- Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
- Founded: 1931
Biography
The Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra (Orchestre Nazionale Sinfonica della RAI) descends from the original Italian radio symphony orchestra founded in Turin, and has become one of the world's leading broadcasting symphony orchestras.Radio is an Italian invention. Guglielmo Marconi first demonstrated the ability to detect signals transmitted through the air just before the beginning of the twentieth century and very soon devised means to send telegraphic signals across the oceans. Lee DeForest's invention of the vacuum tube amplifier made it possible to transmit sounds by radio. From about 1920, experimental sound radio commenced in the major countries of the world. The Marconi Company and SIRAC (Società Italiana Radio Audizioni Circolari) united to found L'URI (Unione Radiofonica Italiana) on August 27, 1924. Its first broadcast, on October 6, 1924, from Rome, featured opera singer Maria Luisa Boncompagni, along with weather reports and stock market news. Branch stations were established in Milan (1925), Naples (1926), and Turin (1929).
L'URI was reorganized as EIAR (Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche) in 1928. The new organization put radio more under the control of the Fascist government, and through the 1930s and the war years EIAR had a strong propagandistic function.
Meanwhile in 1925, a new opera company, Teatro di Torino, had acquired the historic Teatro Scribe and in a short time became known for its enterprising support for neglected operas, both new and old. The company folded in 1931. EIAR acquired it and renovated it as a broadcast facility, founding a symphony orchestra by joining orchestral musicians of Turin and Milan. Its first concert in the new symphony complex was in 1932.
After the collapse of Italy as an Axis power and the deposing of Benito Mussolini, EIAR was reorganized as RAI (Radio Audizioni Italia) which, with the technological advances of the time became RAI-Radiotelevizione Italiana when TV broadcasts began in 1954. Influenced by the BBC, RAI initiated its culturally-oriented service, Terzo Programma Radiofonico (Third Radio Program) in 1950.
In the meantime, other RAI centers built their own orchestras, until both Rome and Milan also had RAI Symphony Orchestras, and RAI Naples founded the Alessandro Scarlatti Chamber Orchestra.
The Turin Orchestra has been conducted over the years by the leading maestros of the century, including Karajan, Stravinsky, Maderna, Giulini, Schippers, Mehta, Maazel, Stokowski, and Sawallisch. It has also been a starting point of the careers of such current international stars of the baton as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti, and Giuseppe Sinopoli.
In 1994, RAI merged all four ensembles into a single orchestra, based in Turin, the Orchestre Nazionale Sinfonica della RAI, translated conveniently as the Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Georges Prêtre and Giuseppe Sinopoli shared leadership of the orchestra. The orchestra immediately began giving concerts not only in Turin but also in other Italian cities (including Rome, Milan, Assisi, Bologna, Venice, Ravenna, and Ovietto. By the end of 1995, the orchestra had toured to fourteen French and German cities, to the Festival of the Canary Islands, and on a triumphant tour of Japan.
The orchestra continues its frequent radio and television broadcasts throughout Italy. Since its reunification, it had been led by Sawallisch, Maazel, Giulini, Sinopoli, Jeffrey Tate, Daniel Oren, and Eliahu Inbal, who in 2000 held the title of its "Honorary Conductor." ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
