If, as in the Chuck Berry song, Beethoven were to roll over and tell Tchaikovsky the news that rhythm and blues had supplanted classical music, the New York Philharmonic might want to know, as well. In addition to the music of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, the orchestra has over the years performed the works of numerous other classical composers, along with specially commissioned new music. It presents some 180 concerts annually. The New York Philharmonic's musical director, Alan Gilbert, is the son of two of the orchestra's violinists and the second-youngest person to hold the position in its history. The New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842 and is the oldest orchestra in the US.
Key numbers for fiscal year ending August, 2008: Sales: $28.6M
Officers:
President and Executive Director: Zarin Mehta
VP Operations: Miki Takebe
Director Finance: Pamela Katz
Representative Albums: "Tribute to Leonard Bernstein," "Sweeney Todd Live at the New York Philharmonic," "3 Cornered Hat"
Biography
The oldest and most famous of all major American orchestras, the New York Philharmonic is the definitive international-level orchestra in America, compared on occasion with the Berlin Philharmonic. For much of this century, it has been the most prestigious of American orchestras, if not universally praised at all times. The orchestra's chief conductors, music advisors, and music directors since the 1920s is a list of musical legends, the presence of any one of which in the history of other orchestras would be a more than sufficient honor: Gustav Mahler, Willem Mengelberg, Arturo Toscanini, Sir John Barbirolli, Bruno Walter, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, and, currently, Kurt Masur. And its recordings, beginning in the 1920s under Mengelberg, were among the most honored of their era, while those from the 1960s during the tenure of Bernstein as music director, are also among the best selling classical records ever made in America.
The New York Philharmonic as we know it today is actually the result of the union of two major orchestras founded during the 19th century which, in turn, absorbed the best elements of other New York orchestras that didn't survive. Their combined history goes back over 150 years.
There were amateur orchestras in New York in the 18th century, and these began to multiply in profusion in the beginning of the 19th century. In 1824, there appeared in New York the Philharmonic Society, comprised of members of the city's theater orchestras, which gave concerts for several years -- their debut featured the first New York performance of the final movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 2; and in 1825 an unidentified ensemble performed the New York premieres of Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus and Egmont overture.
In 1842, the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York was founded by a small group of talented and dedicated musicians. Their first concert, featuring an orchestra of 63 musicians conducted by U.C. Hill and a program that included Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 (which had first been played in America only two years earlier), took place in December of 1842. The orchestra's first official season, in 1843, included three concerts, the second of which was highlighted by the first American performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3. Three years later, the orchestra also gave the American premiere of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 before an audience of 2000 people.
For the next 16 years, the Philharmonic Symphony Society gave four concerts annually. In 1859 they expanded their season to five performances, and then, in 1869, to six concerts. Members of the orchestra usually served as conductors during the early years, until 1852 when Theodore Eisfeld was elected director, a post he held for 15 years. By 1867, the number of players had expanded to 100.
The orchestra's membership and repertory were heavily steeped in mainstream European repertory which, in those days, included much Beethoven and Brahms, Wagner, Johann Strauss II, and Franz Liszt, and relatively little (by today's standards) Bach and Mozart, and very little of American origin. The standard of playing was very high for the era, and the Philharmonic Society was the most respected of serious orchestras. There were rivals during the second half of the 19th century, however, including a Brooklyn Philharmonic that was founded in 1857 (Brooklyn was then a separate city, incidentally); an orchestra organized by conductor Louis Jullien that performed lighter programs that included works by American composers, which proved very popular; and Theodore Thomas led a New York-based orchestra from the 1860s to the 1890s that was not only popular in the city but toured the country, doing programs that included Bach, Saint-Saens, Mozart, and Mendelssohn.
The most significant competitor to the Philharmonic Society, however, was the New York Symphony, founded in 1878 by Leopold Damrosch, who was also the orchestra's conductor until his death in 1885, after which his son Walter took over at the podium and as president. In those days, the city was in an absolute musical ferment that would make modern audiences green with envy, as orchestras competed for the first performances of such works as the Brahms Symphony No. 1 and the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2.
Leopold Damrosch may have intended to outdo all rivals, with a performance of a Berlioz mass featuring 1500 musicians in 1881, but then a year later Thomas led 3200 players and singers in a concert. After succeeding his father, Walter Damrosch proved every bit as ambitious and daring a leader, and musical life in the city had never been as active before. Additionally, from 1887 onward, New York was visited frequently by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and later by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra began making regular concert appearances in New York starting in 1903. There was also a Russian Symphony Orchestra from 1904 until 1918, which debuted numerous works by Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Rimsky-Korsakov, and an Italian Symphony Orchestra that appeared in 1913.
Ultimately, the New York Symphony won out over Thomas's ensemble by wooing the support of wealthy New Yorkers such as Andrew Carnegie, whose patronage gave them advantages in both fundraising and press exposure. Finally, in 1891, Thomas packed up for Chicago -- to found the Chicago Symphony Orchestra -- and the New York Symphony was left as the sole competitor to the Philharmonic Society. While the Philharmonic achieved greater critical respect, however, the Symphony was beloved for its more daring and adventurous programming, mixing French and American pieces with that standard Germanic fare common to both orchestras. And the Carnegie patronage paid off in a big way -- which is still providing benefits to the musical world -- in 1891 with the opening of Carnegie Hall, built expressly for the New York Symphony. Damrosch's own reputation, as a leader as well as a conductor, was such that he served as conductor of the Philharmonic Society during its 1902-1903 season. Meanwhile, the New York Symphony had achieved such respect by then, that no less a figure than Felix Weingartner was enticed to serve as guest conductor.
The New York Symphony was reorganized as the New York Symphony Orchestra in 1903, and again in 1907, when the modern structure of the orchestra was put into place, including a board of directors and regular salaries for the players. The orchestra quickly became a vital institution in the musical life of the entire country, playing on tour to audiences who had never before heard a full symphony orchestra. In 1920, it became the first American orchestra ever to tour Europe, and was a resounding success. During the 1920s, there began a parade of renowned and legendary conductors as guests at its podium, including Bruno Walter, Fritz Busch, Vincent d'Indy, Maurice Ravel, and Albert Coates.
The Philharmonic Society survived during the early 20th century as a relatively sedate, highly praised ensemble, and was remarkably successful in wooing some of the most talented conductors from Europe to its podium. The most notable of these was Gustav Mahler, who served as the orchestra's conductor from 1909 until 1911 -- his tenure there was more successful and far less stormy than his conductorship of the Metropolitan Opera, and it is possible to hear some of the surviving Philharmonic Society players discuss Mahler on a Pickwick compact disc devoted to his piano roll recordings of his own work.
The Philharmonic Society merged with the New (aka National) Symphony Orchestra in 1921, and in doing so boosted both its subscribership and its concert schedule, to the point where the responsibilities for conducting finally had to be divided up among three musicians, where one had sufficed in prior years. Among the those legendary figures who graced the podium in the years that followed were Mengelberg (1921-30), Furtwangler (1925-27), Toscanini (1927-33), Erich Kleiber (1930-32), and Walter (1931-33). Throughout the 1920s, the Philharmonic Society absorbed several smaller orchestras, including the City Symphony, the American National Orchestra, and the State Symphony Orchestra, all of which enhanced its own resources and reduced the competition.
Finally, in 1928, the modern New York Philharmonic was created with the merger of the Philharmonic Society and the New York Symphony Orchestra, into the Philharmonic-Symphony Society Orchestra, later the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York and, finally, the New York Philharmonic. The merging of the two institutions created a musical powerhouse the like of which had never been seen in New York before, combining the powerful and conservative performing tradition of the Philharmonic Society with the more forward looking, progressive approach of the New York Symphony. Ever since, the New York Philharmonic has sought to balance these two sides, juxtaposing a commitment to the core Classical/Romantic repertory with an obligation to perform (and commission) new works by living composers.
Toscanini became the new orchestra's principal conductor, for a 28-week, 103-concert season, the longest in the Philharmonic's history. It was a perfect marriage in its time, in terms of personalities and reputations.
Toscanini was one of the most lionized conductors in the world, and far better known to the world at large than the Philharmonic -- indeed, he was probably the only conductor in the world whose name was widely known to people who didn't go to concerts or listen to classical music. Within the musical world, he was known for his conservative taste in programming, a strict adherence to the printed score (often, his critics said, at the expense of artistic insights), a demanding and tempestuous demeanor, and an enormous ego. He was a match for the players in the Philharmonic, who had a reputation for being difficult and uncooperative.
Toscanini's exit from the orchestra created a gap that wasn't entirely filled until the 1960s. After Furtwangler declined the offer of the chief conductor's post for political reasons, and Otto Klemperer lost his chance at the position for reasons of personality and internal politics, Sir John Barbirolli succeeded Toscanini for a stormy seven years, thru 1943. Barbirolli's tenure was a stormy one, owing to his difficulties in dealing with the often recalcitrant members of the orchestra, which marred the relationship between this legendary conductor and a great orchestra. His successor, Arthur Rodzinski was a good administrator, and widely recognized as a great "builder of orchestras," but not a great conductor, and he left after four years, in 1947, over personality conflicts with management.
Bruno Walter served in an interim capacity for two seasons as "Musical Advisor," shepherding the orchestra through the two years in which a successor to Rodzinski was chosen. Walter would have been the first choice as a permanent successor but for his being past 70 and not at all in sympathy with contemporary composers -- part of the Philharmonic's major mission since Damrosch's day had been presenting works by living composers, and Walter seldom conducted any music written after 1910.
Finally, Greek-born Dimitri Mitropoulos was chosen in 1949. Mitropoulos had done a great job of turning the Minneapolis Symphony into a major orchestra, and was popular with East Coast critics, in particular. His tenure in New York, however, proved an unhappy one, despite some great moments on record and in concert, marred by internal political struggles between the conductor and the board of directors, as well as the press and the orchestra. His spare, severe spiritual demeanor (his definitive biography is entitled Priest of Music) made him seem very monkish, in a job that required the social skills of a diplomat. Additionally, although it was never spoken of at the time, Mitropoulos' homosexuality precluded his private life being delved into beyond the most cursory examination -- published profiles at the time describe a severe, priest-like self-denial, and otherwise presented Mitropoulos as a complete cypher off the podium. (His successor, Leonard Bernstein, was also homosexual -- he and Mitropoulos had even had an affair in the late '30s -- but had the cover of a marriage and family, and an outgoing, exuberant personality to protect him from any rumors, which would have been devastating in the social climate of the 1950s).
The Philharmonic's situation in the 1930s, 1940s, and early '50s was further complicated by the continued presence in New York of Arturo Toscanini, in a very public musical role.
From the 1920s until his retirement in 1954, Toscanini was the most well-known conductor in the world, and he automatically attracted audiences, press coverage, and critical raves wherever he was based. And after leaving the New York Philharmonic in 1936, he didn't leave New York -- rather, Toscanini became the conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble organized specifically for him. It was primarily a radio and recording orchestra (though it did make concert appearances on occasion), but the NBC Symphony was a de facto rival to the Philharmonic. Its radio broadcasts, heralded by both the NBC publicity operation, got greater exposure than that of the Philharmonic, especially among more casual listeners. Additionally, the NBC Symphony attracted many of the best musicians in New York, because its members were paid far more than those of the Philharmonic. And when television came along in the mid-'40s, the NBC Symphony's hand-in-glove relationship with the NBC network brought it to into the new medium almost immediately, and with massive exposure.
The Philharmonic had appeared on the radio since 1922, and its concerts were still important -- much repertory that was never formally recorded by the orchestra was presented during these broadcasts -- but never as visible as those of the NBC Symphony. The situation with recording wasn't much different. The Philharmonic had an exclusive relationship with the Columbia Masterworks label since the 1920s under Mengelberg, but with a few exceptions, its postwar records didn't sell as well as those by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, or the Boston Symphony.
The advent of the long-playing record in 1948 helped all classical music sales, but the Philharmonic under Mitropoulos never sold as many records as Toscanini's NBC Symphony recordings on RCA Victor, despite the fact that the latter were notorious for their harsh, dry acoustic, or as many records as Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra during the same period. It was only with Toscanini's retirement in 1954 that the Philharmonic lost this longtime rival for New York and national audiences.
The real turning point for the Philharmonic came in 1957 with the appointment of Leonard Bernstein as Music Director of the orchestra. Not yet 40 years old, and American born, and a composer as well as a conductor (something the Philharmonic had not had since Gustav Mahler) with a reputation for daring but not outrageous showmanship and ambitious programming, Bernstein added a degree of elegance and a flair for publicity that the orchestra had lacked since Toscanini's era.
His approach to music-making, though not universally praised, raised the orchestra to new prominence. His interpretations of the standard repertory were always exciting, if not always very deep or profound. Additionally, his arrival at the Philharmonic coincided with Columbia Records' switch to stereo recording. Thus, Bernstein was obliged -- and Columbia was more than happy to do the obliging -- to re-record the entire mainstream classical repertory from Beethoven to Wagner.
The results were spectacular, at least at first, on a commercial level. The Philharmonic's records began selling in ever larger quantities as a new generation of listeners and concertgoers were drawn to the charismatic Bernstein. Where Mitropoulos had been a highly mystical, spiritual figure at the podium, Bernstein's music making at his most involved achieved an almost sexual ecstacy (although it was never defined as such during that more reserved era) that radiated through the playing and into the concert hall.
And then there was the concert hall.
The New York Philharmonic's performing home for decades had been Carnegie Hall. But in the late '50s, planning had begun for a huge new complex devoted to the performing arts on the West Side of Manhattan, called Lincoln Center. Opened in 1963, the complex included a splendid new performing home for the orchestra called Philharmonic (later Avery Fisher) Hall. Bernstein was the first of the orchestra's chief conductors to lead the orchestra from the new hall and, indeed, with the exception of Barbirolli, was the only one of its chief conductors from the pre-Lincoln Center era to live to see Lincoln Center opened.
Bernstein and the Philharmonic also became fixtures on national television, thanks to Columbia Records' relationship at the time to the CBS network (the two entities have had separate ownership since the end of the 1980s) and to his flair for showmanship and his considerable skills as a teacher and musical emissary. Nowhere did these abilities serve him or the public better than in the Young Peoples' Concerts, which Bernstein wrote, hosted, and conducted from 1958 thru 1969 in a series of 47 broadcasts. Intended for audiences ages seven through 17, these performances by the Philharmonic, first at Carnegie Hall and later at Lincoln Center, introduced millions of viewers of all ages to the world of classical music in a manner that was lively, informative, and distinctly unthreatening, covering everything from Bach to Bartok.
By the mid-'60s, Bernstein was the pre-eminent conductor in the United States and the best known American conductor in the world, while the Philharmonic was the pride of the entire nation's musical community, which was growing by leaps and bounds. The orchestra's season was expanded, along with the number of concerts, and employment at the Philharmonic was, for the first time, a year-round responsibility, all accompanied by generous increases in the musicians' salaries. Additionally, under Bernstein's direction, the Philharmonic became celebrated for various repertory -- in particular, he brought to fruition the Mahler revival started by Walter and Mitropoulos, and received critical raves for his performances of the Haydn symphonies with the Philharmonic. The Philharmonic also became known as an important force in contemporary music, especially for its presentation of new works by American composers.
The 13 years of Bernstein's tenure was the high point of the orchestra's visibility and popularity. The only obvious negative event to transpire during this era was the end, in 1967, of the Philharmonic's radio broadcasts, which had started in 1922 (these resumed in 1975). In 1969, however, weary from his duties with the New York Philharmonic and feeling he could go no farther with them, and with virtually every major orchestra in the world eagerly beckoning, Bernstein announced his retirement as Music Director, effective with the end of the 1969-70 season.
No departure since the exit of Toscanini in 1936 had left the orchestra or its audience at a greater loss. For many younger listeners, Leonard Bernsteinwas the New York Philharmonic, and for many listeners nobody would be able to fill his shoes.
His successor, Pierre Boulez, was a daring choice -- indeed, Boulez's selection showed how much the music world had changed since the days when Bernstein had been chosen back in 1956. In those days, Bernstein was considered a radical choice for his relative youth, his aspirations as a composer, and the fact that he was still learning much of the repertory that he would be expected to conduct on a regular basis.
Boulez, who succeeded Bernstein in 1970, was far better known as an avant-garde composer than as a conductor. He had relatively little familiarity with the standard orchestral repertory, and the concertgoing public had relatively little familiarity with him, except as one of the those contempoary composers that critics were always raving about.
Boulez was able to grow into the role of a mainstream conductor, however, and ultimately came to excell at the podium. He also devoted a considerable amount the orchestra's programming to new twentieth century works from all over the globe. His concerts were very popular, selling out regularly, and his record sales, although not as spectacular as those of Bernstein in the early and mid-'60s (and even Bernstein's sales had begun slackening off before the end of the decade), were respectable.
But Boulez was as concerned with composing as he was with conducting, and the demands of the Philharmonic position left relatively little time for composition. His departure came with the end of the 1977-78 season, and he was replaced by Zubin Mehta, a charismatic conductor who had previously been music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Mehta's tenure coincided with a downturn in the orchestra's fortunes. The sales for the Philharmonic's recordings plummeted at the end of the 1970s, amid a period of increasing production costs, which ultimately led to the termination of the orchestra's longtime exclusive relationship with Columbia Masterworks. Additionally, other orchestras, most notably the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti, began to challenge the Philharmonic's reputation as the best that America had to offer.
Part of the problem lay with the legacy that Mehta was competing with, not only Boulez and Bernstein, but Mitropoulos and Walter, all of whom were well represented in the Columbia Records back catalog, often on very competitively priced budget classical albums. He also had the misfortune to have begun recording with the Philharmonic in the late '70s, during a period when the market for mainstream repertory was completely saturated; and unlike Bernstein's arrival with the orchestra, which had coincided with the advent of stereo phonographs, there was no compelling new technical innovation to compel people to buy the new records. Adding to the problem was that Mehta's interpretations of the core Classical and Romantic repertories, from Haydn thru Mahler, were simply never very popular, at least compared with those of his predecessors.
The New York Philharmonic did occasionally raise excitement, but more often than not, it was on those occasions when Bernstein -- who had been appointed Conductor Emeritus for life, returned to conduct a program or make a recording, such as parts of his new Mahler symphonic cycle for Deutsche Grammophon records. Those recordings reveal an orchestra that played splendidly. The dawn of the compact disc era saw a new wave of record sales, although the Philharmonic's older recordings under Bernstein and Walter often elicited greater interest than their new ones.
Beginning with the 1991-92 season, German conductor Kurt Masur became the Music Director of the Philharmonic. The start of Masur's tenure with the orchestra coincided with the 150th anniversary of its founding, a year-long celebration that saw attendance rise and public and critical enthusiasm for the Philharmonic rise once again. New programming initiatives, including concerts scheduled earlier in the evening to meet the needs of younger executives, helped bring the orchestra's work to a wider audience. A recording contract with the Teldec label also led to several superb recordings, including brilliantly played renditions of the Dvorak Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9, although, as with most American orchestras in the 1990s, the sales of the Philharmonic's new recordings pales in comparison to their older releases.
Additionally, Masur has earned the loyalty of the Philharmonic's musicians, not always an easy achievement amid the tensions that can exist in a modern orchestra (neither Barbirolli nor Mitropoulos ever had it), which is borne out in their performances and recordings. The orchestra, whose reputation was battered during the 1980s, is now ranked among the finest in the world, and is increasingly compared favorably with the Berlin Philharmonic.
The New York Philharmonic heads toward its 160th year of its existence in somewhat better financial and artistic condition than many of its American rivals -- in an era of declining government subsidies for the arts, and the rapidly aging demographics of concertgoers, no classical music institution in America is ever in very good condition, but the Philharmonic's budget has been balanced for most of the 1990s, its endowment fund is the largest of any orchestra in the country, and its concerts have an average attendance level of 94 percent of capacity, with over 300,000 tickets sold in a typical season. It maintains a very high reputation as an ensemble and a healthy level of audience and community involvement. It continues to strike a careful balance between newly commissioned works by contemporary composers and established parts of the repertory. ~ Bruce Eder
NOTE: The number of notable and worthwhile recordings by the New York Philharmonic is too great to list, ranging all the way from the orchestra's 1922 recording of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben under Willem Mengelberg to Kurt Masur's 1990s performances of the Dvorak symphonies. The list below is only a small smattering of the highlights.
Beethoven Symphony No. 7 (Legato Classics) [7] (Walter cond.)
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five".[1] The Philharmonic's home is Avery Fisher Hall, located in New York's Lincoln Center.
Organized in 1842, the orchestra is older than any other American symphonic institution in existence by nearly four decades; its record-setting 14,000th concert was given in December 2004.[2]
Alan Gilbert is the Philharmonic's music director and Zarin Mehta (brother of former music director Zubin Mehta) is the orchestra's president.
The orchestra was founded by the American-born conductor Ureli Corelli Hill in 1842 as the Philharmonic Society of New York[3][4] – the third Philharmonic on American soil since 1799[5], declaring as its purpose "the advancement of instrumental music." The first concert of the New York Philharmonic took place on December 7, 1842 in the Apollo Rooms on lower Broadway before an audience of 600. Led by Hill himself, the concert opened with Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 . Two other conductors, German-born Henry Christian Timm and French-born Denis Etienne, led parts of the eclectic, three-hour program, which included chamber music and several operatic selections with a leading singer of the day, as was the custom. The musicians operated as a cooperative society, deciding by a majority vote such issues as who would become a member, which music would be performed and who among them would conduct. At the end of the season the players would divide any proceeds among themselves.
Beethoven's ninth and a new home, 1846
Apollo Rooms, from NYC Philharmonic Archives
After only a dozen public performances and barely four years old, the Philharmonic organized a concert to raise funds to build a new music hall. The centerpiece was the American premiere of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, to take place at Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan. About 400 instrumental and vocal performers gathered for this premiere. The chorals were translated into what would be the first English performance anywhere in the world. However, with the expensive US$2.00 ticket price and a war rally uptown, the hoped-for audience was kept away and the new hall would have to wait. Although judged by some as an odd work with all those singers kept at bay until the end, the Ninth soon became the work performed most often when a grand gesture was required.
During the Philharmonic's first seven seasons, seven musicians alternated the conducting duties. In addition to Hill, Timm and Etienne, these were William Alpers, George Loder, Louis Wiegers and Alfred Boucher.[6] This changed in 1849 when Theodore Eisfeld was installed as sole conductor for the season.[6] Eisfeld, later along with Carl Bergmann, would be the conductor until 1865. That year, Eisfeld conducted the Orchestra's memorial concert for the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln, but in a peculiar turn of events which were criticized in the New York press, the Philharmonic omitted the last movement, "Ode to Joy", as being inappropriate for the occasion.[7] That year Eisfeld returned to Europe, and Bergmann continued to conduct the Society until his death in 1876.
Competition, 1878
The New York Philharmonic Club, a chamber ensemble of Philharmonic musicians, clowning for their public-relations photograph in the 1880s. New York Philharmonic Archives
Leopold Damrosch, Franz Liszt's former concertmaster at Weimar, served as conductor of the Philharmonic for the 1876-1877 season. But failing to win support from the Philharmonic's public, he left to create the rival Symphony Society of New York in 1878. Upon his death in 1885, his 23-year-old son Walter took over and continued the competition with the old Philharmonic. It was Walter who would convince Andrew Carnegie that New York needed a first-class concert hall and on May 5, 1891 both Walter and Russian composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted at the inaugural concert of the city's new Music Hall, which in a few years would be renamed for its primary benefactor, Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie Hall would remain the orchestra's home until 1962.
The German-born, American-trained conductor Theodore Thomas, who had achieved fame and great success conducting his own orchestra, the Thomas Orchestra, in competition with the Philharmonic for over a decade, began conducting the Philharmonic in 1877. With the exception of the 1878-1879 season (when he was in Cincinnati and Adolph Neuendorff led the group), Thomas conducted every season until 1891. He raised the orchestra to a virtuosic level before leaving in 1891 to found the Chicago Symphony, taking 13 Philharmonic musicians with him.
Another celebrated conductor, Anton Seidl, followed Thomas on the Philharmonic podium, serving until 1898. Seidl, who had served as Wagner's assistant, was a renowned conductor of the composer's works; Seidl's romantic interpretations inspired both adulation and controversy. During his tenure, the Philharmonic enjoyed a period of unprecedented success and prosperity and performed its first world premiere written by a world-renowned composer in the United States – Antonín Dvořák's Ninth Symphony "From the New World." Seidl's sudden death in 1898 from food poisoning at the age of 47 was widely mourned. Twelve thousand people applied for tickets to his funeral at the Metropolitan Opera House at 39th Street and Broadway and the streets were jammed for blocks with a "surging mass" of his admirers.
New management, 1909
In 1909, to ensure the financial stability of the Philharmonic, a group of wealthy New Yorkers led by two women, Mary Seney Sheldon and Minnie Untermyer, formed the Guarantors Committee and changed the Orchestra's organization from a musician-operated cooperative to a corporate management structure. The Guarantors were responsible for bringing Gustav Mahler to the Philharmonic as principal conductor and expanding the season from 18 concerts to 54, which included a tour of New England. The Philharmonic was the only symphonic orchestra where Mahler worked as music director without any opera responsibilities, freeing him to explore the symphonic literature more deeply. In New York, he conducted several works for the first time in his career and introduced audiences to his own compositions. Under Mahler, a controversial figure both as a composer and conductor, the season expanded, musicians' salaries were guaranteed, the scope of operations broadened, and the twentieth-century orchestra was created.
In 1911 Mahler died unexpectedly, and the Philharmonic appointed Josef Stransky as his replacement. Many commentators were surprised by the choice of Stransky, whom they did not see as a worthy successor to Mahler.[8] Stransky led all of the orchestra's concerts until 1920[9], and also made the first recordings with the orchestra in 1917.
Mergers and outreach, 1921
In 1921 the Philharmonic merged with New York's National Symphony Orchestra (no relation to the present Washington, D.C. ensemble). With this merger it also acquired the imposing Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg. For the 1922-1923 season Stransky and Mengelberg shared the conducting duties, but Stransky left after the one shared season. For nine years Mengelberg dominated the scene, although other conductors, among them Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Igor Stravinsky, and Arturo Toscanini, led about half of each season's concerts. During this period, the Philharmonic became one of the first American orchestras to boast an outdoor symphony series when it began playing low-priced summer concerts at Lewisohn Stadium in upper Manhattan. In 1920 the orchestra hired Henry Hadley as "associate conductor" given specific responsibility for the "Americanization" of the orchestra: each of Hadley's concerts featured at least one work by an American-born composer.[9]
In 1924, the Young People's Concerts were expanded into a substantial series of children's concerts under the direction of American pianist-composer-conductor Ernest Schelling. This series became the prototype for concerts of its kind around the country and grew by popular demand to 15 concerts per season by the end of the decade.
Mengelberg and Toscanini both led the Philharmonic in recording sessions for the Victor Talking Machine Company, initially in a recording studio and eventually in Carnegie Hall as electrical recording was improved. All of the early electrical recordings for Victor were made with a single microphone, usually placed near or above the conductor, a process called "Orthophonic." Mengelberg's most successful recording with the Philharmonic was a 1927 performance in Carnegie Hall of Richard Strauss' Ein Heldenleben. Toscanini's recordings with the Philharmonic actually began with a single disc for Brunswick Records in 1926, recorded in a rehearsal hall at Carnegie Hall. Additional Toscanini recordings with the Philharmonic, all for Victor, took place on Carnegie Hall's stage in 1929 and 1936. By the 1936 sessions Victor, now owned by RCA, began to experiment with multiple microphones to achieve more comprehensive reproductions of the orchestra.
The year 1928 marked the New York Philharmonic's last and most important merger: with the New York Symphony Society. The Symphony had been quite innovative in its 50 years prior to the merger. It made its first domestic tour in 1882, introduced educational concerts for young people in 1891, and gave the premieres of works such as Gershwin'sConcerto in F and Holst'sEgdon Heath. The merger of these two venerable institutions consolidated extraordinary financial and musical resources. At the first joint board meeting in 1928, the chairman, Clarence Mackay, expressed the opinion that "with the forces of the two Societies now united... the Philharmonic-Symphony Society could build up the greatest orchestra in this country if not in the world."
The Maestro, 1930
Arturo Toscanini (standing in the center, sporting a bow tie and cap) with the Orchestra aboard the S.S de Grasse, embarking on their European tour, 1930.. New York Philharmonic Archives
Of course, the merger had ramifications for the musicians of both orchestras. Winthrop Sargeant, a violinist with the Symphony Society and later a writer for The New Yorker, recalled the merger as "a sort of surgical operation in which twenty musicians were removed from the Philharmonic and their places taken by a small surviving band of twenty legionnaires from the New York Symphony. This operation was performed by Arturo Toscanini himself. Fifty-seventh Street wallowed in panic and recrimination." Toscanini, who had guest-conducted for several seasons, became the sole conductor and in 1930 led the group on a European tour that brought immediate international fame to the Orchestra.
That same year nationwide radio broadcasts began. The Orchestra was first heard on CBS directly from Carnegie Hall. To broadcast the Sunday afternoon concerts, CBS paid $15,000 for the entire season. The radio broadcasts continued without interruption for 38 years. A legend in his own time, Toscanini would prove to be a tough act to follow as the country headed into war.
The War years, 1940
After an unsuccessful attempt to hire the German conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, the English conductor John Barbirolli and the Polish conductor Artur Rodziński were joint replacements for Toscanini in 1936. The following year Barbirolli was given the full conductorship, a post he held until the spring of 1941. In 1943, Rodzinski, who had conducted the Orchestra's centennial concert at Carnegie Hall in the preceding year, was appointed Musical Director. He had also conducted the Sunday afternoon radio broadcast when CBS listeners around the country heard the announcer break in on Arthur Rubinstein's performance of Brahms's Second Piano Concerto to update them about the attack on Pearl Harbor. (The initial word of the attack was forwarded by CBS News Correspondent John Charles Daly on his own show before the Philharmonic broadcast.) Soon after the United States entered World War II, Aaron Copland wrote A Lincoln Portrait for the Philharmonic at the request of conductor Andre Kostelanetz as a tribute to and expression of the "magnificent spirit of our country."
Artur Rodziński, Bruno Walter, and Sir Thomas Beecham made a series of recordings with the Philharmonic for Columbia Records during the 1940s. Many of the sessions were held in Liederkranz Hall, a building formerly belonging to a German cultural and musical society. Sony Records later digitally remastered the Beecham recordings for reissue on CD.
The Telegenic Age, 1950
Leonard Bernstein with members of the Philharmonic rehearsing for a television broadcast, circa 1958. Bert Bial, New York Philharmonic Archives
Leopold Stokowski and Dimitri Mitropoulos were appointed co-principal conductors in 1949, with Mitropoulos becoming Musical Director in 1951. Mitropoulos, known for championing new composers and obscure operas-in-concert, pioneered in other ways; adding live Philharmonic performances between movies at the Roxy Theatre[10] and taking Edward R. Murrow and the See it Now television audience on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Orchestra. Mitropoulos made a series of recordings for Columbia Records, mostly in mono; near the end of his tenure, he recorded excerpts from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet in stereo. In 1957, Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein served together as Principal Conductors until, in the course of the season, Bernstein was appointed Music Director, becoming the first American-born-and-trained conductor to head the Philharmonic.
Leonard Bernstein, who had made his historic, unrehearsed and spectacularly successful debut with the Philharmonic in 1943, was Music Director for 11 seasons, a time of significant change and growth. Two television series were initiated on CBS: the Young People's Concerts and "Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic." The former program, launched in 1958, made television history, winning every award in the field of educational television. Bernstein continued the orchestra's recordings with Columbia Records until he retired as Music Director in 1969. Although Bernstein made a few recordings for Columbia after 1969, most of his later recordings were for Deutsche Grammophon. Sony has digitally remastered Bernstein's numerous Columbia recordings and released them on CD as a part of its extensive "Bernstein Century" series. Although the Philharmonic performed primarily in Carnegie Hall until 1962, Bernstein preferred to record in the Manhattan Center. His later recordings were made in Philharmonic Hall. In 1960, the centennial of the birth of Gustav Mahler, Bernstein and the Philharmonic began a historic cycle of recordings of eight of Mahler's nine symphonies for Columbia Records. (Symphony No. 8 was recorded by Bernstein with the London Symphony.) In 1962 Bernstein caused controversy with his comments before a performance by Glenn Gould of the First Piano Concerto of Johannes Brahms.
Modern music, 1962
Bernstein, a life-long advocate of living composers, oversaw the beginning of the Orchestra's largest commissioning project, resulting in the creation of 109 new works for orchestra. In September 1962, the Philharmonic commissioned Aaron Copland to write a new work, Connotations For Orchestra, for the opening concert of the new Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The move to Philharmonic Hall in Lincoln Center brought about an expansion of concerts into the spring and summer. Among the many series that have taken place during the off-season have been the French-American and Stravinsky Festivals (1960s), Pierre Boulez's "Rug Concerts" in the 1970s, and composer, Jacob Druckman's Horizon's Festivals in the 1980s.
In 1971 Pierre Boulez became the first Frenchman to hold the post of Philharmonic Music Director. Boulez's years with the Orchestra were notable for expanded repertoire and innovative concert approaches, such as the "Prospective Encounters" which explored new works along with the composer in alternative venues. During his tenure, the Philharmonic inaugurated the "Live From Lincoln Center" television series in 1976, and the Orchestra continues to appear on the Emmy Award-winning program to the present day. Boulez made a series of quadraphonic recordings for Columbia, including an extensive series of the orchestral music of Maurice Ravel.
Ambassadors abroad
Zubin Mehta, then one of the youngest of a new generation of internationally known conductors, became Music Director in 1978. His tenure was the longest in Philharmonic history, lasting until 1991. Throughout his time on the podium Mehta showed a strong commitment to contemporary music, presenting 52 works for the first time. In 1980 the Philharmonic, always known as a touring orchestra, embarked on a European tour marking the 50th anniversary of Toscanini's trip to Europe.
Kurt Masur, who had been conducting the Philharmonic frequently since his debut in 1981, became Music Director in 1991. In addition to bringing the Orchestra to new virtuosic heights, the highlights of his tenure included a series of free Memorial Day Concerts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and annual concert tours abroad that included the orchestra's first trip to mainland China. His tenure concluded in 2002, and he was named Music Director Emeritus of the Philharmonic.
A third century, 2000
Lorin Maazel
In 2000, Lorin Maazel made a guest-conducting appearance with the New York Philharmonic in two weeks of subscription concerts after an absence of over twenty years,[11] which was met with a positive reaction from the orchestra musicians.[12] This engagement led to his appointment in January 2001 as the orchestra's next Music Director.[13] He assumed the post in September 2002, 60 years after making his debut with the Orchestra at the age of twelve at Lewisohn Stadium. In his first subscription week he led the world premiere of John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls commissioned in memory of those who died on September 11, 2001. Maazel concluded his tenure as the Philharmonic's Music Director at the end of the 2008-2009 season.
In 2003, due to ongoing concerns with the acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall, there was a proposal to move the New York Philharmonic back to Carnegie Hall and merge the two organizations, but this proposal did not come to fruition.[14] Currently, Avery Fisher Hall is scheduled to undergo renovations starting in 2010. On December 18, 2004, the New York Philharmonic performed its 14,000th concert, a milestone unmatched by any other symphony orchestra in the world, setting a Guinness World Record.
On July 18, 2007, the Philharmonic named Alan Gilbert as its next music director, effective with the 2009-2010 season.[15]
The Philharmonic performed in Pyongyang at the invitation of the North Korean government on February 26, 2008. The event was the first significant cultural visit to the country from the United States since the end of the Korean War. The concert was held at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre. The program included the national anthems of both North Korea (Aegukka) and the United States (The Star-Spangled Banner), the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin by Richard Wagner, Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 "From the New World", George Gershwin's An American in Paris, Georges Bizet's Farandole, Leonard Bernstein's Overture to Candide, and the popular Korean folk song Arirang.[16] The Dvořák, Gershwin, and Bernstein works were each originally premiered by the New York Philharmonic.
The visit was anticipated as an opportunity to broaden relations with one of the world's most isolated nations.[17] The U.S. State Department viewed the invitation as a potential softening of anti-U.S. propaganda. In response to initial criticism of performing a concert limited to the privileged elite,[18] the New York Philharmonic arranged for the concert to be broadcast live on North Korean television and radio.[19] It was additionally broadcasted live on CNN and CNN International.
Music directors
1842-1849 Ureli Corelli Hill, Henry Timm, Denis Etienne, William Alpers, George Loder, Louis Wiegers and Alfred Boucher
The Leonard Bernstein scholar-in-residence program was established in 2005 in recognition of the fifteenth anniversary of Bernstein's death. The scholar-in-residence gives an annual lecture series and is also featured in performances with the NYP. Conductor Charles Zachary Bornstein was the program's first scholar-in-residence, serving in that position from 2005 through 2008. James M. Keller held the position during the 2008-09 season and American baritone Thomas Hampson was appointed to the post in July 2009.[20]
^ Original Constitution of Philharmonic Society of New York, April 1842, New York Philharmonic Archives
^Shanet, Howard (1975). Philharmonic: A History of New York's Orchestras. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. p. 79-86.
^Lawrence, Vera Brodsky (1988). Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836-1875, Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. p. xxx-xxi.
^ Horowitz (2005), p. 195 quotes the periodical Musical America as follows:
“
After much upheaval, search and negotiation, the New York Philharmonic Society ... has engaged Josef Stransky... Without disrespect to Mr. Stransky, there are reasons which cause this circumstance to remind one of Aesop's fable of the mountain in labor which finally brought forth a mouse
Erskine, John (1943). The Philharmonic Society Of New York: Its First Hundred Years. New York: The Macmillan Company. OCLC401676.
Huneker, James Gibbons (1917). The Philharmonic Society Of New York and its 75th Anniversary; A Retrospect. New York; London: Novello Ewer and Co.. OCLC918560.
Krehbiel, Henry Edward (1892). The Philharmonic Society Of New York: ‘A Memorial’. New York; London: Novello Ewer and Co. OCLC1307721.
Lawrence, Vera Brodsky; Strong, George T. (1988). Strong On Music: The New York Music Scene in The Days of George Templeton Strong vol. 1-3. Chicago: The University Of Chicago Press. ISBN0195041992.
