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. Since 1995, the orchestra has been based in the Royal Festival Hall. The Philharmonia also has residencies at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, the Corn Exchange, Bedford, and The Anvil, Basingstoke. Esa-Pekka Salonen has been the orchestra's principal conductor and artistic advisor since 2008. Helen Sprott is the orchestra's current managing director,

The Philharmonia Orchestra performs more than 160 concerts a year and tours widely, and also records music for films and computer games. Since its inception in 1945, the Philharmonia has commissioned more than 100 compositions from composers that include Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Mark-Anthony Turnage and James MacMillan.

History

Early decades

The orchestra was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge. As Legge was a recording producer for EMI, it was believed that the orchestra was primarily formed for recording purposes, but that was not Legge's intention. He had been Sir Thomas Beecham's assistant at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, before World War II, and, assuming that he and Beecham would be in charge there again after the war, Legge planned to establish a first-class orchestra for opera, concerts and recordings.^[1] After the war, opera resumed at Covent Garden under a different management, but Legge went ahead with his plans for a new orchestra. His contacts in the musical world during the war enabled him to secure the services of a large number of talented young musicians still serving in the armed forces in 1945. At the Philharmonia's first concert on 25 October 1945, more than sixty per cent of the players were still officially in the services.^[2] 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, Beecham instead went on to found the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.^[3]

In its early years, with financial support of the Last Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur (1919-1974), the orchestra engaged many prominent conductors, including Arturo Toscanini, Richard Strauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Herbert von Karajan was closely associated with the Philharmonia in its early years, although he never held an official title with the orchestra. At first, Legge was against appointing an official principal conductor, feeling that no one conductor should have more importance to the orchestra than Legge himself.^[4] But Karajan was principal conductor in all but name. He built the orchestra into one of the finest in the world and made numerous recordings, including all the Beethoven symphonies.^[5]

Otto Klemperer, the first principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra

In 1954, Karajan was elected music director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and subsequently curtailed his work with the Philharmonia. Needing to find a new conductor for the orchestra, Legge turned to Otto Klemperer, whose career was flagging at the time. Klemperer's name became closely linked with the orchestra during an "Indian summer" of celebrated recordings. In 1959, Klemperer was named music director for life.

On 10 March 1964, Legge announced that he was going to disband the Philharmonia Orchestra. At a recording session with Klemperer, a meeting was convened where those present unanimously agreed that they would not allow the orchestra to be disbanded. Klemperer gave his immediate support. On 17 March 1964, the members of the orchestra elected their own governing body and adopted the name New Philharmonia Orchestra. The inaugural concert of the New Philharmonia under its own auspices took place on 27 October 1964. It was a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, conducted by Klemperer, who was now honorary president of the orchestra. From 1966 until 1972, the chairman of the orchestra was the principal flautist, Gareth Morris.

The orchestra gave many more live performances after it became self-governing than it had under Legge's management. It reacquired the rights to the name "Philharmonia Orchestra" in 1977, and has been known by that name ever since.

Recent decades

Klemperer retired from conducting in 1971, but was officially still the orchestra's principal conductor until his death in 1973. For the two intervening years, Lorin Maazel held the post of associate principal conductor (1971–1973), and was effectively the principal conductor. Riccardo Muti was principal conductor from 1973 to 1982. Giuseppe Sinopoli succeeded Muti, acting as principal conductor from 1984 to 1994. In 1997, Christoph von Dohnányi became principal conductor, and served until 2008, at which time he took on the title of Honorary Conductor for Life of the orchestra.

Esa-Pekka Salonen, the principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra since 2008

In November 2006, the orchestra announced the appointment of Esa-Pekka Salonen as its fifth principal conductor,^[6] effective from the 2008–2009 season.^[7] Salonen had made his first conducting appearance with the Philharmonia in 1983 at the age of 25, his first such engagement outside Scandinavia: on short notice he took over Mahler's Third Symphony for an indisposed Michael Tilson Thomas. Salonen has since then conducted the orchestra regularly. From 1985 to 1994 he served as principal guest conductor. His initial three-year contract as principal conductor was extended twice,^[8][9] through the end of the 2016–17 season. In January 2017, the orchestra announced that Salonen had signed a new, rolling/evergreen contract as principal conductor.^[10]

Vladimir Ashkenazy currently has the title of conductor laureate with the Philharmonia. Past principal guest conductors of the orchestra have included Sir Charles Mackerras. In March 2017, the orchestra announced the appointment of Jakub Hrůša and Santtu-Matias Rouvali as its new principal guest conductors, effective with the 2017-2018 season.^[11]

Recordings

The Philharmonia is one of the most recorded orchestras in the world, with over one thousand recordings on such labels as EMI, CBS, Deutsche Grammophon, and Naxos, and more recently several self-produced recordings. One of its earliest recordings was the last concert ever conducted by Richard Strauss in 1947 in a programme which included his youthful work Burleske.^[12]

Antal Doráti conducted the orchestra in recordings for Mercury Living Presence (Tchaikovsky Suites for Orchestra, 1966) and EMI (Bartók Violin Concerto No. 1 featuring Yehudi Menuhin, 1965). Esa-Pekka Salonen has conducted several commercial recordings with the Philharmonia, including music of Berlioz and of Schoenberg.^[13] The Philharmonia has a partnership with Signum Records, which releases live recordings of the orchestra's concerts, including Lorin Maazel's cycle of Mahler symphonies, Christoph von Dohnányi's recordings of Brahms's symphonies, and works by Elgar, Bruckner, Berlioz, Bartók, and others.

The Philharmonia has also been heard on the soundtracks of many films, performing the musical scores of such classics as David Lean's film version of Oliver Twist (1948).^[14] The Philharmonia recorded two out of the eight pieces in the Walt Disney film Fantasia 2000 ("Rhapsody in Blue" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"). More recently, the Philharmonia has recorded soundtracks for such films as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Fury, Thor: The Dark World, and Iron Man 3.

The Philharmonia has recorded many video game soundtracks, including those for all of EA Games' Harry Potter video games, as well as the Fable and Medal of Honor games, Battlefield, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and more.

Other activities

The Philharmonia has been one of the most active orchestras in exploring new ways of distributing its music, through live performances available in a large video archive, which are also distributed as video podcasts, and on Vimeo and YouTube.

The Philharmonia worked closely with Touch Press and Esa-Pekka Salonen to create The Orchestra, an iOS app which features performances of eight works representing three centuries of symphonic music. It allows real-time selection of multiple video and audio tracks, along with an automatically synchronized score and graphical note-by-note visualization of each piece as it is played.

Its iOrchestra initiative involved a number of groundbreaking uses of technology to share music, using digital initiatives, exhibitions, installations, and pop-up concerts, to bring music to people outside the concert hall

Principal Conductors

• Herbert von Karajan (1948–1954, unofficial de facto)
• Otto Klemperer (1959–1973)
• Riccardo Muti (1973–1982)
• Giuseppe Sinopoli (1984–1994)
• Christoph von Dohnányi (1997–2008)
• Esa-Pekka Salonen (2008–present)

References

Notes

Sources

• Hill, Ralph (ed) (1951). Music 1951. Harmondsworth: Penguin. OCLC 635928181
• Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth (1982). On and Off the Record: A Memoir of Walter Legge. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-11928-X

External links

• Philharmonia Orchestra official website
• Philharmonia Orchestra at AllMusic