Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; ) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and has been considered to be one of the finest in the world.
The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Selection involves a lengthy process, with each musician demonstrating their capability for a minimum of three years' performance for the opera and ballet. After this probationary period, the musician may request an application for a position in the orchestra from the Vienna Philharmonic's board. The Vienna Philharmonic hires no musician over 35 years of age, and has a mandatory retirement age of 65; 30 years of service are required for full pension.
History Precursors and formation Until the 1830s, orchestral performance in Vienna was done by ad hoc orchestras, consisting of professional and (often) amateur musicians brought together for specific performances. In 1833, Franz Lachner formed the forerunner of the Vienna Philharmonic, the – an orchestra of professional musicians from the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper, now the Vienna State Opera); it gave four concerts, each including a Beethoven symphony.Mosco Carner, "Vienna," section 5, iv (c), in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980, volume 19, p. 730 The Vienna Philharmonic itself arose nine years later, in 1842, hatched by a group who met regularly at the inn 'Zum Amor', including the poet Nikolaus Lenau, newspaper editor August Schmidt, critic Alfred Becker, violinist Karlz Holz, Count Laurecin, and composer Otto Nicolai who was also the principal conductor of a standing orchestra at a Viennese theater. Mosco Carner wrote in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that "Nicolai was the least enthusiastic about the idea, and had to be persuaded by the others; he conducted the first [concert] on 28 March 1842." The orchestra was fully independent, consisted of members of the Hofoper orchestra, and made all of its decisions by a democratic vote of its members; it had its day-to-day management handled by a democratically elected body, the administrative committee.
Nicolai and the orchestra gave only 11 concerts in the ensuing five years, and when Nicolai left Vienna in 1847, the orchestra nearly folded (New Grove notes the disruption caused by the Revolution of 1848 as a hindrance). Between 1854 and 1857, Karl Eckert – the first permanent conductor of the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper)– led the (associated) Vienna Philharmonic in a few concerts. In 1857, Eckert was made Director of the Hofoper – the first musician to have been given the post;Mosco Carner, "Vienna," section 5, iv (c), in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980, volume 19, p. 724 in 1860, he conducted four subscription concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic. Since that time, writes Vienna Philharmonic violinist and president Clemens Hellsberg, "the 'Philharmonic Concerts' have been staged without interruption."Clemans Hellsberg, "The History of the Vienna Philharmonic: The Philharmonic Subscription Concerts," Vienna Philharmonic website, URL=http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/orchestra/history
The era of subscription conductors: 1860–1933 In 1860, the orchestra elected Otto Dessoff to be the permanent conductor. According to Max Kalbeck, the Vienna-based music critic, newspaper editor, and biographer, the fame and excellence of the Vienna Philharmonic resulted from Dessoff's "energy and sense of purpose." Clemens Hellsberg gives specifics, writing that during the Dessoff years, the Vienna Philharmonic's "repertoire was consistently enlarged, important organizational principles (music archives, rules of procedure) were introduced and the orchestra moved to its third new home [in 1870], the newly built Goldener Saal in the Musikverein building in Vienna [in which it still performs], which has proved to be the ideal venue, with its acoustical characteristics influencing the orchestra's style and sound." After fifteen years, in 1875, Dessoff was "pushed out of his position in Vienna through intrigue",Styra Avins and Josef Eisinger, Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 497, and he left Vienna to become conductor (Hofkapellmeister) of the Badische Staatskapelle in Karlsruhe, Germany.Joachim Draheim, Gerhard Albert Jahn (Editors.): Otto Dessoff (1835 - 1892). Ein Dirigent, Komponist und Weggefährte von Johannes Brahms; anlässlich der Otto-Dessoff-Ausstellung in Karlsruhe, Wien, Baden-Baden, Chemnitz, Dresden, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Leipzig und Zwickau. hrsg. von Joachim Draheim, Gerhard Albert Jahn und dem Verein der Freunde der Wiener Philharmoniker. - München: Musikverlag Katzbichler, 2001, 196 S., In Karlsruhe the next year, he fulfilled the request of his friend Johannes BrahmsStyra Avins and Josef Eisinger, Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 778, to conduct the first performance of his Symphony no. 1;Styra Avins and Josef Eisinger, Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 498, in 1873, Brahms had conducted the premiere of his Variations on a Theme by Haydn with Dessoff's Vienna Philharmonic.
In 1875, the orchestra chose Hans Richter to take Dessoff's place as subscription conductor. He remained until 1898, except for the season 1882/1883, when he was in dispute with the orchestral committee (during this hiatus, Wilhelm Jahn of the Vienna Court Opera served as subscription conductor). Richter led the VPO in the world premieres of Brahms's Second Symphony (in 1877), Tragic Overture (in 1880), and Symphony no. 3 (in 1883), the Violin Concerto of Tchaikovsky (in 1881), and in 1892 the 8th symphony of Anton Bruckner. It was Richter who in 1881 appointed Arnold Rosé as concertmaster,Christopher Fifield, True Artist and True Friend: A Biography of Hans Richter, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, p. 161 who was to become Gustav Mahler's brother-in-law and was concertmaster until the Anschluss in 1938.see below, "#Period under National Socialism" In order to be eligible for a pension, Richter intended to remain in his position for 25 years (to 1900), and he might have done so, given that the orchestra unanimously re-elected him in May 1898.Christopher Fifield, True Artist and True Friend: A Biography of Hans Richter, p. 268 But he resigned on 22 September, citing health reasons, although biographer Christopher Fifield argues that the real reasons were that he wanted to tour, and that "he was uneasy as claques in the audience formed in favour of Gustav Mahler" (who was triumphing as director of the Hofoper).Fifield, True Artist and True Friend, p. 268 Richter recommended Mahler or Ferdinand Löwe to the orchestra as his replacement.
In 1898, on 24 September, the orchestra elected Gustav Mahler.Jens Malte Fischer (translated by Stewart Spencer), Gustav Mahler, Yale University Press, 2011, p. 316, (On 30 May 1899, pro-Mahler and pro-Richter factions had a "heated committee meeting"; matters were finally resolved in August when Richter wrote to his supporters "gently refusing their offer".)Fifield, True Artist and True Friend, p. 270 Under Mahler's baton, the Vienna Philharmonic played abroad for the first time at the 1900 Paris World Exposition. While Mahler had strong supporters in the orchestra, he faced dissension from other orchestral members (an unreconstructed pro-Richter faction plus an anti-Semitic one, according to Jens Malte Fischer), criticism of his re-touchings of Beethoven, and arguments with the orchestra and over new policies he imposed; ultimately, "his working relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic continued to be fueled by resentment and broke down completely in November 1900".Jens Malte Fischer, Gustav Mahler, p. 317 He resigned on 1 April 1901, citing health concerns as a pretext, like Richter, but continuing to conduct actively elsewhere (he remained director of the associated Hofoper until 1907).Leon Botstein, "Gustav Mahler's Vienna," in Donald Mitchell and Andrew Nicholson (editors), The Mahler Companion, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 37
In 1901, Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr. briefly took his place; he remained only until 1903.
In 1908, after an interval with no official subscription conductor, the orchestra elected Felix Weingartner to the post; he was to remain in it until 1927, and conducted at least 432 concerts with them in total, including the VPO's first tour of South America in 1922.Raymond Holden, The Virtuoso Conductors: the Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan, Yale University Press, 2005, p. 108 Weingartner's interpretive stance was opposite to Mahler's (Mahler employed marked tempo fluctuations in Beethoven, whereas Weingartner decried "tempo rubato conductors"); but like Mahler, he considered himself primarily a composer, and between 1910 and 1923 led the orchestra in at least one piece of his own music per season.Holden, p. 109 He was most renowned for his Beethoven – he programmed at least two symphonies per season, and complete cycles in 1916/17 and 1926/27. It was Weingartner who led the orchestra's first concert devoted to entirely to the music of Johann Strauss, Jr. (for the composer's centennial), on 25 October 1925.
In 1927, when Weingartner resigned, the orchestra elected Wilhelm Furtwängler. He resigned at the end of the 1929/30 season because of increased professional demands in Berlin.Raymond Holden, The Virtuoso Conductors, p. 217
In 1930, the orchestra chose Clemens Krauss for the position. At the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 1929–33 he led the orchestra in an annual Strauss waltz concert, the forerunners of the New Year's Day concerts he was later to institute. Krauss left in 1933 to become director of the Berlin State Opera (after Erich Kleiber resigned that position to protest Nazi rule).Charles Barber, Corresponding with Carlos: A Biography of Carlos Kleiber, Scarecrow Press, 2011, p. 15
1933 through 1945 Since 1933, the orchestra has had no single subscription conductor, but according to New Grove (vol. 19, p. 723), "between 1933 and 1938, Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler shared the Philharmonic concerts between them, and during the Nazi period Furtwängler was the permanent conductor"; by contrast, the Vienna Philharmonic's website history says, "Furtwängler was in actuality the main conductor of the orchestra from 1933 to 1945, and again from 1947 to 1954." In support of New Groves assertion of Walter's role, it might be noted that he made Vienna his home from 1933 until 1938 (after being driven from Germany by the Third Reich), was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera from 1936 until 1938, and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic frequently, making a number of major recordings with the orchestra (including Richard Wagner's Die Walküre act 1 and parts of act 2, the first recordings of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and of his Symphony No. 9, and numerous symphonic recordings)James Altena, Steven Reveyoso, and Erik Ryding. Recorded Performances of Bruno Walter (1876–1962) . and taking the orchestra on tour to England and France in 1935.Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky, Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 248–260, In support of the VPO website, Otto Strasser (who played in the orchestra from 1922 until 1967 and was the VPO chairman who procured Furtwängler's wartime services) said, Furtwängler "influenced us so much that we became the true 'Furtwängler orchestra'."Raymond Holden, The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan, Yale University Press, 2005, p. 216