A Sound Tradition. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz

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      Philharmonic conductor Hans Richter asks his “dear friend” Ludwig Bösendorfer to tune his pianos.

      A few meters on from there we reach the Ticket and Ball Office of the Vienna Philharmonic, in front of which we see more music-stars: for Pierre Boulez, Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Strauss. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the only musical organization so represented here, has a star commemorating its first concert on March 28, 1842. As we walk backward through history, we are now approaching this magical date.

      Passing stars for Dmitri Shostakovich, Anton von Webern, and Herbert von Karajan (the plaque is graced by the maestro’s signature as well, which Hildegard Knef thought looked like “a cardiogram”), we continue along the Ring to the State Opera building, rising to our right, and which, like the Musikverein, can be considered home base for our orchestra. For since its birth, the Philharmonic has recruited its players from members of the opera orchestra; aside from versatility, this provides economic viability for its musicians. A prerequisite for being accepted into the concert orchestra (organized as an association) is membership in the opera, which has a probationary period of several years. We will come back later to this “double identity” feature of our orchestra. For the moment, let us note that Philharmonic musicians, while playing in the opera, may not be called that, but should sound like it!

      …and the other homebase: the State Opera

      Only one year older than the Musikverein, the Court Opera Theater on the Ring was completed according to plans of the architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll in 1869 and opened on May 25 with Mozart’s Don Giovanni (back then presented in German as Don Juan).

      The space to the right of the Vienna State Opera (as seen from the Ring) originally had no name, as it was part of Kärntner Straße. At the instigation of the then director of the State Opera, Ioan Holender, the tract was named Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz in 1996. On the one hand, honoring the outstanding conductor and eminent house director (from 1956 to 1964) is quite appropriate; on the other hand, it makes one wonder how a half century after the end of the war, a square in the capital of Austria can be dedicated to a prominent former Nazi party member…A research group commissioned in the early 2010’s by the University of Vienna and the city to deal with street names identified the Karajan-Platz as a “case needing further discussion.”

      Several more musical celebrities are remembered here with stars: the composers Alban Berg and Richard Strauss and their superb conductors Clemens Krauss and Karl Böhm. Then, lined up together, Giuseppe Verdi, Leonie Rysanek, Hans Knappertsbusch and, last but not least, Gustav Mahler. Directly across from the side entrance of the opera house is the beginning of Mahlerstraße, a name it bore at first only between 1919 and 1938. It mutated under the Nazis to “Meistersingerstraße” until 1945 when the name and remembrance of the Court Opera director were restored.

      The Kärntnertor-Theater— today Vienna’s most famous Hotel

      Behind the opera runs the Philharmonikerstraße, which was given that name in 1942 to mark the orchestra’s Centennial Jubilee year. Crossing this street we find ourselves in front of the world-famous Hotel Sacher. It got its nickname—“Vienna’s most musical hotel”—not just from the huge number of guests from “next door,” but also due to its precise geographic location: from 1709 to 1870 the “Imperial and Royal Court Opera Theater by the СКАЧАТЬ