The Berlin Philharmonic, under the direction of Herbert von Karajan, came to our shores in October to play eight concerts. The first four of these concerts were given in New York’s Carnegie Hall; the last four took place in an auditorium in Pasadena, California.
Orchestra touring is hardly a rarity today. American groups—notably the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony—regularly tour the United States, and circle the globe as well. Foreign orchestras too come here regularly. Already, during October and November, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Orchestre Philharmonique de France, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Turin, and the Polish Chamber Orchestra have appeared at Carnegie Hall. Indeed, so frequent is the phenomenon of the traveling orchestra that local orchestras now seem increasingly national and international.
Even so, an American tour by the Berlin Philharmonic remains a special attraction. The contemporary manifestation of a great tradition, the Berlin group is now one hundred years old. Its first chief conductor was Hans von Bülow, the son-in-law of Franz Liszt and later the cuckolded disciple of Richard Wagner. The orchestra’s second leader was Arthur Nikisch, who succeeded Bülow in 1894. In 1913 the Berlin Philharmonic, under Nikisch’s baton, made the first recording ever of a complete symphony. From 1922 to 1954, Berlin’s chief conductor was Wilhelm Furtwängler, the master of a particularly German emotionalism in the performance of the great romantic master-works.
