type C
Generation: Master
Color: B&W
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2333633-2 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: U-matic
Generation: Copy: Access
Color: B&W
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2333633-3 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Master
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2333633-4 (MAVIS Item ID)
Generation: Copy: Access
Library of Congress
Identifier: 2333633-5 (MAVIS Item ID)
Format: 2 inch videotape
Generation: Master
Color: B&W
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Citations
Chicago: “NET Presents Festival Orchestra of New York,” 1965-10-01, Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed December 29, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-fb4wh2f790.
MLA: “NET Presents Festival Orchestra of New York.” 1965-10-01. Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. December 29, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-fb4wh2f790>.
APA: NET Presents Festival Orchestra of New York. Boston, MA: Library of Congress, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-512-fb4wh2f790