The Little Symphony Orchestra of KDKA Radio

 

As formal group photos go, this is a nice but unexceptional image of a small orchestra. Fifteen musicians, all men, are dressed in black-tie tuxedos and closely arranged in a small room. Heavy drapes line the walls and the string players' chairs have fabric slip covers. A large clock hangs at the back and a pair of small palm trees add an odd decorative theme. The orchestra's leader, wearing white-tie and tails, stands center. A caption at the bottom of this postcard reads:

The KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra,  Victor Saudek, Conductor

But hidden within this bland half-tone photo is a remarkable history. This small ensemble was one of the first professional radio orchestras to broadcast music in America, and possibly the world. It was the 1920s, an era when peace had seemingly returned to the world and modern technology introduced mankind to a marvelous new electrical device—radio. For the first time people could listen to the sounds of voices and music that originated in places far away from their homes. Geographic distance was no longer an obstacle. By means of invisible electromagnetic airwaves, anyone with this amazing device could magically receive news reports, sermons, stories, lectures, drama, comedy, and  music. All sounding as live as if they were in your living room.

The postcard was sent on 30 December 1925  to Louis Anna Reinke of Appleton, Wisconsin, roughly 500 air miles west of Pittsburgh.

                        Dear Radio Friend:
                            We were glad to know that you enjoyed
                        our  radio program about which you wrote
                        us recently.  Station KDKA broadcasts a
                        week day program beginning at 6:15 P. M.
                        daily and continuing until the time signals
                        and weather reports are given at 10:00 P. 
                        M. Eastern Standard Time.  Popular mid-
                        night programs are given Tuesdays and
                        Thursdays at 11:00 P. M.  Church services
                        are broadcast each Sunday at 10:45 A. M.,
                        4:45 and 7:45 P. M., with an organ Recital 
                        from Carnegie Music Hall at 4:00 P. M.
                        and a dinner concert at 6:30 P. M.
                            We are always glad to hear from our
                        radio friends, and welcome constructive
                        suggestions.
                                                Sincerely,
                                                        Station KDKA
                        "The Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World"

One of the first efforts to develop a commercial application for radio communication began with the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This gigantic company was founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse (1846–1914), the inventor of the railway air brake and a pioneer in developing America's AC electrical infrastructure. By the time of his death in 1914 Westinghouse held 361 patents in his name and was responsible for creating 60 companies. However radio was not one of his inventions. In fact, as the result of a bankruptcy reorganization in 1909, Westinghouse had lost control of his company well before it became known for making radios and, later, television sets.

When war started in Europe the Westinghouse Company expanded into building a million rifles for the Imperial Russian army. But in 1917 the revolutionary Bolshevik government canceled the contract and Westinghouse once again faced bankruptcy. Fortunately the U. S. government took up the order as America entered the war and also awarded Westinghouse a lucrative contract to build radio transmitters and receivers for the military.

The first practical radio communication system was developed by Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937), an Italian electrical engineer in the late 1890s and early 1900s. However his invention was intended to compete with transatlantic telegraph cables and used a wireless radio signal to transmit Morse code messages. Converting sound into radio waves was a much more challenging problem that involved countless inventors, engineers, and scientists. Though new concepts for audio radios were evolving when the war began, further advancements were delayed until the war ended.

In 1919 the Westinghouse Company in Pittsburgh was already substantially invested in audio radio research, having bought out the patents of other companies, but it had not yet settled on any commercial use for it. Fortunately the company had one important advantage. It employed Frank Conrad (1874–1941) as an electrical engineer in its Testing Department. It was Conrad's fascination with radio that led him to become one of America's leading pioneer broadcasters. In 1916 Conrad was granted an experimental radio license, callsign 8XK, and he began conducting radio experiments at home in his garage. During the war civilian radio stations were prohibited but Conrad luckily worked in Westinghouse's Pittsburgh factory where radio transmitters and receivers were made. 

In October 1919 the ban on amateur radio signals was lifted and Conrad returned to his experiments, testing new vacuum-tube radiotelephone equipment. On the evening of 17 October 1919 while he was broadcasting to a very small number of amateur radio buffs, he got tired of speaking and decided to play a gramophone record by moving his Victrola's megaphone horn closer to the microphone. The music became such a hit that Conrad was soon overwhelmed with requests for more. He began scheduling specific times every week to play 78 rpm records from his family's collection but that was not enough. He then contacted a local music store for help and they agreed to provide new records in return for his promotion of their store. In addition to broadcasting records Conrad installed a telephone line from his garage to the music room of his house and let his sons and a niece, who were talented musicians, play music live on-air via a telephone. 

Pittsburgh Press
29 September 1920

By the fall of 1920 there was enough enthusiasm for home radio equipment in Pittsburgh that the Joseph Horne department store took notice and began advertising its stock of amateur wireless sets. On 29 September 1920 they included a report about Frank Conrad's popular radio concerts of Victrola music. The word "radio" was still an unfamiliar word to readers, so instead it was called a "wireless telephone".

Radio Broadcast
May 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

Most readers probably paid little notice to the report, but Mr. Harry P. Davis did. He was a vice president of Westinghouse, and he recognized a good business opportunity for the company. If Westinghouse wanted to increase sales of its radio equipment, he decided it should invest in its own radio broadcasting station because as more people enjoyed listening to news and entertainment, the demand for radio sets was certain to grow. Within a few days he ordered a new station to be constructed and Frank Conrad's operation was moved out of his garage. 

The new station, which soon carried the call sign KDKA, was operational in time to report the presidential election results on 2 November 1920. That night Pittsburgh's first radio station joined three other new stations in Detroit, St. Louis, and Buffalo to announce the election of Warren G. Harding hours before the news made the newspapers. It was a hollow honor though, as it was estimated that fewer than 1,000 households in Pittsburgh owned a radio and heard that first audio report. More sets had to be sold and more innovation would be needed to attract the public's attention and create a market for commercial radio.

Radio Broadcasting News
22 January 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

In 1922 the Westinghouse Company began publication of a weekly digest called Radio Broadcasting News that promoted Westinghouse radio sets and its station KDKA. It's banner on the 4th issue in 22 January 1922 claimed it was in its "fifty-seventh week broadcasting". Featured on the cover was a group that I recognized. It was a picture of The Pittsburgh Ladies Orchestra who, by curious coincidence, on  8 January 2022, almost exactly a century later, I featured in a story on this blog. Obviously from their name, this small musical ensemble came from Pittsburgh, so it's no surprise that they would get an invitation to perform on the KDKA studio. 

It was an all-female group, as long as you didn't count the leader and his son, that began in 1911 with programs designed for the Lyceum and Chautauqua festivals. For over a decade they became popular enough to tour the circuits in 19 states. It was led by Albert D. Liefeld and included his wife, Minnie Liefeld on piano, and son, Theodore S. Liefeld on cornet and trap drum set. According to one newspaper report, in 1921 The Pittsburgh Ladies Orchestra was the first "orchestra" to perform live on radio, that being at station KDKA. However with only three string players in a group of eight musicians, it was not really a proper orchestra. The group played KDKA again in July 1922 and continued performing until 1925 after which it stopped appearing in newspaper notices. 

The new studio of  Radio Station KDKA, Pittsburgh, PA
18 December 1922
Source: Wikipedia

As more radio stations opened across the country in the 1920s, many musicians and small ensembles from the vaudeville theaters and Chautauqua circuits found work in radio because the early studios were not equipped to handle large musical groups. The performing space was kept small and well insulated to minimize reverb and distortion of the music. Generally only one microphone was  used and some instruments were left out as being either too loud or too quiet. 

In this picture of station KDKA's new studio in December 1922 we see a woman playing a grand piano while a man, perhaps the announcer or sound engineer, watches. This room replaced the first "studio" which was just a tent erected on the rooftop of the Westinghouse building where programs were sometimes interrupted by the sound of train horns. In this picture yuletide wreaths hang on the drapery walls but the palm trees are the same as in the picture of KDKA's Little Symphony Orchestra. It's interesting that a set of tubular bell chimes are over on the left. The sound of chimes was probably introduced as a convenient way to announce time or a change of program. 

Radio Broadcast
January 1925
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

THE KDKA LITTLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Victor Saudek, Conductor. Seated, left to right: Milton Lomask, Pierre De Backer, Leo Kruczek, violins;
Elmer Hennig, 'cello; Raymond Bandi, viola; James Younger, 'cello; Herbert Saylor, viola; Rest Baker, violin.
Standing, left to right: Stephen Konvalinka, trombone; John J. Harvey, trumpet; William Nugier, drums;
Karl Haney, bass; Victor Saudek, Conductor; Stephen Miller, Jr., piano; Alvin Hauser, flute; S. Sapienza, clarinet

In January 1925 the magazine, Radio Broadcast, included a photo of the KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra that matches the one on my postcard. The magazine printed not only the name of the conductor, Victor Saudek, but also the names and instruments of all the musicians. 

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1879, Victor Saudek  became determined at an early age to play the flute and by age 15 was playing with city's orchestra. After high school he went to Chicago for further musical education and then to New York where he studied flute with a noted teacher and also sang in the National Conservatory chorus under Frank Damrosch. In 1910 he settled in Pittsburgh playing principal flute in the Pittsburgh Symphony and teaching music and the flute at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University. 

In 1922, or possibly a year earlier, he was chosen to organize an orchestra to play regular musical interludes for the new radio station KDKA. Most of the first references to musical programs were short pieces by vocalists or solo instrumentalists with piano accompaniment or small chamber groups like a string trio or quartet. The rooftop studio probably did not accommodate many people. 

 

Pittsburgh Press
9 November 1922

In around 1921 the Pittsburgh newspapers began listing radio schedules with programs from both Pittsburgh as well as the other new stations available around the country, though there weren't very many of them then. On 28 October 1922 a report for KDKA listed the "Premier concert by Westinghouse KDKA orchestra" at 8:30 but it did not include Victor Saudek's name and the music program was only for a violin, cello, piano trio and a soprano soloist. The next month there was a more substantial program by "KDKA's recently organized orchestra of 12 pieces, under the baton of Victor Saudek" The music was performed at 3:30 p. m. and included:

• Italians in Algiers ...................... Rossini
• Excerpts from The Blue Kitten ... Frimi
• Solo—To be selected
• Funeral March of a Marionette
  (Comigue) .................................... Gounod
• Scotch Melodies
• Solo—To be selected
• Prelude Siciliana Intermezzo
  Cavalieria Rusticana ................... Moscagni
• March—The Pitt Panther (new) ...Louis Panella

This was very light classical and familiar popular music for the time, clearly arranged for a much smaller instrumentation than what the composers required. After presumably a dinnertime break, the broadcast resumed with news at 7 p. m.; followed by a "bedtime story"; stock market reports; several speakers from the American Red Cross and the Electrical Exposition; then more music provided by a string quartet of KDKA musicians; more speeches; and more music from the Fellows club orchestra. These last bits were likely "phoned in" using a telephone to pick up voices and music from a remote location. Of course, listeners in this early era of radio could not expect the sophisticated sound quality we expect today, a century later. It all just seemed amazing then.

Radio Journal
August 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

E-Z Radio
May 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

KDKA was Westinghouse's primary radio station but by 1925 the company had added three more: WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, (now in New York City); WBZ in Springfield, Massachusetts (now Boston); and KYW in Chicago, Illinois (now Philadelphia). The first frequency for KDKA was in the 360-meter spectrum which was shared with other radio stations. In 1923 the U. S. Department of Commerce expanded this range and assigned 920 kHz to KDKA on the Amplitude Modulation (AM) band waves. 

The Westinghouse Radio Broadcasting News encouraged its fans "who are successful in hearing the program from any of the other stations will confer a favor by reporting the circumstances to the Radio Division, Department of Publicity." At this time the nature of how weather and astronomic conditions influenced radio reception was not fully understood and stations relied on distant listeners to measure the range of where the broadcasts could be received.

Science and Invention
(formerly Electrical Experimenter)
June 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

The advance of early radio technology could not have happened without the enthusiasm and experiments of amateur radio hobbyists. The first radio magazines reflect this kind of geeky spirit which did not really have an obvious goal other than basic long distance communication. These magazines are filled with complicated electrical diagrams and lengthy reports on new research or innovations. But it's interesting how quickly music, either live or recorded, became a major incentive for marketing radio as a novel appliance everyone should have in their home. 

Radio Broadcasting News
31 March 1923
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

Ironically for the Westinghouse Company, the early radio sets did not use AC–alternating current which its founder George Westinghouse had established as the American standard for electric service. Instead the sets were powered by bulky batteries that used DC–direct current and had to be regularly recharged. We can only wonder how Thomas Edison, the champion for DC current, might feel vindicated if he could see how the entire world operates on battery power today.  

Frank Conrad gave up his amateur radio license in 1924 but continued working on new designs for Westinghouse's consumer radios. He also did important research on shortwave radio signals demonstrating a method that greatly improved the distance that a transatlantic transmission could be received at a fraction of the previous cost. In 1925 KDKA could even boast of its signal reaching radio sets in Australia and South Africa. For those special long distance international broadcasts Victor Saudek and his musicians had to get up very early, sometimes at 3 and 4 AM.

Radio Journal
August 1922
Source: WorldRadioHistory.com

Within just a few years radio technology rapidly improved and hundreds of new stations started broadcasting all across America. Some countries, like Great Britain, enacted a license fee for radio consumers. But in the United States the airwaves were free, though everyone soon learned that radio programing was more about advertising than anything else. As the radio business model evolved, station KDKA tried to remain on the cutting edge. Victor Saudek was made music director of all four of Westinghouse's radio stations, and though I'm not certain, it seems likely that musicians were employed at each station. What I do know is that by 1927 the KDKA orchestra in Pittsburgh became a bit larger than it was on its first broadcasts. 

In this large 8" x 10" printed photo the KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra sits on a proper concert stage with Victor Saudek standing center on a podium. There are twenty musicians including two horns, two trumpets, trombone, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and percussion in addition to full strings. It's a chamber orchestra that would be suitable for most classical music and theater music. It resembles photos of another radio orchestra that I wrote about in 2011, The Detroit News Orchestra, which was a competitor and contemporary of the KDKA ensemble.

The photo was taken by the Trinity Court Studio of Pittsburgh and marked 1-29-27 in the lower right corner, January 29, 1927. A printed label along the border identifies it as a souvenir gift, "presented to our radio friends through KDKA with compliments of Trinity Court Studio. Like the previous picture the musicians are dressed in formal suits like they might be for a regular performance but, of course, there was no audience inside their studio so why bother with high class fashion? This appears to be a theater stage and not the little KDKA studio so perhaps this was a rare occasion for a proper concert. The palm trees look bigger too.

I haven't yet discovered how long KDKA retained the services of Victor Saudek and his Little Symphony Orchestra musicians. An ensemble like this would be typical of a large theater orchestra used to accompany silent films. But 1927 was the year that Warner Bros. Studios released the The Jazz Singer, the first feature film with sound. Theater orchestras were soon made redundant. And two years later in 1929 Wall Street collapsed and Americans entered a long period of economic depression. Musicians became very expendable and any orchestra, large or small, was surplus to requirements.  

Pittsburgh Press
2 October 1981

In October 1981, the Pittsburgh Press featured a story on Victor Saudek, both father and son. The flutist and conductor, Victor Saudek Sr., was the father of Victor M. Saudek Jr. who never inherited any of his father's musical talents. Instead he pursued an interest in aviation, especially with gliders, and became a mechanical engineer at Hughes Aircraft in California where he helped design airplanes and satellites for NASA. In 1981, Victor Jr., now retired, said his proudest achievement was working on the unmanned lunar spacecraft Surveyor which landed on the moon in 1966. Sadly his father, Victor Sr died just before the landing. "Father couldn't accept the reality of Surveyor going to the moon," said his son.  

His older brother, Robert Saudek (1911–1997) became a noted TV producer and was a vice-president of ABC Television Network in the late 1940s and early 1950s. During his career he was honored with eleven Emmys and seven Peabodys.  He also helped establish both PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

From radio to the moon.
That's a remarkable history of a family and 20th century technology
to hide inside a postcard of a little symphony orchestra.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where no radio license is required

to listen in sepia tone