Mishel Piastro
Avery Fisher Hall photo D Ramey Logan By D Ramey Logan - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37238890
If you started listening to classical music on the radio in the 1940s or 1950s, you were sure to have heard the Longines Symphonette, a program of classical music that was, for a time, heard nightly on wide network of stations from coast to coast. The longest running maestro was Mishel Piastro, who reached the height of his career as Arturo Toscanini's concertmaster with the New York Philharmonic in the 1930s.
On this week's Classics of the Phonograph, Saturday at 11 am on WILL-FM, we will hear a typical array of their performances.