Collections in Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound

Gilbert W. Chapman was a business executive in New York City who served as Director of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The New York Public Library. The collection consists of noncommercial sound recordings including performances by Jascha Heifetz and Larry Adler of popular chamber music; a performance of Aaron Avshalomoff's Symphony no. 2 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thor Johnson; a speech by Mrs. Gilbert Chapman broadcast in 1943 promoting the American Women's Voluntary Services; and radio and television interviews with Gilbert W. Chapman and dancer Alexandra Danilova. The interviews with Chapman were recorded from 1956 to 1962 and concern literacy and education in the United States. Notable television and radio programs represented in the collection include the Tex and Jinx television program; a Monitor radio program; and a Lee Graham television interview. Also included is the opening address (given by Mr. Chapman) of the New York Public Library 50th anniversary convocation, and a radio program featuring a story about the WNYC book festival. less

The collection contains both commercial and noncommercial discs and tapes. The commercial recordings include the complete set of Nation's Forum discs, Benito Mussolini's personal copy, bound and numbered, of his recorded speeches, Victor long play discs from the early 1930's including Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and the Sistine Chapel Choir recordings of the pre-electric era, at least eight or nine sides of which feature Alessandro Moreschi, last of the known castrati. less