Scope and arrangement
The CBS Collection consists of music that was created or arranged as a part of the station's broadcast activity and which was stored in its New York headquarters.
The collection consists of original compositions or arrangements. Nearly all the formats are manuscript scores and parts. In the case of arrangements, published scores from which the arrangements were made are occasionally found.
Originally known as the "X File" nearly all works have an X number. These numbers were generally assigned in chronological order. When a score lacks a date, these X numbers can be useful in determining an approximate date.
The bulk of material consists of arrangements of popular songs. There are a number of staff arrangers represented such as Julius Burger, Carlyle Hall, Paul Leeman, Marty Manning, and Julian Work. Probably the most prolific arranger was Amadeo De Fillipi, who orchestrated many classical works for the CBS orchestra, including several songs by Charles Ives that probably received their first public hearing over CBS. (The Music Division has a small collection of music composition in manuscript that were donated by Mr. De Fillipi shortly before his death.) There are also several arrangements made by CBS music librarian Julius Mattfeld (who had an organ recital program that aired on Sunday mornings).
A number of works by significant composers have been separated and cataloged separately. Included are works by John Cage ("The City Wears a Slouch Hat," call number JPB 95-3 folder 92), Aaron Copland ("John Henry," call number JPB 91-54; "Music for Radio," call numbers JPB 85-138, JPB 91-52, JPB 91-53), Roy Harris ("Cowboy songs," call numbers JPB 91-16, JPH 91-1; "Time Suite," JPB 16-18) and Jerome Moross ("A tall story," call number JPG 90-3). Some of these materials are unique copies or the only existing sources of these works.
Among the more significant original works in the CBS Collection are the scores to radio shows (by Oscar Bradley, Bernard Herrmann, Nicolas Nabokov, Fred Steiner, and others) as well as television shows, most notably The Twentieth Century. The composers who composed for this television series were among the most noted of the day and include George Antheil (who created the signature music for the series), Louis Applebaum, Georges Auric, Paul Creston, Alan Hovhaness, Norman Dello Joio, Hershey Kay, George Kleinsinger, Gail Kubik, Darius Milhaud, Mario Nascimbene, Alexander Tcherepnin, and Franz Waxman. Other television shows are represented by composers such as Alfredo Antonini (a staff conductor of the CBS Orchestra), Eugene Cines (later to be the music librarian at CBS), David Diamond, Jerry Goldsmith, Morton Gould, Roy Harris, Robert Hughes, Ezra Laderman, Laurence Rosenthal, Elie Siegmeister, Carlos Surinach, Hugo Weisgall, and Alec Wilder. Cole Porter's last completed musicals, Aladdin, was a 1957 television commission from CBS, and is well-represented in the collection in its original arrangements by the Broadway orchestrator Robert Emmett Dolan.
CBS also maintained a separate music library at its offices in Los Angeles. Evidence shows that on occasion scores were sent back and forth between New York and Los Angeles. We have retained empty folders which, in addition to their administrative annotations, contain letters indicating that their contents were sent to the west coast. Today this collection is held by the University of California Los Angeles: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt8x0nd51b/?query=cbs
In summary, the CBS Collection represents the New York City branch of an in-house library of a major radio and television entertainment corporation.
Arrangement
The collection is organized in three series by physical size: Series I contains scores measuring up to 15" x 13", series II contains scores measuring up to 16" x 20", and the handful of items in series III contains oversized items.