Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz
A Sound Tradition
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE VIENNA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Translation from the German by John Hargraves
With 99 illustrations
To the memory of Ernst Ottensamer (1955-2017)
Visit us online at amalthea.at and wienerphilharmoniker.at
© 2017 by Amalthea Signum Verlag, Wien
All rights reserved
Original title: Das Orchester, das niemals schläft
Editing: Murray G. Hall
Cover Design: Elisabeth Pirker/OFFBEAT
Cover photo: The New Year’s Concert 2017,
conducted by Gustavo Dudamel © Wiener Philharmoniker/Terry Linke
Graphic Design: VerlagsService Dietmar Schmitz GmbH, Heimstetten
Typeset in 11,5/15 pt Minion Pro
Designed in Austria, printed in the EU
ISBN 978-3-99050-109-2
eISBN 978-3-903083-85-1
Content
Andreas Großbauer
Heinz Fischer
The Vienna Philharmonic Society
Marifé Hernández
A Stroll through Vienna and through the History of an Orchestra
Founding and Establishing the Orchestra (1842-1870)
…began in the Golden Hall (1870-1897)
The Burden of History and the Dawn of a New Age
Fascism, War and Reconstruction (1933-1955)
What Makes the Vienna Philharmonic What It Is
“How Do I Get to the Philharmonic?”
And: How the Philharmonic Got to Where It Is
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Members in the Jubilee Season 2016/2017
Foreword
This year, the year of 2017, our orchestra is celebrating a special birthday. One hundred seventy-five years ago the Vienna Philharmonic was founded in Vienna, that city of music which has always attracted and been home to important composers and musicians. This anniversary is an appropriate occasion to trace the traditions and present-day challenges of our orchestra in a literary way. The well-known Austrian writer on musical matters, Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz, has taken on this task, and with the present book A Sound Tradition he has written a short history in facts, pictures and anecdotes. (The German title is Das Orchester, das niemals schläft—The Orchestra that Never Sleeps).
This same vitality that he ascribes to the orchestra in the original title is evident in his book. For Wagner-Trenkwitz takes his readers on a journey in a very charming and knowledgeable way. This way first leads us to a place where the orchestra was founded and which appears in the name of the orchestra as a sort of seal of quality: Vienna. If you take this walk through Vienna with the author you will meet music at every turning, and wherever you meet music, you will also discover traces of the Vienna Philharmonic.
But this journey with the orchestra leads the reader further: to the cities of Austria, first of all Salzburg, to the cities of Europe and indeed to cities all over the world. Here I would like to emphasize one city above all: New York, where a group of friends of the orchestra have united to form the Vienna Philharmonic Society. Its particular concern is also to celebrate the orchestra’s 175th anniversary in an appropriate way. So the Vienna Philharmonic Society and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra created the idea for this book together, which is being published not only in German but also in English, so that many people from all over the world can participate in this literary-musical journey.
As the journey leads us to many different places, it also takes us to different times. Wagner-Trenkwitz takes us on a time journey from the orchestra’s beginnings up to the present, and not just as a mere account of dates and facts, but in an informative, anecdotal,