A Sound Tradition. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz
building during his service as Viennese Hofopernkapellmeister (Court Opera conductor). A memorial tablet placed in 1942 (at the hundred year jubilee of his once-in-a-century idea to form a concert ensemble from the opera orchestra) shows Nicolai’s portrait, the dates of his all-too-short life (1810-1849), and the date of the first concert he conducted (March 28, 1842—a date we shall not forget so quickly!) remind us of this music-historical milestone.
The text on the house on Seilerstätte opposite turns out to be much more flowery: the marble tablet commemorates the legendary dancer Fanny Elßler, who was born the same year as Nicolai, but lived until 1884, and whose fame became downright mythical. The inscription: “She was the smiling face of her century, one of those rare masterworks whom the creator weighs in his hands for many ages, before releasing them to life.” The most frequently performed work of the 1823/24 season in the Kärntnertor-Theater was the magical ballet The Fairy and the Knight/Die Fee und der Ritter—and the record-breaking number of performances was due to none other than its star: Fanny Elßler.
Let us enter the Haus der Musik, the former “Palais Erzherzog Carl” in the Seilerstätte. It houses, among other things, the Historical Archive of the Orchestra as well as certain publicly accessible memorabilia from the rich history of the orchestra in the Museum of the Vienna Philharmonic.
On the first floor, we pass by displays devoted to the history of the Vienna State Opera before entering a room containing information on the history of the world-famous New Year’s Day Concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic. To the right we are led into an imaginary concert hall, where visitors can experience the high points of the last New Year’s Concert or the Summer Night Concert of the Philharmonic, on large-screen displays. To the left is the historic Hall of Mirrors. Here there is documentation on concert tours, honors and distinctions, the Vienna Philharmonic Ball and the orchestra’s artistic collaborations with composers such as Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, Franz Schmidt and Alban Berg, using original objects.
One’s eye falls on the batons of numerous prominent orchestra leaders— at first glance, that of Toscanini looks to be as long as the others. But if we recall that the Italian maestro used to use an especially long stick to conduct with, we look a bit closer—and in fact, the stick is broken off. This probably occurred as the result of one of its owner’s legendary fits of rage…
The adjoining Nicolai Room has a special document of Austrian cultural history on display: the decree founding the Vienna Philharmonic (see page 27). It also contains the first photograph of the orchestra (1864) and pictures of Otto Nicolai, the violinists Georg and Joseph Hellmesberger and others. And last but not least, the program of the first Philharmonic concert…you surely remember the date!
1842—What a Year!
We could continue our wanderings onto Singerstraße; the inn “Zum Amor” once stood there, where, according to a romantic account, the founding of the orchestra is said to have occurred; then, around the corner in Grünangergasse, in the editorial room of the Allgemeine MusikZeitung the plan was in fact conceived to form the first professional “sound body” of Vienna to give independent concerts…But now it’s time for a pause. If we put that mythic year of 1842 under a magnifying glass, it shows itself to be a most significant year. Let’s pull out the most important dates:
On March 3rd, the “Scottish” Symphony of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy had its world premiere in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus and was conducted by the composer. A short week later, on March 9th, Giuseppe Verdi’s first international success, Nabucco, first appeared on stage at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Verdi was a fateful figure for Otto Nicolai in two senses: for one, the latter had rejected the (in his opinion) inferior Nabucco libretto (“endless raging, blood-letting, screaming, beating and murdering is no subject for me”) and in so doing opened up a pathway for the younger Italian to world fame. And for another, Nicolai’s greatest opera success, The Merry Wives of Windsor, was outmatched more than 40 years later by Verdi’s masterpiece on the same subject, Falstaff, and—unjustly—eclipsed by it. It is no surprise to us that Nicolai could simply not abide the Italian’s music: “He orchestrates like a fool […he] must have a heart like a donkey’s, and is truly in my eyes a pitiful, contemptible composer.”
The scarcely thirty-year-old Verdi visited Vienna in April of 1843 and conducted his Nabucco at the Kärntnertor-Theater—and thus with the musicians of the Philharmonic Orchestra. They had already performed the world premiere of Gaetano Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix on May 19, 1842. It is noteworthy that the “Rossini-Craze” of the early 20’s, that is, the rage for the composer of the Barber of Seville, was “reignited” two decades later with Donizetti. Back then, German opera played second fiddle in Vienna, even though its greatest master was already standing at the door: Richard Wagner’s Rienzi was produced on October 20, 1842, at the Royal Court Theater of Dresden. It was not to have its first Austrian performance until May 30, 1871, in the “new” house on the Ring. Other new works of note in the year 1842: Michail Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla (December 9 in Saint Petersburg) and finally, on the last day of the year, Albert Lortzing’s Der Wildschütz at the Stadttheater in Leipzig.
Arrigo Boito, the Italian composer and librettist (of Verdi’s last operas, Otello and Falstaff, among others) was born on February 24 of 1842, the operetta composers Carl Millöcker, Arthur Sullivan and Carl Zeller on April 29th, May 13th and June 19th. Our orchestra had hardly any contact at all with the latter-mentioned composers; more, though, with the works of the Frenchman Jules Massenet, who was born on May 12th: his opera Werther had its world premiere in the Vienna Court Opera in 1892.
The birthday of a sister institution should be mentioned, which falls on the 2nd of April 1842: the “Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York” was founded on that day, thus making the New York Philharmonic just a few days younger than the one in Vienna and the oldest symphony orchestra of the USA. Two death dates will round out this musical review of 1842: Mozart’s widow Constanze passed away on March 6 in Salzburg (a mere 51 years after her husband!) and the then celebrated composer Luigi Cherubini died on March 15th in Paris. When the Vienna Philharmonic, then still known as “Orchestral Personnel of the Imperial and Royal Court Opera Theater”, gave its first concert, it included two pieces by the late composer in its program.
In the Nicolai Room of the Haus der Musik, we are in fact physically close to the founding of the Philharmonic, and we can hardly believe that at one time other “founding” dates were being talked about besides this year of 1842…but more of that in the next chapter.
Our ramble through Vienna from the Musikverein to the Haus der Musik
As a token of gratitude for the first Philharmonic concert, the orchestra presented Otto Nicolai with a portrait of himself (lithograph by Josef Kriehuber).
Old and New Home
Founding and Establishing the Orchestra (1842-1870)
After our tour of present-day Vienna, we will now journey into the history of our orchestra to discover more than one anticipation of the present. Today, it is almost impossible to imagine that in the first third of the 19th century, no professional orchestra existed in Vienna. Even Ludwig van Beethoven had to resort to amateur organizations for the performance of his symphonies.
The First “Ninth” and the “Künstler-Verein”
In many respects, the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in May 1824 was the first signal flare of the Philharmonic idea. It took place in the Kärntnertor-Theater and