Philharmonia Orchestra

The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Arturo Toscanini; of the Philharmonia's younger conductors, the most important to its development was Herbert von Karajan who, though never formally chief conductor, was closely associated with the orchestra in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Philharmonia became widely regarded as the finest of London's five symphony orchestras in its first two decades.

From the late 1950s to the early 1970s the orchestra's chief conductor was Otto Klemperer, with whom the orchestra gave many concerts and made numerous recordings of the core orchestral repertoire. During Klemperer's tenure Legge, citing the difficulty of maintaining the orchestra's high standards, attempted to disband it in 1964, but the players, backed by Klemperer, formed themselves into a self-governing ensemble as the New Philharmonia Orchestra. After thirteen years under this title, they negotiated the rights to revert to the original name.

In Klemperer's last years the orchestra suffered a decline, both financial and artistic, but recovered under his successor, Riccardo Muti, who revitalised the orchestra in his ten-year term from 1972 to 1982. The orchestra's standards remained high throughout the controversial chief conductorship of Giuseppe Sinopoli from 1984 to 1994, and the more orthodox tenure of Christoph von Dohnányi between 1997 and 2008. Esa-Pekka Salonen, principal conductor from 2008 to 2021 was succeeded by Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

The Philharmonia has had many celebrated players in its ranks and has commissioned more than 100 compositions. It gives more than 160 concerts a year, tours widely, and from its inception has been known for its many recordings.

History

Background

The name "Philharmonia" was adopted by the impresario and recording producer Walter Legge for a string quartet he brought together in 1941, comprising Henry Holst, Jean Pougnet, Frederick Riddle and Anthony Pini. The name was taken from the title page of the published score Legge used for the first work they recorded. Temporarily augmented to a septet, the ensemble gave its first concert in the Wigmore Hall, the main item being Ravel's Introduction and Allegro. He later set out his guiding principles:

Before the war, Legge had been assistant to Sir Thomas Beecham at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Both men wrongly assumed that they would be able to resume their control of the opera house after the war, and Legge conceived of a new orchestra based there, operating on the lines of the Vienna Philharmonic – playing in the pit for the opera and also giving concerts and making records on its own account. The committee appointed by the British government to re-establish opera and ballet at Covent Garden abandoned the pre-war system of opera seasons, in favour of a permanent year-round company. Neither Beecham nor Legge was invited to run it. Legge nevertheless decided to go ahead with his plans to form an orchestra. Although London already had three permanent symphony orchestras – the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) and London Philharmonic (LPO), their personnel and standards had declined during the war and he was convinced he could do better.

First concerts

Legge secured the services of many talented young musicians still serving in the armed forces. He first assembled a "Philharmonia String Orchestra" for recordings in 1945, composed of musicians from the RAF orchestra. He then recruited wind and percussion players, including some of the country's top instrumentalists who had been playing in other orchestras during the war. more than sixty per cent of the players were still officially in the services. Beecham conducted the concert (for the fee of one cigar), but as he refused to be Legge's employee and Legge refused to cede control of the orchestra, they went their separate ways. Beecham founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) the following year.

Unlike the existing London orchestras, but like Beecham's Royal Philharmonic, the early Philharmonia was not a permanent ensemble: it was convened ad hoc from available players on Legge's list. Several of those players were also on Beecham's list, and were able to play for both orchestras, including the horn player, Dennis Brain, the clarinettist Reginald Kell and the timpanist James Bradshaw. Although this gave both orchestras access to the finest players, a review of the London orchestral scene of the late 1940s commented, "The Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic share a very serious disability: that neither is a permanently constituted orchestra. Both assemble and disperse more or less at random ... there is no style which is distinctively RPO or Philharmonia." It was widely felt in musical circles that the Philharmonia was essentially a recording orchestra that also gave concerts, although Legge firmly denied this.|group= n Nevertheless, the orchestra played far fewer concerts than the older London orchestras: in 1949–50 the Philharmonia gave 32 concerts compared with 55 by the BBC SO, 103 by the LSO, and 248 by the LPO.

From its early years the orchestra played under prominent conductors including Richard Strauss for a single concert in 1947, and from 1948 onwards, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan for concerts and recordings.|group= n Filling the vast Royal Albert Hall was difficult, except for such sell-out performances as Strauss's concert, a cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos with Artur Schnabel as soloist (1946), or the world premiere of Strauss's Four Last Songs with Kirsten Flagstad as soloist and Furtwängler conducting (1950). For other, less popular, concerts in the orchestra's early years Legge was partly dependent on financial support from a musical benefactor, the last Maharaja of Mysore.

1950s: Karajan and Toscanini

thumb|upright|alt=young clean-shaven man, with dark, slicked back hair; he is studying a musical score|[[Herbert von Karajan (1938 photograph)]]

By the early 1950s the conductor most associated with the orchestra was Karajan, although he was not, officially or even unofficially, its chief conductor. Legge's practice of tying concerts in with studio recordings ensured longer than usual rehearsal time, paid for by EMI. In the early years, Karajan's concerts were criticised in the press for their unadventurous programming; but a financially hazardous tour of Europe in 1952 necessitated programmes that were box-office attractions. Karajan told the orchestra that he felt it his duty to show Europe "the exceptional qualities of tone, aristocracy and vitality" of the Philharmonia's playing. The violinist Joseph Szigeti commented that the Philharmonia "showed the Continent for the first time all the qualities of perfect chamber-music playing raised to the power of a great symphony orchestra."

While the orchestra was in Italy it so impressed Arturo Toscanini that he offered to come to London to conduct it. His two concerts at the Festival Hall in September 1952 (the four symphonies of Brahms) were a critical and commercial success. In the same year, Furtwängler conducted the orchestra and soloists headed by Flagstad in a recording of Tristan und Isolde that has remained in the catalogues ever since. Legge realised that Furtwängler was in declining health and that sooner or later Karajan would succeed him as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and Salzburg Festival and be lost to the Philharmonia. Legge began to seek out suitable successors.

1950s: Karajan to Klemperer

thumb|upright|alt=head and shoulder image of man with dark hair and spectacles, glaring towards the camera |right|[[Otto Klemperer, first principal conductor of the Philharmonia]]

As Legge had expected, Karajan succeeded to the Berlin and Salzburg positions after Furtwängler died in 1954. Karajan remained under contract to EMI, but he quickly reduced his commitments to the Philharmonia. Among alternatives favoured by Legge and the orchestra was Guido Cantelli, who conducted some well-received recordings and concerts; his death in a plane crash in 1956 at the age of thirty-six deprived the Philharmonia of a potential replacement for Karajan. Another of Legge's protégés, Carlo Maria Giulini, seemed promising, but had not at that point established himself with the orchestra or the public, and had a restricted repertory.

The year after Cantelli's death, the orchestra suffered a still worse blow with the death in a car crash of Dennis Brain, not only a supremely gifted player, but the most popular member of the orchestra among his colleagues. He was succeeded as principal horn by his deputy, Alan Civil. In The Observer Peter Heyworth wrote that with so fine a choir and "our best orchestra" and a great conductor, Legge had given London "a Beethoven cycle that any city in the world, be it Vienna or New York, would envy". In 1959 Legge abandoned his policy that the orchestra should have no permanent conductor, and appointed Klemperer "conductor-for-life".

1960–1964

In the early 1960s the Philharmonia continued to be widely regarded as London's best orchestra. The RPO went through difficult times after Beecham's death in 1961; neither the BBC SO or the LPO had yet regained its pre-war excellence; and the LSO was only in the early stages of its return to eminence. The Philharmonia entered into a new three-year contract with EMI on advantageous terms in 1960; the number of players applying to join the orchestra was increasing; its records sold well; and its concerts under Klemperer, Giulini, Sir John Barbirolli and others (occasionally including Karajan, who made his last appearance with the orchestra in 1960) were well received by the public and the critics. Unknown to the public, and to a considerable extent the players, a combination of factors beyond the orchestra's control was leading to a crisis. First, to avoid clashes of repertoire the Festival Hall management set up a committee to co-ordinate programming by the London orchestras. Secondly, at EMI a similar rationalisation was taking place, with an internal committee deciding which works producers, including Legge, could schedule. Legge, an autocrat by temperament, resented any curtailment of his personal control, and found committees intolerable. Finance also started to become a problem. The Philharmonia's lucrative recording contract depended on regular work in the studio, and having by now recorded most of the standard repertoire first in mono and again in stereo the orchestra's prospects for recording were diminishing. This meant that Legge's scope for having concert rehearsals subsidised by EMI was also shrinking.

Although few agreed with him, Legge contended that the quality of the orchestra was declining. Looking back in 1975 at the heyday of his orchestra, he singled out for particular mention not only Brain and Civil, Kell and Bradshaw, but also Clement Lawton (tuba), Arthur Gleghorn (piccolo), Gareth Morris (flute), Sidney Sutcliffe (oboe), Frederick Thurston and Bernard Walton (clarinets), Gwydion Brooke (bassoon), and two leaders, Manoug Parikian and Hugh Bean. The historian of the orchestra Stephen Pettitt comments, "If Legge thought that by suspending the Philharmonia Orchestra he was killing it, he had reckoned without the players". They formed themselves into a self-governing company, led by Bernard Walton, the principal clarinet, and adopted the name New Philharmonia Orchestra (NPO). Hitherto, the players had been technically freelance, paid by Legge for each performance, but they now became employees of the company they collectively owned, with security of employment. By 1972, seventeen of the sixty-six string players were women, although the other three sections remained exclusively male, except for the veteran harpist, Sidonie Goossens.

thumb|upright|alt=man with dark, centre-parted collar-length hair|[[Riccardo Muti (2008 photograph), chief conductor from 1972 to 1982]]

In Klemperer's later years the orchestra appointed Lorin Maazel, nominally as "associate principal conductor", from 1970, although in practice his role was more like a chief conductorship, with Klemperer as a figurehead, albeit one still capable of inspiring magnificent performances on occasion. Maazel sought more control than the self-governing orchestra was willing to concede, and resigned from his post in early 1972, although he continued to accept invitations to conduct the orchestra. Shortly afterwards, Klemperer announced his retirement; he died, aged 88, the following year. The orchestra recognised that a strong chief conductor was needed to restore its standards and finances, but there was no immediately obvious candidate. Although Legge no longer had any stake in the orchestra he watched its progress benevolently, and having spotted the potential of Riccardo Muti he recommended him to the New Philharmonia's general manager, Terence McDonald. Other potential candidates were considered, but Muti was appointed as the orchestra's chief conductor from 1973.

Muti, although he disclaimed such a description, was a firm disciplinarian, and under his conductorship the orchestra restored its standards. Richard Morrison later wrote in The Times that in his ten years in charge, Muti turned a struggling orchestra into "a great ensemble". Critics at the time commented on the orchestra's "superb performance", "immense virtuosity", its "astoundingly delicate" string playing and "woodwind phrasing even more magical than their Berlin colleagues". Muti was under contract to EMI, which brought the orchestra much valuable studio work. With Muti the orchestra recorded opera (Aida, 1974; Un ballo in maschera, 1975; Nabucco, 1977; I puritani, 1979; Cavalleria rusticana, 1979; La traviata, 1980; Orfeo ed Euridice, 1981; and Don Pasquale, 1982); a wide range of the symphonic repertoire including Schumann and Tchaikovsky cycles; concertos with soloists including Sviatoslav Richter, Andrei Gavrilov, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Gidon Kremer; and choral music by Cherubini and Vivaldi. After Legge's departure the orchestra was no longer exclusively tied to EMI, and made more than seventy recordings for Decca, starting in December 1964. Later Decca sessions were conducted by Boult, Britten, Giulini, Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Munch, Leopold Stokowski, and in 1967 Christoph von Dohnányi, who three decades later became the orchestra's chief conductor.