Файл: Vienna Philharmonic.docx

Instruments: At least a part of the characteristic sound of the Vienna Philharmonic has been attributed to the use of instruments that differ from those used by other major orchestras:

• The orchestra's standard tuning pitch is A⁴=443 Hz; the tuning standard for A⁴ is generally considered at a frequency of 440 Hz.

• The VPO uses the German-system (Öhler system) clarinet. By comparison, the Boehm-system clarinet is favored in non-German speaking countries.

• Likewise, while the Heckel bassoon is now the norm for most orchestras around the world, in the VPO the Heckel bassoon is played almost completely without vibrato.

• The rotary-valve trumpet is used, but unlike most other Germanic orchestras the VPO prefers smaller bore rotary trumpets from makers such as Heckel and Lechner.

• Like its counterparts elsewhere in Austria, Germany and Russia, the VPO favors the F bass and B-flat contrabass rotary-valve tuba, whereas the CC piston-valve tuba is preferred in most American and some British orchestras.

• The trombone has a somewhat smaller bore, but this is also true of the trombone used in many German orchestras.

• The timpani have the Schnellar System in which the kettle pushed up as opposed to the head being pulled down. Hans Schnellar was the timpanist in the early 20th century, and personally made these drums. They also use goat skin heads as opposed to calf skin or plastic heads.

• The double bass retains the traditional theater-placement in a row behind the brass. The VPO uses 4- as well as 5-string double basses, with the bow always being held underhand (German bow).

• The Wiener oboe is, along with the Vienna horn (see below), perhaps the most distinctive member of the VPO instrumentarium. It has a special bore, reed and fingering-system and is very different from the otherwise internationally used Conservatoire (French) oboe.

• The Vienna horn in F uses a Pumpenventil. Unlike the rotary valves used on most other orchestral horns, the Pumpenventil contributes to the liquid legato that is one of the trademarks of the Viennese school. The bore of the Vienna horn is also smaller than more modern horns—actually very close to that of the valveless natural horn. The Vienna horn has remained virtually unchanged since the mid-nineteenth century—as a result it is arguably well-suited to the Classical and Romantic repertoire at the core of the VPO's programming.

On the other hand, at least two instruments or instrument families are like those in other orchestras. According to the Vienna Philharmonic's website, "the flute is largely the same as the conventional Böhm flute, which is widely used all over the world. However, it did not replace the wooden flute in Vienna until the 1920's." Also, the Viennese string sound should not be attributed to unique attributes of the instruments, according to the VPO, which writes on its website, "There can be no doubt that the Viennese string instruments themselves, unlike the winds, are not of prime importance in producing the orchestra's unique sound. With a few exceptions, the quality of the instruments of the string section is not particularly outstanding". To be sure, the instruments are of high quality; the National Bank of Austria currently loans four violins made by Antonio Stradivari to the VPO.

The VPO's instruments and their characteristic tone-colors have been the subject of extensive scientific studies by Gregor Widholm and others at the Institute of Music Acoustics (Wiener Klangstil – Viennese Tone Style) at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. The Vienna Philharmonic's website generalizes about its wind and brass instruments in terms of overtones: "With the exception of the flute and, to some extent, the bassoon, the typical differences in tone of Viennese wind and brass instruments can be described as follows: They are richer in overtones, i.e., the sound tone is brighter."

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Playing Styles: The orchestra in 2004 began offering a summer institute, the International Orchestra Institute Attergau for Wiener Klangstil, to instruct other musicians in the Viennese playing style.

Hurwitz notes that the 1960 Walter interview indicates that the strings's vibrato (as of 1960) was audibly like that of 1897, and also quotes music critic Richard Specht in 1919 writing of "something inimitable in the vibrato and the passionate virtuosity of the violins" of the Vienna Philharmonic.

As for other instruments, using early recordings, the musicologist Robert Philip has documented some changes in how VPO players used vibrato during the mid-20th century, although he also notes differences between the VPO and other orchestras of the era. As was typical of the era, the pre-1945 flutes show "very little vibrato" in recordings "until after World War II... even in the long solo in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde the flautist [under Bruno Walter in 1936]... plays almost without vibrato" except on "a few long notes [with] a delicate medium-speed vibrato"; but "by the late 1940s the flautists... had adopted a gentle medium-speed vibrato". The oboes before the 1940s show "little or no vibrato," but by the late 1940s "the principal oboist had adopted a very delicate fast vibrato ... but he uses it very sparingly." (The cor anglais is, he notes, even in the late 1940s still played "without any vibrato"). The bassoonists "show virtually no bassoon vibrato up to the 1950s".

The Vienna Philharmonic website states that today, with the flute, "as in all wind and brass instruments in the Viennese classics, vibrato is used very sparingly."

Philips notes that by 1931 the Vienna Philharmonic strings were reported to use uniform bowing, which was still unusual in Britain. As for portamento – sliding audibly from one note to another, a prominent effect among pre-war string players – the VPO strings' sliding in the early 1930s "sounds more deliberately expressive, and less a matter of routine, than that of British orchestras. This is partly because of the firmer dynamic shaping of the melodic line, partly because of the warmer and fuller string tone." Further, he hears "strong evidence of a free approach to portamento" – that is, of "different players shifting at different points" within the same phrase (which, he shows, was standard internationally in pre-war orchestral playing). He notices a reduced use of portamento in recordings from 1931 to 1936, but in 1936 also notes that the VPO strings still make "conspicuous" use of portamento in Mozart, where British orchestras by this time were using less of it in Classical-era composers. Finally, he hears a "trend towards greater subtlety in the use of portamento" post-war, with "only discreet portamento" in a recording under Herbert von Karajan in 1949.

Controversies

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Orchestral membership of women and non-European ethnicities

The Vienna Philharmonic did not accept women to permanent membership until 1997, far later than comparable orchestras (of the other orchestras ranked among the world’s top five byGramophone (magazine) in 2008, the last to appoint a woman to a permanent position was the Berlin Philharmonic, which did so in 1982.) As late as February 1996, first flautist Dieter Flury told Westdeutscher Rundfunk that accepting women would be "gambling with the emotional unity (emotionelle Geschlossenheit) that this organism currently has". In April 1996, the orchestra’s press secretary wrote that "compensating for the expected leaves of absence" of maternity leave was a problem that they "do not yet see how to get a grip on" in ongoing consultations with the Women's Ministry of the Austrian Republic about women in the orchestra.

In February, 1997, Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima told the orchestra "at an awards ceremony that there was 'creative potential in the other half of humanity and this should be used.'"The orchestra, wrote the New York Times, was "facing protests during a [US] tour" by the National Organization for Women and International Association of Women in Music. Finally, "after being held up to increasing ridicule even in socially conservative Austria, members of the orchestra gathered [on February 28, 1997] in an extraordinary meeting on the eve of their departure and agreed to admit a woman, Anna Lelkes, as harpist." According to Lelkes, who had played as an adjunct with the orchestra since 1974, the orchestra was "terribly frightened by the possibility of demonstrations by American women's rights activists. I believe that this pressure was decisive"; she adds that the orchestra voted to accept her not unanimously but "by a large majority," and that the vote showed generational differences, with retired members voting against her but "quite a few [younger players] got together and even got organized and said this can't go on any longer. The younger generation stood up for me..."

As of 2013, the orchestra has six female members; one of them, violinist Albena Danailova became one of the orchestra’s concertmasters in 2008, the first woman to hold that position. In January 2005, Australian conductor Simone Young became the first woman to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. In late December, 2012, the issue of gender balance remained a concern in Austria: Austrian Radio ORF (broadcaster) noted that women still made up just 6% of the orchestra's membership, compared to 14% in the Berlin Philharmonic, 30% in the London Symphony Orchestra, and 36% in the New York Philharmonic; it acknowledged progress but raised concerns that it was too slow. On the other hand, it quoted VPO president Clemens Hellsberg as saying that the VPO now uses completely blind auditions, simply chooses "the best we get,” implying that full gender equity would take time as older members retire and new ones audition under gender-neutral conditions. (The Vienna Philharmonic will hire no musician over 35 years of age, and has a mandatory retirement age of 65; 30 years of service are required to receive a full pension.)

There have also been claims that the orchestra has not always accepted members who are visibly members of ethnic minorities. In 1970, Otto Strasser, the former chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, wrote in his memoirs, "I hold it incorrect that today the applicants play behind a screen; an arrangement that was brought in after the Second World War in order to assure objective judgments. I continuously fought against it... because I am convinced that to the artist also belongs the person, that one must not only hear, but also see, in order to judge him in his entire personality. [...] Even a grotesque situation that played itself out after my retirement was not able to change the situation. An applicant qualified himself as the best, and as the screen was raised, there stood a Japanese before the stunned jury. He was, however, not engaged, because his face did not fit with the Pizzicato-Polka of the New Year's Concert." In 1996, flautist Flury still expressed the view that "The soul does not let itself be separated from the cultural roots that we have here in central Europe."

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In 2001 a violinist who was half-Asian became a member. The full list of musicians, men and women, including those playing with the Vienna Philharmonic but are not members of the VPo association, is accessible on the website of the Vienna Philharmonic.

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Period under National Socialism

The Vienna Philharmonic was for decades accused of withholding or suppressing information about its connections in the mid-20th-century to the Nazi Party. The first orchestral representative to discuss the issue was Clemens Hellsberg (also trained as a musicologist), when he wrote the orchestra’s official sesquicentennial history, Demokratie der Könige(Democracy of Kings),. In it he determined that at the end of World War II 47% of orchestra members belong to the Nazi Party or affiliates (the total number is now known to be 49%), that upon the Anschluss thirteen Jewish players were fired, that six of them were murdered (the number is now known to be seven), and "that the VPO once gave a concert in an SS barracks." But more remained to be investigated and made public, and access to relevant material in the orchestra's archives was highly restricted. Hellsberg, who became the orchestra’s president in 1997, did not have full access to the archives until 2000/2001, and the historian Fritz Trümpi reports that when he began researching the orchestra's Third Reich activities in 2003 and requested access, he "was rebuffed by the management of the orchestra with a firm 'no' ... the idea that external researchers could come and root around in their archive was long considered taboo." Trümpi was granted access in 2007, but other researchers reported continued exclusion, such as Bernadette Mayrhoffer in 2008; the Austrian newspaper Die Presse reported in 2008 (in Sebastian Huebel's summary) that "scholars have had difficulties investigating the Vienna Philharmonic as they were not allowed access to the archives, or sources were delivered reluctantly and with timely delays."

The 2013 New Year's Day concert evoked critical discussion of the issue in the Austrian press and from Austrian parliamentarian Harald Walser. Shortly thereafter, Hellsberg commissioned an independent panel of three historians – Trümpi, his dissertation adviser Oliver Rathkolb (a professor at the University of Vienna), and Bernadette Mayrhofer – to fully investigate the orchestra's Third Reich activities and (to quote the orchestra’s Facebook feed), "in the spirit of transparency," publish the results on the orchestra's website. The panel was given unrestricted access to the archives. Rathkolb told an interviewer, "We were able to find new documents in a cellar, which normally contained archived music. It was an orchestra member who directed us to it."

On March 10, 2013—a date chosen to precede March 12, the 75th anniversary of the Third Reich's union with Austria, the Anschluss—the panel published its findings in a set of reports posted on the orchestra's website at. Among the panel's findings are:

• Before the Anschluss in the mid-1930s Rathkolb writes in the introduction to the main webpage, "20% of the members of the orchestra belonged to the Nazi party." Former Vienna State Opera Secretary-General Ioan Holender notes that these members joined out of conviction, rather than for professional advancement, as party membership was illegal in Austria at the time.

• By the orchestra's centennial in 1942, Rathkolb writes, "60 of the 123 active [Vienna Philharmonic] orchestral musicians had become members of the [Nazi Party]" –that is, 48.8%. Two were members of the SS. By contrast, in the other major German-speaking orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, Trümpi found that "barely 20%" were party members. For further comparison, party membership in Austria as a whole was 10%.

• The thirteen Jewish members of the orchestra were expelled upon the Anschluss. Six of them escaped into exile; the other seven were killed – five in concentration camps, and two while still in Vienna, writes Rathkolb, "as a direct result of attempted deportation and persecution."

• Rathkolb writes, "A total of nine orchestra members were driven into exile [including the six Jewish members noted above] ... The eleven remaining orchestra members who were married to Jewish women or stigmatized as 'half-Jewish' lived under the constant threat of revocation of their 'special permission.' ... It was only the intervention of Wilhelm Furtwängler and other individuals which ... with two exceptions, saved [these 11 remaining] 'half-Jews' and 'closely-related' from dismissal from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra."

• Of the musicians hired to replace the 13 dismissed Jewish members, about half were Nazi Party members, Rathkolb says.

• The panel revealed in new detail how the New Year's concerts began during the Nazi era. The first concert, given on New Year's Eve in 1939, was proposed by conductor Clemens Krauss and enthusiastically approved by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, because it served the Reich's purposes of "propaganda through entertainment." (The concert was moved to New Year's Day for the concerts held from 1941–45; it was revived in 1947 when it was conducted by Josef Krips, who had not been able to conduct during the war years because he was half-Jewish.) Further, the profits from the 1939 concert were "donated entirely to the national-socialistic fund-raising campaign 'Kriegswinterhilfswerk' The reports also note that Goebbels privately decided to ignore information about the partial Jewish ancestry of the Strauss family (Johann Strauss I's grandfather was Jewish by birth) partly because "it was not proven" and partly because he did "not want to undermine the entire German cultural heritage."

• At the war's end in 1945, the orchestra expelled ten of its members for Nazi activity; two were re-hired in ensuing years. One of them, trumpeter Helmut Wobisch, had joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and the SS in 1934, and during the war served as a spy for the Gestapo. He was rehired to the orchestra in 1950, and appointed executive director of the orchestra in 1953, remaining in the position until 1967.

• The panel determined that it was Wobisch who in 1966 privately gave a replacement copy of the orchestra's "Ring of Honor" to Baldur von Schirach after the latter's release from Spandau Prison. As a result of the panel's reports, the Carinthian Summer Festival in Klagenfurt, Austria, cancelled its annual concert in honor of Wobisch (who was co-founder of the festival).

• The panel details how the orchestra gave "a great number of honorific awards… to Nazi potentates, including Arthur Seyss-Inquart [who was sentenced to death for his crimes against humanity in 1946] and Baldur von Schirach [who was sentenced to 20 years in Spandau Prison for his]." The orchestra also planned internally to give its highest award (the Nicolai Gold Medal) to Adolf Hitler in 1942, but there is no evidence that this award was ever given. (Rathkolb has told the press that Hellsberg "has asked [the orchestra] to revoke the rings of honour to these people.")

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