In the 1930s, many Americans had a hard time making ends meet. During the Great Depression, opera and concert tickets didn’t always figure into most family’s budgets, but thanks to live radio broadcasts, American families enjoyed a veritable “Golden Age” of operatic and symphonic music in the comfort of their own homes.

On Christmas Day in 1931, the NBC network made radio history when they broadcast a matinee performance of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera “Hansel und Gretel” live from the stage of the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City to radio listeners coast to coast. The on-air host was the American composer Deems Taylor, whose own opera, “Peter Ibbetson,” would be included in a live Met broadcast the following spring.

And on Christmas Day in 1937, music of Antonio Vivaldi opened the first live NBC Symphony broadcast conducted by the legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. Live NBC Symphony broadcasts under Toscanini would continue until the famous conductor’s retirement in 1954. Along with Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, Toscanini included a handful of American works in his programs, and in 1938, conducted the broadcast premiere of Samuel Barber’s famous “Adagio for Strings.”