Andre Kostelanetz (Russian: Абрам Наумович Костелянец; December 22, 1901 – January 13, 1980) was a Russian-American popular orchestral musicconductor and arranger who was one of the major exponents of popular orchestra music.
His father, Nachman Yokhelevich (Naum Ignatyevich) Kostelyanetz, was active on the St. Petersburg stock exchange; his maternal grandfather, Aizik Yevelevich Dymshitz, was a wealthy merchant and industrialist, engaged in timber production. Kostelanetz began playing the piano at four and a half years old. He studied composition and orchestration at the Petrograd Conservatory of Music. When he was 19, the Grand Petrograd Opera Company held a competition to select a chorusmaster and assistant conductor, in which he was selected despite being the youngest applicant.[4] Kostelanetz continued there until leaving Russia in March 1922 after the Russian Revolution,[5] when he stayed in Paris for a time before moving on to the United States.
He arrived in the United States that year, and in the 1920s, conducted concerts for radio. In the 1930s, he began his own weekly show on CBS, Andre Kostelanetz Presents. Kostelanetz was known for arranging and recording light classical music pieces for mass audiences, as well as orchestral versions of songs and Broadway show tunes. He made numerous recordings over the course of his career, which had sales of over 50 million. For many years, he conducted the New York Philharmonic in pops concerts and recordings, in which they were billed as Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra.[citation needed]
Kostelanetz may be best known to modern audiences for a series of easy listening instrumental albums on Columbia Records from the 1940s until 1980. Kostelanetz actually started making this music before there was a genre called "easy listening". He continued until after some of his contemporaries, including Mantovani, had stopped recording. Outside the United States, one of his best known works was an orchestral arrangement of the tune "With a Song in my Heart", which was the signature tune of a long-running BBC radio program, at first called Forces Favourites, then Family Favourites, and finally Two Way Family Favourites.[citation needed]
His first wife was soprano Lily Pons from 1938 to 1958, when they divorced. They owned a home in Palm Springs, California which was built in 1955.[9] In 1960 he married Sara Gene Orcutt; the marriage lasted several years.[5] Both unions were childless.[10][5]
After the December 31, 1979 concert with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Kostelanetz left for a vacation in Haiti. While in Haiti, Kostelanetz contracted pneumonia and died on January 13, 1980, aged 78.[5][12]
Discography (partial)
Many of the early LP releases were actually re-releases of albums released earlier on 78 rpm records. Musical Comedy Favorites, for example, was released as Volume 1 (album M-430) in late 1940 for songs 1 through 8, and Volume 2 (M-502) in 1941 for the remaining 8 songs on the second side of the LP.
Four of Kostelanetz's albums made the Billboard Hot 200, no match for his Columbia easy listening rivals Ray Conniff and Percy Faith but typical of many of popular instrumental easy listening artists of the day whose audience did not buy their albums immediately upon release but bought them over the years.
Andre Kostelanetz & His Orchestra: "Carmen" LP #693cl735 Columbia 1950 U.S.A.
Music of Sigmund Romberg,1946, Columbia Masterworks MM635
The Music of Victor Herbert, Columbia Masterworks M-415
Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a, 1956, Columbia Long Playing CL 730
Music of Irving Berlin, 1950, Columbia Masterworks MM/ML-4314
The Music of Stephen Foster, 1941, 3 LP Set, Columbia Masterworks M-442 78's
Mississippi Suite, 1947, Columbia Masterworks MX-284 12" album
The Music of Chopin, 1949, Columbia Masterworks MM-840
Waltzes of Johann Strauss, 1948, Columbia Masterworks ML-2011 10" album
Music of Cole Porter, 1948, Columbia Masterworks ML-2014
Music of George Gershwin, 1948, Columbia Masterworks 2026
Mississippi Suite, 1948, Columbia Masterworks ML-2046 10" album
Invitation to the Waltz, 1948, Columbia Masterworks ML-2069 10" album
Swan Lake, Columbia Masterworks ML-4308 1950
An American in Paris, Columbia Masterworks ML-4455 1951
Black Magic, 1955, Columbia CL 712
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite, 1955, Columbia CL 716
Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf & Saint-Seans, Carnival of the Animals, 1955, Columbia CL 720
Music of Vincent Youmans, 1955, Columbia CL 734
Verdi: Aida, 1955, Columbia CL 755
Bravo!, 1955, Columbia CL 758
Vienna Nights, 1955, Columbia CL 769
Music of Fritz Kreisler, Music of Sigmund Romberg, 1955, Columbia CL 771
You and the Night and the Music, 1955, Columbia CL 772
Musical Comedy Favorites, 1955, Columbia CL 775
Music of Jerome Kern, 1955, Columbia CL 776
The Lure of the Tropics, 1955, Columbia CL 780
Stardust, 1955, Columbia CL 781
Kostelanetz Conducts..., 1955, Columbia CL 786
An American In Paris/Rhapsody In Blue, 1955, Columbia CL 795
La Boheme for Orchestra, 1955, Columbia CL 797
Clair de Lune and Popular Favorites, 1955, Columbia CL 798
La Traviata, 1955 Columbia CL 799
The Sleeping Beauty, 1956, Columbia CL 804
Strauss Waltzes, 1956, Columbia CL 805
Calendar Girl, 1956, Columbia CL 811
Bolero!, 1956, Columbia CL 833
The Very Thought of You, 1956, Columbia CL 843
Music of Chopin, 1956, Columbia CL 862
Cafe Continental, 1956, Columbia CL 863
Beautiful Dreamer: Music of Stephen Foster, 1956, Columbia CL 864
Broadway Spectacular, 1956, Columbia CL 865
Madame Butterfly, 1956, Columbia CL 869
Tender Is the Night, 1956, Columbia CL 886
The Lure of Spain, 1957, Columbia CL 943
Rigoletto, 1957, Columbia CL 970
The Romantic Music of Rachmaninoff, 1957, Columbia CL 1001
The Lure of France, 1958, Columbia CL 1054/CS 8111
The Columbia Album of Richard Rodgers, Vol. 1, 1958, Columbia CL 1068
The Columbia Album of Richard Rodgers, Vol. 2, 1958, Columbia CL 1069
Blues Opera, 1958, Columbia CL 1099
Encore!, 1958, Columbia CL 1135/CS 8008
Theatre Party, 1958, Columbia CL 1199/CS 8026
The Romantic Music of Tchaikovsky, Vol. 1, 1958, Columbia CL 1208
The Romantic Music of Tchaikovsky, Vol. 2, 1958, Columbia CL 1209
Romantic Arias for Orchestra, 1959, Columbia CL 1263
Flower Drum Song, 1959, Columbia CL 1280/CS 8095
Great Waltzes, 1959, Columbia CL 1321
The Lure of Paradise, 1959, Columbia CL 1335/CS 8144
Strauss Waltzes, 1959, Columbia CL 1354/CS 8162
Gypsy Passion, 1960, Columbia CL 1431/CS 8228
Joy to the World, 1960, Columbia CL 1528/CS 8328
The Unsinkable Molly Brown, 1960, Columbia CL 1576/CS 8376
Kostelanetz Favorites Columbia ML 4065
The Nutcracker Suite, 1961, Columbia Masterworks 6264
The New Wonderland of Sound, 1961, Columbia CL 1657/CS 8457
Star Spangled Marches, 1962, Columbia CL 1718/CS 8518
Broadway's Greatest Hits, 1962, Columbia CL 1827/CS 8627
Fire and Jealousy, Columbia CL 1898/CS 8698
Music from "Mr. President", 1962, Columbia CL 1921/CS 8721
World Favorite Romantic Concertos for Piano & Orchestra, 1963, Columbia Masterworks ML 5876/MS 6476
Wonderland of Sound, 1963, Columbia-CL-1938
Wonderland of Golden Hits, 1963, Columbia CL 2039/CS 8839
Wonderland of Christmas, 1963, Columbia CL 2068/CS 8868
Kostelanetz in Wonderland: Golden Encores, 1963, Columbia CL 2078/CS 8878
James H. North (2011). Andre Kostelanetz on Records and on the Air: A Discography and Radio Log. Lanham, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. ISBN978-0-8108-7732-0.
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