A Sound Tradition. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz
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Even if the orchestra does occasionally sleep, in the Musikverein the golden caryatids still keep watch.
A Tour
A Stroll through Vienna and through the History of an Orchestra
May I interest you in a little tour of the city? In less than twenty minutes, we will stroll by the most important centers of Philharmonic life of Vienna.
Home Base: the Musikverein
Let us begin with the Karlsplatz. Behind us, the baroque splendor of the Karlskirche, Ressel Park with its Brahms memorial, and the Technical University (formerly the Imperial and Royal Polytechnic Institute, where the Strauss brothers Johann and Josef studied). In front of us is the Musikverein building by Ringstrasse architect Theophil Hansen, who also designed the Vienna Parliament building, the Academy of Fine Arts at the Schillerplatz, the Stock Exchange on the Schottenring, and numerous palatial residences of the capital city. The home of the “Society of Friends of Music in Vienna” (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien), founded in 1812, also houses the administrative offices of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (or as it is called in good old Austrian bureaucratese, the “Chancellery.”) Here, in the Great, or “Golden,” Hall of the Musikverein, since it opened in 1870, the subscription concerts of the Philharmonic as well as the New Year’s Day Concerts take place, which have contributed to its international standing.
Stars are set into the paving stones in front of the façade with the names of important musicians: the Austrian symphonic composer Anton Bruckner, the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, the contemporary German-Austrian composer Gottfried von Einem, and the Romantic Franz Schubert. These commemorative plaques are part of the “Vienna Music Mile.” This memorial is quite neglected nowadays and certainly not a worthy “walk of fame” for the music metropolis, but can nonetheless serve as a reminder and orientation guide.
Going By the Ticket and Ball Office…
We cross Bösendorferstraße, bearing the name of the famed Viennese piano manufacturer, and walk down Dumbastraße (named for the Austrian industrialist Nikolaus von Dumba, who was vice president of the Musikverein and board member of the Vienna Men’s Choral Association in the late 19th century), to the Kärntner Ring, where we will turn left.
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 Kärntnertor,” the forerunner of the Opera on the Ring stood in this spot. If we just scan the decades before the founding of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Kärntnertor-Theater premiered performances of, among other things, a Schauspielmusik and a piano concerto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, operas by Joseph Haydn, Antonio Salieri, Conradin Kreutzer, Carl Maria von Weber and Franz Schubert. Schubert’s song Der Erlkönig was first heard here in 1821, and eight years later, Frédéric Chopin had his Viennese debut as a pianist in this theater.
The most significant moments in the house’s history are associated with the name of Ludwig van Beethoven: the premiere of the final version of Fidelio occurred on May 23, 1814, and that of the Ninth Symphony on May 7, 1824. And both were performed by members of the orchestra that was to become the Vienna Philharmonic. The Viennese public felt such a close connection to this musically important site that when the Hotel Sacher was built on the same place, it was forbidden in writing to have any opera performance there.
We could turn right and go on along the continuation of Philharmonikerstraße (Walfischgasse no. 13 was once “Café Parsifal”, frequented equally by opera cast, staff and audience members) but we shall instead stroll up Kärntner Straße. At the end of the block is Maysedergasse, named for the violin virtuoso Joseph Mayseder, who was both a “Concert and Solo performer” at the Court Opera Theater. He never became a member of the Philharmonic, but nonetheless appeared as a soloist in the orchestra’s first concert. We turn right onto Annagasse, at the start of which we are greeted by a memorial star for Arturo Toscanini. The Italian “maestrissimo” shaped the history of our orchestra for only a few years: his debut in October 1933 marked the start of the guest conductor system at the Philharmonic. In early 1938, the fiercely democratic Italian decided to shun Austria, now joined to the German Reich by the Anschluss, and its top class orchestra.
The Haus der Musik
We saunter down Annagasse (passing by the Ristorante Sole, where artists and the public like to go after opera performances), at the end of which is the Haus