A Sound Tradition. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz

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      (The Music of the future will be different in heaven,

      I hope, than it is here at home:

      If it’s not, after all these rehearsals,

      To Heaven I don’t need to come.)

      And Krankenhagen’s Parsifal part contains these verses:

      Zwei Knaben gingen nach Bayreuth,

      Der eine dumm, der andre g’scheit.

      Und als der Parsifal war um,

      Da war der G’scheite auch schon dumm.

      (Off to Bayreuth two boys went

      One quite dull, and one intelligent,

      But once Parsifal was done,

      It also made the bright boy dumb.)

      And second violinist Johann Czapauschek could not have been much of a fan either: Where Lohengrin confesses in Act I, “Elsa, I love you” he wrote into his part: “Here Czapauschek recommends an A major flourish from the brass, and finis operis!”

      Living Composers and Historic Preservation

      Back in the 1860s, important composers regularly stood at the podium of our orchestra, as for instance Max Bruch in concert or Charles Gounod, who conducted his opera Roméo et Juliette in the Kärntnertor-Theater. Celebrated concert soloists such as the pianist Anton Rubinstein and the violinist Joseph Joachim were also featured.

      In 1865, the opera orchestra played to benefit the placement of a Schubert memorial (the monument by sculptor Karl Kundmann can be seen in the Vienna Stadtpark today) and in the following year for a Mozart memorial, at which, as yet unpublished compositions of Rossini, that the composer had made available to the orchestra, were heard in the Great Redoutensaal. And finally in 1878, the orchestra volunteered to serve on a further memorial project: the Beethoven Monument by Caspar von Zumbusch was unveiled in 1880 on Lothringerstrasse, known today as Beethoven-Platz. The original model of the seated figure can be seen across the way in the Vienna Konzerthaus.

      On the one hand, opera director Franz von Dingelstedt, appointed in October of 1867, campaigned for increasing the still meager orchestra salaries, but on the other attempted to bring the Philharmonic concerts under the Court Opera’s control. “In the theater world, any independent organization working for its own private objectives is an anomaly that should not be tolerated, let alone protected,” said Dingelstedt. But even if combining the opera with the concert business would have had resulted in “substantial alleviations in work conditions,” the ‘Philharmonic idea’ and thus the Philharmonic itself would then have ceased to exist (Hellsberg). The orchestra stonewalled diplomatically, the new director decided to put off any sort of reform of this type until the time of the new house opening— and this moment was imminent.

      The Opera House on the Ring

      The new construction was not met with pleasurable anticipation. The plans were ridiculed, there was talk of things like “a sunken whale” and the “Königgrätz of architecture” (an allusion to the devastating defeat of the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866). Even the architects’ names were mocked in rhyme: “Sicardsburg und van der Nüll, they haven’t any style” (in German, ‘Nüll’ almost rhymes with Stil, or style). Even artistically the new theater wouldn’t work: In Blaukopf’s account, “inside the house one could neither see nor hear anything.”

      In the end, these prophecies of doom were unjustified, and the Viennese public would soon learn to love the new house as much as they had the Kärntnertor-Theater. One egregious planning failure is noted by Hellsberg: “Foyers and coat checks for the orchestra were forgotten.”

      But there were also positive developments in the offing: in the autumn of 1868, anticipating the greater dimensions of the new house and the expanded demands of modern operatic literature, an expansion of the size of the orchestra was granted. For the first time, the organization exceeded 100 musicians, 55 new string instruments were purchased, and the string ensemble was significantly enlarged. For the first time, but by no means the last, the Philharmonic saw itself facing the problem of numerous new opera orchestra members also wanting to share in the concert orchestra “take,” that is, the completely justified wish to participate in the “free” earnings.

      As always, the Philharmonic concerts took place in the old Kärntnertor-Theater. The orchestra’s petition to the General Management to allow it to use the newly opened (May 25, 1869) opera house for its “Philharmonic” concerts was denied because this building “as a matter of principle could not be used for any production furthering private interests.” Dingelstedt engaged Johann Herbeck as a new Kapellmeister and forced the orchestra to compete with itself for the moment. Herbeck, the conductor of the concerts at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde since 1859, had long viewed the Philharmonic concerts revived in 1860 as competition; now, starting in November 1869 he was leading concerts in the opera house to benefit the Court Theater’s pension fund.

      One week later, Otto Dessoff conducted a “Philharmonic” concert in the Kärntnertor-Theater, which turned into a triumph: “The huge audience, occupying every space of the Kärntnertor-Theater auditorium, and the loud waves of applause after every number on the program, should have allayed any fears doubters might have had of the Philharmonic’s concerts being endangered by any other new concert-giving organizations,” announced the Neue Freie Presse.

      When the Kärntnertor-Theater was cleared for demolition, the situation seemed to come to a head again: on April 17, 1870, the last performance (Rossini’s Wilhelm Tell) in the old opera house took place, and the orchestra members had to remove their instruments within fourteen days. So now where were these tradition-filled concerts, loved so extravagantly by the Viennese public, to go now that the new opera house was closed to them?

      The answer to this question leads us into a new chapter of Philharmonic history.

      The “Golden Era”…

       …began in the Golden Hall (1870-1897)

      The beginning of the “Golden Age” for our orchestra is usually seen as 1875, when Hans Richter took over as the conductor of the subscription concerts. Although Hellsberg shares this viewpoint, he asks rhetorically, “Did this orchestra even exist before there was a Musikverein building?” in order to confirm his argument that the “international standing of the Philharmonic started in the 1870’s.” This ideal hall provided for “the full development of their (i.e., the Philharmonic musicians’) sound potential” and put its enduring stamp on the playing of the Philharmonic musicians. The opulent interior configuration had a reverberation time of about two seconds and created the “warm” sound that favors lower frequencies. The financial stability of the enterprise is also worth mentioning: ticket income doubled in the short period from the last Kärntnertor-Theater concert in 1870 up to the 1874/75 season, which is additional justification for placing the start of the golden era at the orchestra’s move into the Golden Hall in 1870. This has been home of the Philharmonic up to the present day and will hopefully stay that way in the future.

      The conservatory СКАЧАТЬ