A Sound Tradition. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz
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Название: A Sound Tradition
Автор: Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Документальная литература
isbn: 9783903083851
isbn:
The “Rebirth”
It was nonetheless Eckert, who had been director of the opera since 1858, who would initiate the “rebirth” of the Philharmonic. On January 14, 1860, the Kärntnertor-Theater presented The Merry Wives of Windsor from the pen of the late founder of the Philharmonic (dead now some 11 years), and the next day the public was invited “at Noonday” to “the First Philharmonic Subscription Concert, presented by the Members of the Orchestra of the Imperial and Royal Court Opera Theater under the direction of Mr. Carl Eckert.” The critic Eduard Hanslick was jubilant: “From the first note to the last, one spirit and one hand.” Now that its time-tested quality was restored, the orchestra’s new organization was a radical innovation which would well befit it going forward. Up to that point, the “Philharmonic” had indeed been marketed and sold as separate individual performances: the system of subscriptions (with only four concerts initially) gained the confidence of the public that crowded into the confined Kärntnertor-Theater to see “their” orchestra play on the stage set of that evening’s presentation. Soon the subscription concerts were increased to eight, and to nine starting with 1864. This number was maintained for almost a century: not until 1961 was it increased to ten per year.
Concertmaster Joseph Hellmesberger, Senior, and conductors Carl Eckert and Otto Dessoff
Eckert resigned his post for health reasons in 1860, and Matteo Salvi succeeded him as opera director. At a general business meeting, the Philharmonic members elected the twenty-five-year-old Saxon opera conductor Otto Dessoff to be its principal conductor, and there he stayed for a blissful decade and a half. “Dessoff laid the foundation for a house where later, perhaps more brilliant conductors came and went,” write Herta and Kurt Blaukopf. “One cannot belong to the world of fashion without a subscription to the Philharmonic in one’s pocket,” enthused the newspaper Der Wanderer in 1864.
The 1860 introduction of subscription concerts was regarded until the 20th century as the founding moment of the Vienna Philharmonic. It was not until 1942 that it was decided to celebrate that year as the centennial of the orchestra’s foundation by Otto Nicolai. But 1860 also marked the “creation” of a building that remains the home for our orchestra until the present day: the announcement of an architectural competition for the new Court Opera Theater that was opened nine years later.
Richard Wagner and the Vienna Philharmonic
The most important German opera composer, who first encountered the Philharmonic in 1861, deserves a more extensive digression, which will take us up into the 1870’s.
Richard Wagner had revealed himself as a revolutionary and had to flee Dresden in 1849. As he had been declared a persona non grata in Germany, he now lived in exile in Switzerland. In May of 1861 he heard the orchestra of the Vienna Opera for the first time, and likewise his own Lohengrin as well. The maestro wrote to his wife Minna Planer, “for the first time in my difficult and painful life I have felt an unalloyed joy that is the conciliation for everything.” This was succeeded a few days later by a no less acclaimed Der fliegende Holländer, after which Wagner announced in an address his plan to come to Vienna to rehearse his new opera: Tristan und Isolde. But after 77 rehearsals and the illness of the tenor Alois Anders the daring project of giving Tristan its world premiere in Vienna was abandoned. The composer, heavily in debt, had to flee his villa in Penzing. This “work of the century” first saw the light of the stage in Munich in July of 1865.
Richard Wagner at a time when he was more interested in musical than political revolution
Worth mentioning is a world premiere that took place at the Kärntnertor-Theater, but without receiving the hoped-for acclaim. In February 1864, Jacques Offenbach’s Rhein-Nixies was put on stage, from which years later the Frenchman took the most famous melody into his last work: the Barcarolle in The Tales of Hoffmann.
Wagner may have been disappointed by the opera administration’s unwillingness to sacrifice everything for the world premiere of his Tristan; but he kept a lifelong feeling of affection for the Vienna orchestra, which was manifested as early as the 1862/63 season in several epochal, extraordinary concerts. Excerpts from Der Ring des Nibelungen and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg were heard in succession at the Theater an der Wien.
The first photograph of the Vienna Philharmonic (1864) on stage at the Kärntnertor-Theater. Center left is the conductor Otto Dessoff (in light trousers).
In May of 1872, just before laying the cornerstone at Bayreuth, the master guest conducted in the Musikverein, once again praising the Philharmonic in a rehearsal as “the best orchestra of the world,” and adding, “Being with you and making music with you is a delight!” In a concert on the 12th of May, which also featured the finale of Walküre, a special effect occurred: just as Wotan summoned the fire god Loge to appear, a deafening thunderstorm broke out.
Some telling stories have come down to us about Wagner’s visits to Vienna in March and May of 1875. The Court Opera singer Amalie Materna came to a rehearsal of excerpts from Götterdämmerung, exhausted from a prior rehearsal of Goldmark’s Queen of Sheba. When she attempted to get through the rehearsal on half voice (“marking”), Wagner’s reaction was: “Please don’t mark! You can do your Goldmarking in the opera!” In the concert itself, it was yet again a Jewish rival who was detracting from his artistic energies. While the frenetically applauding public was trying to force the orchestra to encore the Funeral March from Götterdämmerung, the brass section members begged the maestro to spare them, since they had to play in Meyerbeer’s Die Afrikanerin (L’Africaine) that night. Wagner explained the situation to the public and called the opera—whether erroneously or sarcastically is anyone’s guess—“Die Amerikanerin.”
The one time Wagner conducted at the Court Opera was on March 2, 1876, at a benefit performance of his Lohengrin. The composer-librettist scattered roses in front of the concertmaster (“You play that so much better than I composed it”), but as an unpracticed Kapellmeister was able to depend on a “secret” sub-conductor, who thus prevented many blunders. This was no less a person than Hans Richter, the court Kapellmeister, who was devoted to Wagner: he took his place by the timpani and conducted at tricky places “with his drumstick, without Wagner being aware of it,” as Joseph Sulzer, a contemporary witness in the cello section, reported.
After 1876, Wagner never visited the orchestra again, but it followed him: for many years, starting with the first Bayreuth festivals, members of the Vienna Philharmonic assisted in the festival orchestra. They were not all admirers of Wagner’s “Music of the Future.” Court Opera bassoonist Wilhelm Krankenhagen, e.g., noted in his Götterdämmerung part:
Der Zukunft Musik dereinst oben
Wird hoffentlich anders sein,
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