Charles Gerhardt

Gerhardt pioneered the elevation of film soundtracks to the level of serious concert repertoire by re-recording them with a full professional orchestra, thereby spotlighting the many composers who wrote for cinema. He began piano studies at five and was already composing and orchestrating at nine. His academic training took place at the College of William and Mary and the Juilliard School of Music. During World War II he served as a chaplain’s assistant and was known to friends simply as Chuck. After the war he attended the universities of Illinois and Southern California. Upon completing his degrees RCA Victor engaged him to transfer historic 78-rpm recordings by Enrico Caruso and British pianist Artur Schnabel onto the new LP format. He soon moved into mixing and editing sessions featuring Sir Adrian Boult, Leopold Stokowski, Massimo Freccia, Alexander Gibson, René Leibowitz, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Münch, Fritz Reiner, and James Levine, forming close friendships with many of these conductors. Arturo Toscanini, who had founded the NBC Symphony for RCA Victor, collaborated with Gerhardt over several years and urged him toward a conducting career.

In 1955 Gerhardt departed RCA Victor to oversee productions for the American Westminster Company in London and Vienna. When that label collapsed he spent a short period at Bell Sound supervising pop sessions, among them recordings by Eddie Fisher. Returning to RCA Victor in 1960, he partnered with Kenneth Wilkinson to create a series of classical albums for Reader’s Digest that showcased prominent soloists; the initial installment comprised twelve LPs titled The Festival of Light.

Gerhardt’s defining project began in 1961 when, stepping in for an indisposed conductor, he directed the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra using only a pencil during a session at Walthamstow Assembly Hall. By 1964, working with Sydney Sax, he had formed the National Philharmonic, drawing together many of London’s finest players. Over the following twelve years this ensemble recorded more than six hundred albums for Reader’s Digest. His first dedicated film-music collection appeared in 1968 under the title Great Music from the Movies and contained a seventeen-minute suite of Korngold’s score for King’s Row that Gerhardt himself had arranged. The success of these projects led RCA in 1972 to commission the Classic Film Scores series, beginning with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music for The Sea Hawk. The composer’s son, George Korngold, served as producer for the twelve-album cycle, which encompassed scores by Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann, and John Williams. Gerhardt conducted the National Philharmonic and, when no preexisting suite existed, prepared his own while consulting each composer to ensure the arrangements remained true to the original intent. Numerous of these suites remain in active concert use.