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The Philadelphia Orchestra: On Tour, or AWOL?
The vanishing Philadelphia Orchestra
Robert Zaller
If you want to hear great orchestral music in the merry month of May, go to New York, New Jersey, Delaware or Washington, D.C. Just don't expect it in Philadelphia.
In fact, with the Chamber Music Society winding down, both major musical programs in the city have gone fishin'. The rest, apart from opera and vocal arts concerts, is pretty much silence.
Oh, you can read about the Philadelphia Orchestra as it performs half a world away. A recent Inquirer headline described the Orchestra as "Right at Home" in Tokyo's Suntory Hall. Now, that was a publicist's light bulb! Is it any wonder that the Orchestra plays so often to half-empty houses in Philadelphia when it makes its corporate disdain for the city so clear?
Other orchestras tour, but few vanish for a month at a time as regularly as ours. A few years back, it went AWOL for February. Now it will return to play a few tag-end concerts before disappearing into the steam bath of the Mann Center (great for your Strad!), the only venue in town that could make the Kimmel's acoustics sound good by comparison.
By the way, the Philadelphia Orchestra still doesn't broadcast. But maybe, after its fiasco with Ivo Pogorelich, that's not wholly a bad idea. It seems the Croatian pianist gave the Chopin Second Concerto the same acid bath that Lang Lang did.
Cheer up, though: Condi Rice still lies ahead.
These are tough times for orchestras, some of which, like Boston's, seem to carry an enormous payroll of non-musicians. Executive sclerosis, though, appears to be part of the modern capitalist condition. Some days it's hard to see a future for classical music— but then, it's hard to see a future for Western civilization without it. You have to wonder if our great orchestras are considering a relocation to Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. Or is our hometown ensemble already doing an audition?
That would be one explanation for Philadelphia's silent spring.♦
To read a response, click here.
In fact, with the Chamber Music Society winding down, both major musical programs in the city have gone fishin'. The rest, apart from opera and vocal arts concerts, is pretty much silence.
Oh, you can read about the Philadelphia Orchestra as it performs half a world away. A recent Inquirer headline described the Orchestra as "Right at Home" in Tokyo's Suntory Hall. Now, that was a publicist's light bulb! Is it any wonder that the Orchestra plays so often to half-empty houses in Philadelphia when it makes its corporate disdain for the city so clear?
Other orchestras tour, but few vanish for a month at a time as regularly as ours. A few years back, it went AWOL for February. Now it will return to play a few tag-end concerts before disappearing into the steam bath of the Mann Center (great for your Strad!), the only venue in town that could make the Kimmel's acoustics sound good by comparison.
By the way, the Philadelphia Orchestra still doesn't broadcast. But maybe, after its fiasco with Ivo Pogorelich, that's not wholly a bad idea. It seems the Croatian pianist gave the Chopin Second Concerto the same acid bath that Lang Lang did.
Cheer up, though: Condi Rice still lies ahead.
These are tough times for orchestras, some of which, like Boston's, seem to carry an enormous payroll of non-musicians. Executive sclerosis, though, appears to be part of the modern capitalist condition. Some days it's hard to see a future for classical music— but then, it's hard to see a future for Western civilization without it. You have to wonder if our great orchestras are considering a relocation to Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul. Or is our hometown ensemble already doing an audition?
That would be one explanation for Philadelphia's silent spring.♦
To read a response, click here.
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