Editing Vienna Philharmonic (section)

==Controversies==

===Orchestral membership of women and non-European ethnicities===

The Vienna Philharmonic did not accept [[Women in classical music|female musicians]] to permanent membership until 1997, far later than comparable orchestras (of the other orchestras ranked among the world's top five by ''Gramophone'' magazine in 2008,<ref name="The world’s greatest orchestras"/> the last to appoint a woman to a permanent position was the [[Berlin Philharmonic]], which did so in 1982.<ref>[[James R. Oestreich]], [http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/berlin-in-lights-the-woman-question/ "Berlin in Lights: The Woman Question"], Arts Beat, ''The New York Times'', 16 November 2007</ref>) As late as February 1996, first flutist [[Dieter Flury]] told [[Westdeutscher Rundfunk]] that accepting women would be "gambling with the emotional unity ({{Lang|de|emotionelle Geschlossenheit}}) that this organism currently has".<ref name=WDR5>Westdeutscher Rundfunk Radio 5, "Musikalische Misogynie", 13 February 1996, [http://www.osborne-conant.org/wdrgerm.htm transcribed by Regina Himmelbauer]; [http://www.osborne-conant.org/wdr.htm translation by William Osborne]</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.osborne-conant.org/posts/schuster.htm |title=The Vienna Philharmonic's Letter of Response to the Gen-Mus List |work=Osborne-conant.org |date=25 February 1996 |access-date=5 October 2013}}</ref>

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."<ref name=JP>Jane Perlez, [https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/28/world/vienna-philharmonic-lets-women-join-in-harmony.html "Vienna Philharmonic Lets Women Join in Harmony”], ''The New York Times'', 28 February 1997</ref> The orchestra, wrote ''The New York Times,'' was "facing protests during a [US] tour" by the [[National Organization for Women]] and International Alliance for  Women in Music. Finally, "after being held up to increasing ridicule even in socially conservative Austria, members of the orchestra gathered [on 28 February 1997] in an extraordinary meeting on the eve of their departure and agreed to admit a woman, Anna Lelkes, as harpist."<ref name=JP /> 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..."<ref>Heinz Rogle, "Notes on 26 Years as Official Nonentity", 1 March 1997, ''Salzburger Nachrichten''; translated Mike Wiessner and [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-03-05-mn-35044-story.html published] by the ''Los Angeles Times'', 5 March 1997</ref>

As of 2013, the orchestra had six female members; one of them, violinist Albena Danailova became one of the orchestra's [[concertmaster]]s in 2008, the first woman to hold that position.<ref>[http://www.france24.com/en/20080508-vienna-opera-albena-danailova-first-female-concertmaster-austria&navi=CULTURE Vienna opera appoints first ever female concertmaster] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131028131919/http://www.france24.com/en/20080508-vienna-opera-albena-danailova-first-female-concertmaster-austria%26navi%3DCULTURE |date=28 October 2013 }}, [[France 24]]</ref> 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)|ORF]]<ref>[http://oe1.orf.at/artikel/326937 "Wenige Frauen bei Wiener Philharmonikern"], 28 December 2012</ref> 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 audition]]s, 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.)<ref name=Legends /> As of December 2019, there were 15 female members.<ref>''New York Times'', 23 December 2019, [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/arts/music/women-vienna-philharmonic.html When an Orchestra Was No Place for a Woman], by Farah Nayeri. Accessed 7 April 2020.</ref>

There have also been claims that the orchestra has not always accepted members who are visibly members of ethnic minorities.<ref name=purity>[http://www.osborne-conant.org/purity.htm "The Image of Purity: The Racial Ideology of the Vienna Philharmonic In Historical Perspective"] by William Osborne</ref> 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."<ref name=sugiyama /> 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."<ref name=WDR5 />

In 2001 a violinist who was half-Asian became a member.<ref name=sugiyama>{{cite web | url=http://www.osborne-conant.org/sugiyama.htm | title=Why Did the Vienna Philharmonic Fire Yasuto Sugiyama? | work=Osborne-Conant.org | first=William| last=Osborne | access-date=18 June 2007}}</ref> The full list of musicians, men and women, including those playing with the Vienna Philharmonic but who are not members of the VPO association, is accessible on the website of the Vienna Philharmonic.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/orchestra/members |title=Vienna Philharmonic Musicians |publisher=Wienerphilharmoniker.at |date=2017 |access-date=10 July 2017}}</ref>

===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]].<ref>Georgina Prodhan, [https://www.reuters.com/article/entertainment-us-austria-orchestra-nazis-idUSBRE9280I820130310 "Vienna Philharmonic lifts lid on Nazi history"], [[Reuters]], 9 March 2013</ref> 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)''.<ref>Clemens Hellsberg, ''Demokratie der Könige – Die Geschichte der Wiener Philharmoniker'', Zurich, Schweizer Verlagshaus; Wien, Kremayr & Scheriau; Mainz, Musikverlag Schott; 1992, p. 464</ref> In it he determined that at the end of [[World War II]] 47% of orchestra members belonged to the Nazi Party or affiliates (the total number is now known to be 49%, 60 for 123 in 1942), 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."<ref>[[Norman Lebrecht]], [http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/103475/beautiful-music-does-not-drown-out-shameful-history-past "Beautiful music does not drown out shameful history of the past"], ''The Jewish Chronicle Online'', 15 March 2013</ref> 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,<ref>[[James R. Oestreich]], [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/arts/music/vienna-philharmonic-to-release-nazi-connections.html?pagewanted=all "Orchestra to Disclose Its Nazi Past"], ''The New York Times'', 28 February 2013</ref> 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."<ref name=veil>Fritz Trümpi, [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/16/vienna-philharmonic-nazi-past "The Vienna Philharmonic's Nazi past: lifting the veil of deliberate ignorance"], ''The Guardian'', 17 March 2013</ref> Trümpi was granted access in 2007, but other researchers reported continued exclusion, such as Bernadette Mayrhoffer in 2008;<ref>NewsA/T, [http://www.news.at/a/ausstellung-anschluss-staatsoper-vergangenheit-199784 "Ausstellung zum Anschluss: Staatsoper stellt sich der eigenen Vergangenheit"], 10 March 2008</ref> the Austrian newspaper {{Lang|de|[[Die Presse]]}} reported in 2008<ref>Anne-Catherine Simon, [http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/367690/Hellsberg-unter-Beschuss0_Absurd-und-infam "Hellsberg unter Beschuss: 'Absurd und infam'"], ''[[Die Presse]]'', 5 March 2008</ref> (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."<ref>Sebastian Huebel, [https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443/bitstream/handle/1828/1695/FULLthesis.pdf?sequence=1 ''The Reichsorchester – A Comparison of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics during the Third Reich''], Master's thesis, Department of History, University of Victoria, 2009, p. 9</ref>

The 2013 New Year's Day concert evoked critical discussion of the issue in the Austrian press<ref>Norbert Rief, [http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/1327933/Wiener-Philharmoniker_NSIdeologie-im-Walzertakt "Wiener Philharmoniker: NS-Ideologie im Walzertakt?"], ''[[Die Presse]]'', 29 December 2012</ref> and from Austrian parliamentarian Harald Walser.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://haraldwalser.twoday.net/stories/232595185/comment |title=Anmelden |work=Haraldwalser.twoday.net |access-date=29 April 2013}}</ref> 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 "in the spirit of transparency" (according to the orchestra's Facebook feed) 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."<ref>Kerry Skyring, [http://www.dw.de/the-vienna-philharmonic-reveals-its-nazi-past/a-16665755 "The Vienna Philharmonic reveals its Nazi past"], [[Deutsche Welle]], 12 March 2013</ref>

On 10 March 2013—a date chosen to precede 12 March, 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/en/orchestra/history/nationalsozialismus|title = 4. National Socialism - Vienna Philharmonic}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/index.php?set_language=en&cccpage=history_ns |title=Vienna Philharmonic &#124; Orchestra, Concerts, New Years Concert |publisher=Wienerphilharmoniker.at |date=14 July 1942 |access-date=29 April 2013 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130517131151/http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/index.php?set_language=en&cccpage=history_ns |archivedate=17 May 2013  }}</ref> Among the panel's findings are:
* Before the Anschluss in the mid-1930s, 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, since party membership was illegal in Austria at the time.<ref>Thomas Trenkler, [http://derstandard.at/1363706229985/Ioan-Holender-Pereiras-Programm-ist-kommerziell-und-konservativ "Ioan Holender: 'Pereiras Programm ist kommerziell und konservativ'"], 27 March 2013, ''Der Standard''</ref>
* By the orchestra's centennial in 1942, 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]], barely 20% were party members.<ref name=veil /><ref>Complete documentation is in Trümpi's 2011 book, ''Politisierte Orchester: Die Wiener Philharmoniker und das Berliner Philharmonische Orchester im Nationalsozialismus'' (Böhlau Verlag, Köln 2011, {{ISBN|978-3-205-78657-3}})</ref> For further comparison, party membership in Austria as a whole was 10%.<ref>Judt, Tony. ''Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945'', p. 52, Penguin Press, 2005</ref>
* The thirteen Jewish members of the orchestra were expelled by the National Socialists upon the Anschluss. Six of them escaped into exile;<ref>The six Jewish members who were exiled were: first cellist Friedrich Buxbaum, first oboist Hugo Burghauser, concertmaster [[Arnold Rosé]], concertmaster [[Ricardo Odnoposoff]], and violinists Leopold Föderl, Ludwig Wittels, and Berthold Salander</ref> the other seven were killed<ref>The seven murdered Jewish members were: violinists Paul Fischer, Moriz Glattauer, Julius Stwertka, who was concertmaster, Anton Weiss, and Max Starkmann, whose biography has not yet been published, and oboist Armin Tyroler</ref> – five in concentration camps, and two while still in Vienna 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 '{{Sic|hide=y|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.<ref>Audio clip by Rathkolb, posted by Brian Wise on his [[WQXR-FM]] blog in the story, [http://www.wqxr.org/#!/blogs/wqxr-blog/2013/mar/14/-behind-vienna-philharmonics-nazi-past/ "Behind The Vienna Philharmonic's Nazi Past"] on 14 March 2013</ref><ref>One of the Nazi party members was a new concertmaster, [[Wolfgang Schneiderhan (violinist)|Wolfgang Schneiderhan]]. Three of the Jewish musicians had been concertmasters – two, [[Arnold Rosé]] and Ricardo Odnoposoff, were among the exiles, and one, Julius Stwertka, died in [[Theresienstadt]] in 1942. Richard Newman reported that in January 1946 the Vienna Philharmonic wished to reinstate Rosé as concertmaster, but he refused, and in February said that "fifty-six Nazis remained in the Vienna Philharmonic"(Richard Newman with Karen Kirtley, Alma Rose: Vienna to Auschwitz, 2000: Amadeus Press, {{ISBN|978-1-57467-085-1}}, p. 320 )</ref>
* 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."<ref name="wienerphilharmoniker.at">"Denn erstens ist es noch nicht erwiesen, und zweitens habe ich keine Lust, den ganzen deutschen Kulturbesitz so nach und nach unterhöhlen zu lassen." In Oliver Rathkolb, [http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/upload/files/ns/ns_rath_njk_de_v02.pdf "Vom Johann-Strauß-Konzert 1939 zum Neujahrskonzert 1946"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130504221442/http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/upload/files/ns/ns_rath_njk_de_v02.pdf |date=4 May 2013 }}</ref> (The concert was moved to New Year's Day for the concerts held from 1941 to 1945; 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'<ref name="wienerphilharmoniker1"/> 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."<ref name="wienerphilharmoniker.at" />
* 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, the trumpeter Helmut Wobisch, had joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and the SS in 1934 and served as a spy for the [[Gestapo]] during the war. He was rehired by the orchestra in 1950 and appointed executive director of the orchestra in 1953, remaining in that 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.<ref>This re-awarding was first brought to light in a 2005 book by Schirach's son, Richard von Schirach, but the person responsible was identified only as "a professor from Vienna" who "came as a secret emissary of the Vienna Philharmonic." Richard von Schirach, ''Der Schatten meines Vaters'' – Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2005, {{ISBN|978-3-446-20669-4}}. The panel learned that the secret emissary was Wobisch not from the archives but from someone whom Rathkolb called "a highly trustworthy and well-informed witness" – the historian Wilhelm Bettelheim, who disclosed it in a handwritten letter dated 19 January 2013; he had been given the information in 1968 by [[Josef Krips]]. (Oliver Rathkolb, [http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/upload/files/ns/ns_rath_ehrungen_de_v04.pdf "Ehrungen und Auszeichnungen (Ehrenmitglieder, Ehrenring, Nicolai-Medaille und die 'gelbe' Liste)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130504084741/http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/upload/files/ns/ns_rath_ehrungen_de_v04.pdf |date=4 May 2013 }}, part 4)</ref> 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).<ref>[http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/1377321/NSDebatte-erreicht-Kaerntner-Musikfestival "NS-Debatte erreicht Kärntner Musikfestival"], ''[[Die Presse]]'', 18 March 2013</ref>
* 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.<ref name=OR01>Oliver Rathkolb, [http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/upload/files/ns/ns_rath_einleitung_en_v01.pdf "Ehrungen und Auszeichnungen (Ehrenmitglieder, Ehrenring, Nicolai-Medaille und die 'gelbe' Liste)"]{{dead link|date=July 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, part 1</ref> (Rathkolb has told the press that Hellsberg "has asked [the orchestra] to revoke the rings of honour to these people.")<ref>Luke Harding and Louise Osborne, [https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/11/vienna-philharmonic-nazi-secrets "Vienna Philharmonic and the Jewish musicians who perished under Hitler"], ''The Guardian'', 11 March 2013</ref>

At its annual meeting on 23 October 2013, the orchestra voted to revoke all the honors bestowed to Nazi officials; the members voted after hearing a presentation by Rathkolb of the panel's findings.<ref name="artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com">[[James R. Oestreich]], [http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/vienna-philharmonic-revokes-nazi-honors/ "Vienna Philharmonic Revokes Nazi Honors"], ''The New York Times'', 22 December 2013</ref> Clemens Helmsberg is quoted in the New York Times as saying that after Rathkolb's presentation, the orchestra needed no further discussion before revoking the honors since "it was such an obvious thing."<ref name="artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com"/>