When you compare baseball or other sports teams, there’s only one statistic that matters in the end: who wins the most games. When it comes to assessing the respective quality of the world’s top orchestras, the comparisons are much more complicated to make. Many different factors and qualities must be taken into consideration, and assessments are much more subjective. Despite the challenges, and potential controversy, Gramophone has gone in search of the “World’s Best Orchestra” and, in its December issue, will publish its list of the world’s Top 20 orchestras.
To create its list, Gramophone polled leading critics around the world, including Alex Ross (New Yorker) and Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times) in the U.S., Rob Cowan in the U.K, critics from France’s Le Monde, Austria’s Die Presse, Germany’s Die Welt, and the leading paper in the Netherlands. Also included were various editors associated with Gramophone around the world, including editor James Inverne and editor in chief James Jolly in London, and the respective editors of the local editions of Gramophone in Korea, Spain and China.
Depending on the reader’s geographical location and personal tastes, Gramophone’s list will by turns confirm, surprise, and possibly confound. Three of the world’s most famous orchestras occupy the top three positions, but their ordering might surprise some readers. At No. 5, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is America’s top-ranked orchestra. While many of the Top 10 orchestras are more than a century old (and then some, with the Dresden Staatskapelle, at No. 10, being founded in 1548!), the Russian National Orchestra (founded in 1990) and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, this season celebrating its 25th anniversary, are relative youngsters.
Gramophone’s editor James Inverne observes:
“The celebrated ensembles on our list represent the triumph of “character” in orchestras. Too many bands these days have a uniform, slick but generalized sound, whereas the Concertgebouw (No. 1) is one of the last to really have an immediately identifiable sound, and to arguably (to an extent) plumb the character of composers in the way an actor will with his roles. Others on the list who also have that quality are the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (that famous brass sound) at No. 5, the very unsung Budapest Festival Orchestra (No. 9), and the Dresden Staatskapelle (No. 10).
Iván Fischer, who founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983, comments:
“I think it’s a good list and it’s a great honor to be part of it. For me, the difference between good orchestras and great orchestras is obvious: in good orchestras musicians may get it right, but in great orchestras they offer that special ‘extra.’ It’s the musicians’ personal involvement, imagination, intuition, and ability to take risks that makes a great orchestra what it is: a group of creative artists.”
Several guest artists and critics offer short written appreciations for members of the Top 10 Club, including Marin Alsop (for the London Symphony Orchestra [No. 4], which she has guest conducted frequently) and Leonard Slatkin (for the Los Angeles Philharmonic [No. 8], where he was principal guest conductor 2005-2007).
Gramophone’s “World’s Best Orchestra” cover story will be published on November 21 in the UK (November 28 in the US). Gramophone’s web site is at
www.gramophone.co.ukThe Top 20
1) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam
2) Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
3) Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
4) London Symphony Orchestra
5) Chicago Symphony Orchestra
6) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
7) Cleveland Orchestra
8) Los Angeles Philharmonic
9) Budapest Festival Orchestra
10) Dresden Staatskapelle
11) Boston Symphony Orchestra
12) New York Philharmonic
13) San Francisco Symphony
14) Mariinsky Theater Orchestra
15) Russian National Orchestra
16) Leningrad Philharmonic
17) Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
18) Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
19) Saito Kinen Orchestra
20) Czech Philharmonic
Andrea Bocelli is performing tomorrow and Wednesday for the San Antonio Opera. On the program is Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni (sung in Italian with English/Spanish supertitles). They'll also perform operatic favorites on the first half of the concert.
Listen for a news story on KSTX this afternoon and we'll are happy to share this video footage from this afternoon's press conference.
Did you know William Schuman created and conducted the Alamo Society Orchestra as a young man? He was sixteen and it was his first musical organization, "Billy Schuman and his Alamo Society Orchestra" playing for proms, bar mitzvahs and weddings!
You can purchase American Muse here at Amazon and a portion will benefit Texas Public Radio.
In the early 1970's Canadian pianist Glenn Gould upset the apple-cart with his recordings of Mozart's Piano Sonatas. Quick tempos and detached notes had critics and listeners alike crying foul, "this is not Mozart!" Gould ignored their abuse saying that he only liked Mozart's early sonatas where he was influenced by C.P.E. Bach. He topped this off by say the problem with Mozart is that he lived too long, simplified his composing style and did not fulfill his contrapuntal potential.
Thirty years later with the early instrument boom and bust, listeners are used to what Gould did so long ago. It turns out that the creamy-legato that we were used to in old performances/ recordings was wrong. Mozart didn't play that way and ironically, according to Beethoven, his playing was very much like Gould's, with clipped notes and fast tempos.
Sometimes great music can't get a break. Robert Schumann suggested that Chopin had in this sonata "simply bound together four of his most unruly children." Rachmaninoff ignored Chopin's dynamic instructions for the third movement of this sonata just like Anton Rubinstein had before him. And the Polish virtuoso Ignacz Friedman played the finale as if ghosts were after him.
Hear what went into one of the all time best loved works of Chopin on the Piano, Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.
We touch base with lots of voices in the community on today's Classical Spotlight!
Then Karem Sezen, conductor with the Vienna Boys Choir talks about their tour and performing at Laurie Auditorium Friday night at 7:30pm.
The Tuesday Music Club presents Opera to Broadway with Alissa Anderson, mezzo soprano; Marianne Cope, soprano; and Christopher DeVage, baritone. The concert is November 18th at Laurel Heights United Methodist Church, 2:00 pm.
Tuesday night at Bjorn’s a cd release party is scheduled for Voci di Sorelle from 7 to 8:30pm. Their second cd is called Magnificat, Early Christmas Music.
Also, violinist Craig Sorgi plays a recital Tuesday night at 7:30 in Ruth Taylor Recital Hall on the Trinity University campus. More info at 999-8406.
They may be looking for mushrooms! Read about it here.
The Prazak Quartet is in town, playing for the San Antonio Chamber Music Society and performing in schools as outreach.
There's ripples in the conducting world as Ricardo Muti is having a spat with the Royals, read about it here.
Yo-yo Ma is inviting experienced musicians and amateurs alike to join him in pushing the boundaries of music creation by entering his contest, Celebrate & Collaborate.
Unlike the symphony, the string quartet or the piano sonata which belong to phases of Brahms creative output his vocal work spanned his entire life. This arc of more than four decades is bracketed by two masterworks Liebestreu (opus 3, #1 - 1853/54) and Vier ernste Gesange (opus 121 - 1896). It was in fact this early song that so impressed the violinist Joachim that it led to Brahms introduction to the Schumann's. A hundred years later Joachim's granddaughter Irene, a great recitalist based in Paris, recorded Brahms vocal works and will also be featured among the singers in this program.