On 28 March 1842, members of what was then the Court Opera Orchestra gave a concert under the baton of music director Otto Nicolai in Vienna’s Grand Ballroom. This marked the birth of the Vienna Philharmonic. The principles established then have continued to serve as a guide ever since. One is the stipulation that only musicians of the Vienna State Opera (at that time the Court Opera) can become members of the Vienna Philharmonic. Another is that all decisions relating to artistic, organizational, and financial autonomy are made by general assembly. In 1877 the Philharmonic performed for the first time outside Vienna, in connection with what was called the Salzburg Music Festival; in 1900 came the first performance in a foreign country, on the occasion of the Paris World Exposition, with Gustav Mahler conducting. In addition to Mahler, other composers who have appeared on the podium are Wagner, Verdi, Bruckner, Brahms, and, above all, Richard Strauss. The list of music directors up to 1933 includes such names as Hans Richter, Gustav Mahler, Felix Weingartner, Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Clemens Krauss. Thereafter the model of a single principal conductor was abandoned in favor of a close partnership with several different personalities. These have included Arturo Toscanini, Erich Kleiber, Karl Böhm, Hans Knappertsbusch, Bruno Walter, Herbert von Karajan, and Leonard Bernstein. In recent decades, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Carlos Kleiber, Seiji Ozawa, Christian Thielemann, and Franz Welser-Möst as well as others have regularly conducted. Highlights of the Philharmonic’s artistic activities include its celebrated New Year’s concerts, the summer-long residency at the Salzburg Festival, and tours of the United States and Japan, as well as guest appearances in London, Paris, and Lucerne. ROLEX is the exclusive partner of the Vienna Philharmonic.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 1 September 1957 in works by Schumann, Barber, and Beethoven, under the direction of Dimitri Mitropoulos.
August 2011