Vienna Philharmonic

Vienna Philharmonic Wiener Philharmoniker
Musikverein Golden Hall
Background information
Also known as	VPO
Origin	Vienna, Austria
Genres	Classical
Years active	since 1842
Website	www.WienerPhilharmoniker.at
Past members
Founder: Otto Nicolai

The Vienna Philharmonic (in German: Wiener Philharmoniker) is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world.

Its home base is the Musikverein. The members of the orchestra are chosen from the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. This process is a long one, with each musician having to prove his or her capability for a minimum of three years' playing for the Opera and Ballet. Once this is achieved the musician can then ask the Board of the Wiener Philharmoniker to consider an application for a position in the Vienna Philharmonic.

History

The orchestra can trace its origins to 1842, when Otto Nicolai formed the Philharmonische Academie; which was a fully independent orchestra and which took all its decisions by a democratic vote of all its members. These are principles the orchestra still holds today.

With Nicolai's departure in 1847, the orchestra nearly folded, and was not very active until 1860, when Karl Anton Eckert joined as conductor. He gave a series of four subscription concerts, and since then, the orchestra has given concerts continuously.

From 1875 to 1898 Hans Richter was subscription conductor, except for the season 1882/1883 when he was in dispute with the orchestral committee. During Richter's tenure, the orchestra gave the premieres of the 2nd and 3rd symphonies of Johannes Brahms, and the 8th symphony of Anton Bruckner.

Gustav Mahler held the post from 1898 to 1901, and under his baton the orchestra played abroad for the first time at the 1900 Paris World Exposition. Subsequent conductors were Felix Weingartner, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Clemens Krauss.

Vienna Philharmonic at the rehearsal, Felix Weingartner is conducting. Engraving by Ferdinand Schmutzer (1926)

Since 1933, the orchestra has had no single subscription conductor, but instead has a number of guest conductors. These have included a great many of the world's best known conductors, including Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Hans Knappertsbusch, Wilhelm Furtwängler, John Barbirolli, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georg Solti, Erich Kleiber, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Carlos Kleiber, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Daniel Barenboim and Valery Gergiev. Three conductors, however, were particularly associated with the post-war era: Herbert von Karajan and Karl Böhm, who were made honorary conductors, and Leonard Bernstein, who was made an honorary member of the orchestra. The orchestra made their first US tour in 1956 under the batons of Carl Schuricht and André Cluytens.

Each New Year's Day since 1 January 1941, the VPO has sponsored the Vienna New Year's Concerts, dedicated to the music of the Strauss family composers, and particularly that of Johann Strauss II.

Popularity

Overflow crowd outside Taiwan's National Concert Hall for a performance by Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic.

The Vienna Philharmonic was named as Europe's finest in a recent survey by seven leading trade publications, two radio stations and a daily newspaper. Subscription ticket demand for the Vienna Philharmonic at their home, Musikverein, is currently listed on the orchestra's website as being on a waiting list. The waiting list for weekday concert subscriptions is six years and thirteen years for weekend subscriptions. Casual tickets however, are available in small numbers and can be bought via links from the VPO website, to various ticket resellers. It is also possible to book package deals which include transport, hotel accommodation and meals and tickets to concerts.

The Wiener Philharmoniker Gold coin

The orchestra is so popular and famous, that it has been the motive of one of the world's most famous bullion coins: the Vienna Philharmonic coin. The coin is struck in pure gold, 999.9 fine (24 carats). It is issued every year, in four different face values, sizes and weights. It is used as an investment product, although it finishes almost always in the hands of collectors. According to the World Gold Council, this coin was the best selling gold coin in 1992, 1995 and 1996 world wide.

In 2006 Austrian Airlines was outfitted with a livery featuring the gold coin and logo of the Wiener Philharmoniker. The long-range Airbus A340 aircraft was flown primarily between Vienna and Tokyo for approximately one year serving as promotional tool for the orchestra and the Philharmoniker, 24 karat gold coin issued by the Austrian Mint.

Sound and instruments

The characteristic sound of the Vienna Philharmonic can be attributed in part to the use of instruments and playing styles that are fundamentally different from those used by other major orchestras:

• The orchestra's standard tuning pitch is A443, where the pitch A is generally considered at a frequency of 440 Hz.
• The VPO uses the German-system clarinet. By comparison, the Boehm-system clarinet is favored in non-German speaking countries.
• Likewise, while the Heckel (German) bassoon is now the norm for most orchestras around the world, in the VPO the Heckel bassoon is played almost completely without vibrato.
• The rotary-valve trumpet is used, but this is also popular in other German and Austrian orchestras.
• Like its counterparts elsewhere in Austria, Germany and Russia, the VPO favors the F bass and B-flat contrabass rotary-valve tuba, whereas the CC piston-valve tuba is preferred in most American and some British orchestras.
• The trombone has a somewhat smaller bore, but this is also true of the trombone used in many German orchestras.
• The timpani have the Schnellar System in which the kettle pushed up as opposed to the head being pulled down. Hans Schnellar was the timpanist in the early 20th century, and personally made these drums. They also use goat skin heads as opposed to calf skin or plastic heads. Whereas most other orchestras use plastic or calf heads, as well as the standard tuning system.
• The double bass retains the traditional theater-placement in a row behind the brass. The VPO uses 4- as well as 5-string double basses, with the bow always being held underhand (German bow).
• The Wiener Oboe is, along with the Vienna horn (see below), perhaps the most distinctive member of the VPO instrumentarium. It has a special bore, reed and fingering-system and is very different from the otherwise internationally used Conservatoire (French) oboe.
• The Vienna horn in F uses a Pumpenventil, roughly similar to a piston valve. Unlike the rotary valves used on most other orchestral horns, the Pumpenventil contributes to the liquid legato that is one of the trademarks of the Viennese school. The bore of the Vienna horn is also smaller than more modern horns—actually very close to that of the valveless natural horn. The Vienna horn has remained virtually unchanged since the mid-nineteenth century—as a result it is arguably well-suited to the Classical and Romantic repertoire at the core of the VPO's programming.
• The string section is unique in that the instruments belong to the orchestra, unlike other orchestras in which each string player uses his or her own instrument. Although not of a particular pedigree, the Vienna strings have been carefully chosen over the centuries and they are largely responsible for the orchestra's well-loved string sound. They are meticulously cared for and, in case one is worn beyond repair, the process of finding a replacement instrument is equally painstaking. The National Bank of Austria currently loans four violins made by Antonio Stradivari to the VPO.

These instruments and their characteristic tone-colors have been the subject of extensive scientific studies by Gregor Widholm of the Institute for Viennese Tone-Culture at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.

Controversies

Although the orchestra is widely acknowledged as one of the world's finest, it has been criticized by feminist groups because until 1997 it did not allow women to become full members of the orchestra (although some women performed with the orchestra, they were not full members). The former traditional attitude of the orchestra was expressed by Paul Fürst in the 1987 documentary A Woman Is a Risky Bet: Six Orchestra Conductors:

"There is no ban on women musicians playing here but the Vienna Philharmonic is by tradition an all-male orchestra. Our profession makes family life extremely difficult, so for a woman it’s almost impossible. There are so many orchestras with women members so why shouldn’t there be – for how long I don’t know – an orchestra with no women in it … A woman shouldn’t play like a man but like a woman, but an all-male orchestra is bound to have a special tone."

In 1997 the first woman, harpist Anna Lelkes, became a member after having performed with the orchestra as a "non-member" for over twenty years. After Lelkes' retirement, another woman harpist Charlotte Balzereit eventually replaced her as the orchestra's only female member at the time. Currently, the orchestra has six female members: Ursula Plaichinger (viola), the first non-harpist female member, Isabelle Ballot Caillieret (first violin), Daniela Ivanova (viola), Albena Danailova (concertmistress), and Olesya Kurylyak (first violin), and Balzereit. One other woman, Ursula Wex (cello), is a confirmed member of the Vienna State Opera orchestra, but does "not yet belong to the association of the Vienna Philharmonic." On May 8, 2008, Danailova won an audition for concertmaster and began serving in that position since September of that year – the first woman ever to become concertmaster of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. The first woman to conduct the orchestra was Australian conductor Simone Young in January 2005.

The orchestra has come under criticism by the Green Party of Austria as recently as 2010 for only hiring three women during a 13-year period where about 40 musicians have been replaced.

In addition there have been claims that the orchestra does not accept members who are visibly members of ethnic minorities. In 1970 Otto Strasser, the former chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, wrote in his memoirs:

"I hold it incorrect that today the applicants play behind a screen; an arrangement that was brought in after the Second World War in order to assure objective judgments. I continuously fought against it, especially after I became Chairman of the Philharmonic, because I am convinced that to the artist also belongs the person, that one must not only hear, but also see, in order to judge him in his entire personality. [...] Even a grotesque situation that played itself out after my retirement was not able to change the situation. An applicant qualified himself as the best, and as the screen was raised, there stood a Japanese before the stunned jury. He was, however, not engaged, because his face did not fit with the ‘Pizzicato-Polka’ of the New Year's Concert."

In 1996, Dieter Flury, a solo-flutist in the Vienna Philharmonic, said:

"From the beginning we have spoken of the special Viennese qualities, of the way music is made here. The way we make music here is not only a technical ability, but also something that has a lot to do with the soul. The soul does not let itself be separated from the cultural roots that we have here in central Europe. And it also doesn't allow itself to be separated from gender. So if one thinks that the world should function by quota regulations,then it is naturally irritating that we are a group of white skinned male musicians, that perform exclusively the music of white skinned male composers. It is a racist and sexist irritation. I believe one must put it that way. If one establishes superficial egalitarianism, one will lose something very significant. Therefore, I am convinced that it is worthwhile to accept this racist and sexist irritation, because something produced by a superficial understanding of human rights would not have the same standards."

In 2001 a violinist who was half-Asian became a member.

The full list of musicians, men and women, including those playing with the Vienna Philharmonic but are not members of the VPo association, is accessible on the website of the Vienna Philharmonic.

The orchestra and The Holocaust

The Holocaust affected the Orchestra, like many others in Europe. In May 1935, when the Orchestra visited London and performed at the Queen's Hall, the two concertmasters, lead violinists were Arnold Rosé and Julius Stwertka. Rosé, a Jew, left the orchestra and escaped to London, while Stwertka died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp on 17 December 1942.

Conductors

Subscription conductors (1842–1933)

The Vienna Philharmonic has never had principal conductors. Each year they chose an artist to conduct all concerts of the respective season at Vienna's Musikverein. These conductors were called Abonnementdirigenten (subscription conductors) as they were to conduct all the concerts included in the Philharmonic's subscription at the Musikverein. Some of these annual hirings were renewed for many years, others lasted only for a few years. At the same time the Vienna Philharmonic also worked with other conductors, e. g. at the Salzburg Festival, for recordings or special occasions. With the widening of the Philharmonic's activities the orchestra decided to abandon this system in 1933. From then on there were only guest conductors hired for each concert, both in Vienna and elsewhere.

Otto Nicolai (1842–1848) Karl Anton Eckert (1854–1857) Felix Dessoff (1860–1875) Hans Richter (1875–1882) Wilhelm Jahn (1882–1883) Hans Richter (1883–1898)

Gustav Mahler (1898–1901) Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr. (1901–1903) Felix Weingartner (1908–1927) Wilhelm Furtwängler (1927–1930) Clemens Krauss (1929–1933)

Guest conductors (since 1933)

Claudio Abbado Sir John Barbirolli Daniel Barenboim Leonard Bernstein Karl Böhm Willi Boskovsky Pierre Boulez Sir Adrian Boult Fritz Busch Semyon Bychkov Gustavo Dudamel Wilhelm Furtwängler

John Eliot Gardiner Daniele Gatti Valery Gergiev Carlo Maria Giulini Bernard Haitink Daniel Harding Nikolaus Harnoncourt Mariss Jansons Gilbert Kaplan Herbert von Karajan Carlos Kleiber Erich Kleiber

Hans Knappertsbusch Josef Krips Rafael Kubelík Louis Langrée James Levine Lorin Maazel Zubin Mehta Pierre Monteux Riccardo Muti Andris Nelsons Václav Neumann Roger Norrington

Jonathan Nott Sakari Oramo Eugene Ormandy Andrés Orozco-Estrada Seiji Ozawa Georges Prêtre André Previn Sir Simon Rattle Mstislav Rostropovich Esa-Pekka Salonen Wolfgang Sawallisch Carl Schuricht

Constantin Silvestri Giuseppe Sinopoli Georg Solti Richard Strauss George Szell Christian Thielemann Arturo Toscanini Marcello Viotti Bruno Walter Günter Wand Franz Welser-Möst Simone Young

Selection of recordings

• Beethoven, Complete Piano Concertos (this cycle was recorded with Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alfred Brendel, Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman.
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 conducted by Felix Weingartner, also conducted by Erich Kleiber
• Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, Symphony No. 7 conducted by Carlos Kleiber
• Beethoven, Complete Symphonies conducted by Karl Böhm; this cycle was also recorded with Leonard Bernstein, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle and Christian Thielemann
• Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, also conducted by Valery Gergiev
• Bernstein Candide conducted by Zubin Mehta
• Borodin, Symphony No. 2 conducted by Rafael Kubelík
• Brahms, Symphony No. 2 conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler
• Brahms, Symphony No. 4 conducted by Carlos Kleiber
• Brahms, Complete Symphonies conducted by Karl Böhm; this cycle was also recorded with Leonard Bernstein, István Kertész and Carlo Maria Giulini
• Brahms, Complete Concertos, with Krystian Zimerman, piano, Gidon Kremer, violin and Mischa Maisky, cello, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. The Orchestra has also recorded the Brahms piano concertos with Maurizio Pollini, with Karl Böhm conducting in No. 1 and Claudio Abbado conducting in No. 2
• Bruckner, Symphony No. 4 conducted by Karl Böhm
• Bruckner, Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 and 9 conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
• Dvořák, Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 and 9, conducted by Lorin Maazel, recordings of nos. 8 & 9 were also made under Herbert von Karajan and Seiji Ozawa. The Orchestra has also recorded Nos. 7 & 9 with Rafael Kubelík
• Dvořák, Symphonies Nos. 6 and 8, conducted by Myung-whun Chung
• Elgar, Enigma Variations conducted by Sir Georg Solti, also conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner
• Holst, The Planets, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
• Khachaturian, excerpts from Spartacus and Gayane conducted by Aram Khachaturian
• Mahler, The Song of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde) with Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), conducted by Bruno Walter, also conducted by Leonard Bernstein with James King and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
• Mahler, complete symphonies (1–9 plus the Adagio of Symphony No. 10) conducted by Lorin Maazel
• Mahler, Symphony No. 2 conducted by Pierre Boulez
• Mahler, Symphony No. 3 conducted by Pierre Boulez
• Mahler, Symphony No. 5 conducted by Pierre Boulez, also recorded with Leonard Bernstein
• Mahler, Symphony No. 6 conducted by Pierre Boulez
• Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 5 and another works conducted by Franz Welser-Möst and Fabio Luisi
• Mozart, Symphonies Nos. 38, 39, 40, 41 conducted by Karl Böhm, also recorded with Leonard Bernstein & James Levine
• Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro conducted by Erich Kleiber
• Mozart, Don Giovanni conducted by Josef Krips
• Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Sir Georg Solti; the orchestra has also recorded the opera under Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and James Levine
• Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel), conducted by Valery Gergiev
• Orff: Carmina Burana, conducted by André Previn
• Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf, with Hermione Gingold, conducted by Karl Böhm
• Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, also conducted by André Previn
• Schubert, Symphony No. 8 conducted by Carl Schuricht
• Schubert, Symphony No. 9 conducted by Josef Krips, also conducted by Sir Georg Solti
• Schubert, Complete Symphonies conducted by István Kertész
• Schumann: Complete Symphonies, Cello & Piano Concertos conducted by Leonard Bernstein with Mischa Maisky & Justus Frantz
• Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 5 and 7, conducted by Leonard Bernstein
• Smetana: Má vlast conducted by James Levine, also conducted by Rafael Kubelík
• Johann Strauss II and Strauss family, works recorded at the traditional New Year's Day concert conducted by Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Riccardo Muti etc. (See also: The New Year Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Stravinsky: The Firebird, conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi
• Tchaikovsky: Ballet Suites conducted by James Levine, also recorded with Herbert von Karajan
• Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4–6 conducted by Valery Gergiev, also recorded with Rafael Kubelík and Herbert von Karajan
• Wagner, The Valkyrie, first act, conducted by Bruno Walter
• Wagner, The Valkyrie (complete), conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler
• Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen, conducted by Georg Solti, voted by Gramophone as the century's finest classical record.

Besides traditional recordings, the orchestra has also recorded samples for the Vienna Symphonic Library.

External links

• Vienna Philharmonic website
• Musikverein website
• Vienna Philharmonic - in English
• Vienna Philharmonic at Allmusic
• VPO Watch website of the International Alliance for Women in Music
• "Complete Stereophonic Discography", including unpublished recordings
• Details of all the orchestra's subscription concerts 1860 - 1898