A Sound Tradition. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz
concert business was final” (Blaukopf).
Along with Jauner also came a new 32-year-old conductor, to whom neither the opera nor the orchestra were new. Hans Richter was a native Austrian and former hornist in the Vienna orchestra. In 1866 he gave up his position in order to copy the Meistersinger score for Richard Wagner. This close connection lasted a lifetime: Richter was the best man at Richard’s and Cosima’s wedding, and he conducted the world premiere of the Ring des Nibelungen in Bayreuth in 1876 and its first performance at the Vienna Court Opera a little later. He died at Bayreuth in 1916 and is buried there. Richter was not only the leading Wagner conductor of his time, he was also leader of the Philharmonic concerts for a quarter of a century (with a short interruption).
As a former colleague, Richter did not enjoy the status of a detached, aloof magus at the podium, but rather that of a primus inter pares, as Arthur Nikisch later did, who had spent three years as a violinist in the orchestra, or like Willi Boskovsky, who while officiating as concertmaster led the New Year’s Concert 25 times.
In his last letter to “his” orchestra (which he had left long before for a lucrative career in England), Hans Richter wrote in April 1913 that he must “gratefully acknowledge that I learned how to conduct from the orchestra. Of course, it has to be an orchestra as splendid as the Vienna Philharmonic; it is only in dealing with an orchestra like that you can learn what you can dare to do as a conductor.”
Developing the Repertory
In the 1840’s, Viennese Classicism played the dominant role in the programming of our orchestra, first of all Beethoven, who composed 60% of all the works performed. Johann Sebastian Bach was not in the repertory of those years, nor was Franz Schubert, who only “debuted” in 1857 with his “Great” Symphony in C major. Otto Nicolai had performed his own works only rarely. Rather, we find “stars” of the composer scene in the 19th century such as Cherubini, later Meyerbeer, Goldmark or Rubinstein— almost forgotten nowadays.
However, the “hostility” of the Philharmonic toward “modern” composers is a myth; in the 120 subscription concerts of the Dessoff era (1860-1875), 208 of the 265 works performed were new compositions. These were played through in so-called “Novitätenproben” (new work tryouts) and then voted on. Isolated new works would occasionally be accepted even “per acclamationem,” that is, unanimous approval by applause, as for example the 1865 overture to Sakuntala by Karl Goldmark. The fact that certain other works of Brahms and Bruckner, for example, fell through the cracks may seem ridiculous from today’s standpoint. In his first committee meeting as Chairman on June 4, 1875, Hans Richter cautioned that Hector Berlioz and Liszt were not getting enough attention; the former’s Symphonie fantastique first found a slot in 1862, while Liszt had his last concert with the Philharmonic in January 1874 (the celebrated pianist played his Hungarian Rhapsody and his orchestration of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy). In the 19th
Conductor Hans Richter dominated the “Golden Era.” century, the canonical repertory of today was still, while the works were brand new, the object of feuds and hostilities.
Let us take the now uncontroversial Peter I. Tchaikovsky as an example: the first work of his to be heard in the Philharmonic was the overture to Romeo and Juliet in 1876. Five years later, events led to a noteworthy Tchaikovsky world premiere, though rejected by public and critics alike: Adolf Brodzky, who had temporarily been a violinist in the Vienna Philharmonic but then decided on a solo career, gave the Violin Concerto its baptismal rites. Critic Eduard Hanslick, highly renowned to this day, having already rejected the works of Wagner and Bruckner, again demonstrated his limitations, aligning this work among those “pieces of music you can hear stink.” The Russian was finally able to achieve posthumous recognition with the Vienna premiere of his 6th Symphony (Pathétique) in March of 1895.
Orchestra photo from 1865, the proudly bearded Hans Richter in the center
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