San Francisco Symphony

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Davies Hall of the San Francisco Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony is the most important orchestra in San Francisco ( California ). The current music director is Michael Tilson Thomas , who has held this position since September 1995.

history

The orchestra was founded in 1911. It has long been an important part of San Francisco's cultural life. The first concerts were conducted by Henry Hadley , who led the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1909 to 1911 . 60 musicians played in the first season. Her first concert included works by Richard Wagner , Pjotr ​​Tchaikovsky , Joseph Haydn and Franz Liszt . A total of 13 concerts took place in the 1911/12 season.

Hadley's successor was Alfred Hertz in 1915 , who had previously directed the Metropolitan Opera in New York City .

After Hertz gave up his office in 1930, the orchestra was led by two conductors, Basil Cameron and Issay Dobrowen . The orchestra was threatened with closure during the Great Depression and the 1934/35 season was canceled. The famous French conductor Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) was hired to revive the orchestra. Monteux was so successful that NBC began broadcasting concerts and RCA Victor signed a recording deal with the orchestra. In 1949 Monteux invited Arthur Fiedler to joint summer concerts. Fiedler conducted the orchestra at free concerts at Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco and the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford University . Fiedler's involvement lasted into the 1970s.

When Monteux left the orchestra in 1952, it was led by various conductors such as Leopold Stokowski , Georg Solti , Erich Leinsdorf , Karl Münchinger , George Szell , Bruno Walter , Ferenc Fricsay and William Steinberg .

Two years later, the young Spanish maestro Enrique Jordá was hired as music director. He started with great praise. Sometimes he conducted so enthusiastically that the baton flew out of his hand. Over the years, however, Jordá neglected discipline and the quality of the orchestra deteriorated. George Szell (1897-1970), the long-time music director of the Cleveland Orchestra , was a guest conductor in San Francisco in 1962 and was so dismayed by the lack of discipline that he publicly condemned Jordá and even criticized the music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle , Alfred Frankenstein , for it To have recommended Jordá and the orchestra. Because of Szell's criticism, the orchestra sought a change.

In the fall of 1963, the Austrian conductor Josef Krips (1902–1974) became music director. He quickly became known as a benevolent autocrat who did not tolerate careless play. He worked hard to inspire his musicians and rebuilt the orchestra, especially with the classical German-Austrian repertoire. One of his innovations was a New Year's concert with melodies by Johann Strauss and other Viennese masters of the 19th century. These concerts are still there today, in a slightly different form.

Krips didn't want to record records with the orchestra because he didn't think it was mature enough. However, he did allow KKHI to broadcast some Friday concerts . He also paved the way for his successor, Seiji Ozawa (* 1935), when he invited him as a guest conductor. Ozawa quickly impressed critics and audiences with his amber- like style work.

The Ozawa era began in 1970 with great enthusiasm. Even his guest appearances had caused storms of enthusiasm. It was soon difficult to get tickets for his concerts. He massively increased the quality of the orchestra and signed a record deal with Deutsche Grammophon in 1972. He was also music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra . After leaving San Francisco. he returned twice more as a guest conductor.

Ozawa's successor was Edo de Waart , a young Dutch conductor who gave the orchestra a makeover. He wasn't as extroverted as Ozawa, and part of the audience missed his self-expression. De Waart kept the high standard of the orchestra and recorded a few records. He conducted the first concert at the new Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980.

Herbert Blomstedt , the Swedish-American conductor, started work in the fall of 1985. The post was offered to him after two guest concerts in 1984; at that time he was music director of the Staatskapelle Dresden . He brought the orchestra back to greater precision and reliability. The orchestra began annual tours of Europe and Asia under him and returned to weekly radio broadcasts. Blomstedt also recognized the poor acoustics of the Davies Symphony Hall and initiated a renovation that was completed in 1992.

In 1995 Michael Tilson Thomas became music director. He came from the London Symphony Orchestra . He had been the orchestra's guest conductor several times since 1974 and was on good terms with the musicians. Like Ozawa, Thomas made sure that more American music was played again. Another focus of his work was Russian music, in particular Igor Stravinsky and Gustav Mahler .

In 1999 the orchestra, under the direction of Michael Kamen , recorded the album S&M together with the heavy / thrash metal band Metallica . This landed in the USA on the Billboard 200 charts at number 2 with 1.5 million copies sold and five times platinum status.

In 2013 the orchestra was honored with the ECHO Klassik as Orchestra of the Year (New Instruments)

Conductors

swell

  1. ^ David Schneider: The San Francisco Symphony . Presidio Press, Novato: 1983, p. 85
  2. ↑ David Schneider, pp. 99-102
  3. ↑ David Schneider, pp. 125-128
  4. ↑ echoklassik.de - Prize Winner 2013 ( Memento from June 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on October 6, 2013

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