Which orchestra is this at Carnegie Hall?
OrchestrasA selection of today’s rehearsal pics.
ANSWER: It’s the Vienna Philharmonic, surprised?
They tend to take more women on tour to the US.
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It’s the Vienna Phil and they sounded great last night and I expect the same today….and tomorrow…..
Two thumbs down from people who weren’t at these concerts. I was right, they sounded superb in all 3 programs.
The Vienna Philharmonic! I was there. Yes, noticeable to see women of various ages in the orchestra. And they sounded absolutely fabulous.
The women are mostly subs hired just for this tour to appease US audiences. VPO critics call it “Rent-A-Frau”.
VPO has been picketed at US concerts in the past for not having enough women. Hiring a flock of young women subs is how they’re avoiding this problem.
William Osborne where are you? Back me up, here, please. Maybe people here will believe you when you explain that seeing a bunch of women subs playing on tour at a Carnegie Hall concert is not the same as hiring women as full time tenured members of the Vienna Phil.
Just look back to the VPO’s late ’90’s – early 2000 US concerts & the demonstrations that took place in protest outside the halls. This was when the VPO introduced “Rent a Frau” for US tours. US audiences don’t understand that these “rented” women are not regular members of the orchestra.
Wm. Osborne on this topic here: http://www.osborne-conant.org/iawminfo.htm
What a bunch of nonsense…Just have a look at their website,and at their current roster
Scroll down and I’ve given you the names of 3 women in the photos. You will find all 3 on the roster of VPO’s Academy, not on that of VPO or the Staatsoper. They are not regular members of the orchestra & that is fact.
“Pro Musician”, I just noticed another woman who has been publicly identified by VPO on their FB as an “Orchestra Academy Member”. She’s Momoko Aritomi, subbing in the viola section.
So that’s 4 women on this tour who are definitely students and not regular VPO members. If the pictures showed the whole orch I’m sure we could identify more than just these 4.
Sorry. Just saw your post. I addressed the issue in some posts below that I had seen. The orchestra now has 22 women members which is 14.7% of the ensemble’s personnel. That’s still the lowest ratio for any orchestra in the world. The orchestra rotates the services among its 149 members. This makes is almost impossible to contractually have all 22 women on stage at once, so the orchestra apparently brought along some Rent-A-Frau subs to improve appearances for US audiences. After I exposed these scheme many years ago, they stopped doing it. I don’t know why they have revived the practice.
I don’t believe they ‘revived’ the practice. They have used subs for many years in Vienna and European tours also. For example, in 2010, when Thielemann conducted Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony in Musikverein, Patricia Koll performed with them, two years before joining the Staatsoper. And Katharina Engelbrecht, first violinist who joined the Staatsoper in 2018, performed with them when Muti conducted a concert in Sweden in 2014, as well as the Summer Night Concert 2015 in Schönbrunn conducted by Mehta.(although at that time she was the member of their STAGE orchestra there, which has completely different roster from the Staatsoper Orchestea). And in June 2021, violinist Georg Wimmer performed with them in Copenhagen (according to their Facebook pictures), in spite of never having joined the Staatsoper. There are other examples as well.
They don’t take subs on tour, they just take every woman they have, which isn’t many, but yes, for the reason you mentioned.
Your comment using the phrase “Rent a Frau” is not only highly disturbing but discriminating and I have never ever heard this in the last 30 years in Vienna. With this phrase you are denying world class qualities of the female musicians and reducing them to “material” for reasons, that are simply not true.
Nobody is “renting” females for reasons you stated date back over more than 20 years. And it is ridiculous to pick on the VP for running a successful Orchestra Academy system and calling this “cheap labour”, as you or someone else stated in a comment. Would this also be the case with the Berlin Phil then? As you like to check the website you will see, that all of the Orchestra Academy members are highly qualified musicians that win auditions in top orchestras regularly. An Orchestra Academy system is built to maintain and spread the long traditions in sound and phrasing and not to get “cheap” musicians. Did you ever check on the costs of running an academy?!
Also your idea of positioning women in special positions for cameras or being seen better is just a quite funny idea. With the flutes f.e. it might have to do with piccolo flute, why an academy member may be positioned in a “better” place. And instead of condemning the VP for everything they do, you could pay respect to orchestra members, who give top class academy members the chance to play in good positions… But wait, what?! It´s the Vienna Phil, there cannot happen anything good, when talking about women!
Everyone has the right to have a strong opinion, but please do not just repeat the same biased opinions just because it’s about the VP. Thank you.
Bringing along women subs to deceive American audiences is the lowest form of sexism and is aptly described as a Rent-A-Frau scheme.
Indeed, orchestra academies provide free or low cost labor in a number of major orchestras. They do it in mine, too. VPO is not alone in this. It’s a controversial point, because while educating the next generation is a worthwhile cause, using students as subs takes work away from professional musicians who’d ordinarily be hired for those spots. Working musicians lose employment when academists are hired. It’s a delicate balance.
I’ve been shocked at times seeing the no. of academists Berlin Phil uses in many concerts. Berlin’s academy is much bigger than VPO’s, so sometimes on their concerts we’re seeing an academy wind section with just a couple of regular Berlin players in the mix. Imagine how much money that saves the orchestra!
Of course, these students are well-trained! What a ridiculous comment! Often they’re better players than the regular members themselves. That’s not the point here.
The point is that these students are temporary. They are subs who do not hold, nor are they on track for tenured positions with the Staatsoper or VPO. For the purposes of gender parity, they don’t count. They are not permanent members of the VPO. VPO can hire or fire them at will.
Regarding placing female subs in prominent positions, this is something I study closely. I observed the years’ long trial period of flutist Karin Bonelli (VPO’s 1st tenured female wind, brass or perc) carefully. They did exactly the same type of prominent placement with her, putting her in the solo piccolo position (she’s 2nd flute, not picc), on the 1st New Year’s concert she played on trial when it wasn’t her job. What it did was give her visibility in a prominent solo position as the only female wind at the time on international television. It was an odd move which I questioned, and now I see it repeated with the sub they have on Principal Flute. It’s not a “conspiracy theory”, it’s a clever PR move. VPO is anticipating criticism that when they hire women players, they’re only in non-essential, secondary roles.
It’s quite funny to me that if you are indeed a musician, that you can’t see any of this.
Dear Anon,
I appreciate your Sherlock Holmes attitude, but unfortunately many of your conclusions are just not right.
The VPO does not have a solo piccolo position. There are three second flute players and they alternate on piccolo. There is no reason why Karin Bonelli should not have played piccolo on a new year’s concert.
Then, the young lady you can see next to her on the picture is Petra Lantschner of the orchestra’s academy. She plays second and third flute parts depending on the programs on this tour. Nothing special about that! Would you prefer that members of orchestra academies stay hidden from the public?
Whatever your frustration is based on, try to get the facts right, that would be great.
Dear dffs,
Wolfgang Breinschmid has, for decades, been assigned to solo piccolo in the VPO, most noticeably in the New Year’s Concerts. That is, until Karin Bonelli’s first trial year and this past year.
Whether or not VPO specifically lists a solo picc on their roster (most pro orchs do), there is always going to be one section member who specializes in that instrument who’s assigned the major parts. That person in the VPO is Mr. Breinschmid.
Yes, of course, every flutist in the section (even the Principals) is required to play piccolo. Picc is often written into 1st, 2nd parts in addition to the solo picc part, so it’s a necessity. But the big solo picc parts, like Strauss on the NYear’s Concerts, would traditionally be covered by the player who specializes in piccolo. A 2nd player, of course, is also qualified to cover it, but not usually the 1st choice. Karin Bonelli happens to be an exceptional piccolo player, so it all worked out well.
I appreciate your enthusiatic speculations on woodwind doubling, but just because VPO doesn’t list a solo picc on their roster doesn’t mean they don’t have one. Think for a moment, about what you’ve said. Just because VPO doesn’t list a bass clarinetist or English Hornist or contrabassoonist position on their roster, do you seriously think that there is not a member of each of those sections who is usually assigned those solo parts? VPO is not going to be “rotating” solo EHorn or bass clar parts among their 2nd players. Nor do they, I’d hope, in the flute section. Solo secondary wind instruments – in any orch – are usually assigned to a player who specializes in that instrument. In the flutes, that person is Wolfgang Breinschmid, not Karin Bonelli.
As to your speculations on academist Petra Lantschner, please look at the photo Norman posted. She is not playing 2nd or 3rd as you claim. She is sitting Principal Flute. She is subbing for one of the 2 male VPO Principal Flutes.
No Academists should not be hidden. Nor should they be counted as regular female members of the VPO when considering gender parity in the orchestra. That is my point.
This is getting tiring.
Once again, get the facts right:
The VPO, in all 4 woodwind sections, has 3 first and 3 second positions. In all 4 sections the special instrument duties are shared more or less equally between all three second players. That might differ from what you are used to, but still IT IS A FACT, and you can easily comprehend if you watch a bunch of their videos.
As for the academy flutist: having been in attendance physically and mentally in all three concerts at Carnegie Hall I can assure you, that she did not play first flute in any of the pieces. Check the programs, there was not even one piece with less than 3 flutes…
Last comment: the female clarinet player was in first position in a few pieces, I guess, somebody got ill at short notice or something like that.
I hear you, but I am having a hard time believing that solo secondary wind instrument duties would be ever be “shared equally” between 3 2nd players. Listed officially or not, there’s got to be one person who does the major solo rep on that secondary instrument. Contra, English horn, bass or Eb clar and piccolo are all solo specialties. They’re different instruments requiring different reeds. You’re saying that every VPO 2nd bassoonist owns their own Contra?!! That every 2nd VPO clarinetist is ready to go with Eb and bass clar reeds? That every player listed as 2nd oboe is ready with EH reeds & capable of pulling off solo EH parts interchangeably with 2nd oboe? VPO has some strange traditions, but would be hard to swallow.
I looked again at the photo of the academy flutist. It was taken from an angle that makes her look like she’s sitting Principal. Bonelli is to her right. You don’t see anyone on her left. Someone else in this thread was praising the Principal Flute and Clarinet, “both women”. They were also present. If you were there & say she didn’t play Principal, I concede. I was going by photos.
Isn’t it kind of an odd coincidence that Grotsch was playing 1st clar, though? Sure maybe someone got sick, but again maybe not. Just saying.
You just gave the best reasons yourself, why you are mistaken with your theories 🙂 just one example – there are no specific piccolo positions in the VPO but second flute players are obliged to play piccolo! So there was no „need“ to place Karin Bonelli there in order to show women in prominent positions. It was simply her job to play the piccolo in the New Year’s Concert… but I will leave it with that, our impressions and insights seem to differ a lot and thus are our opinions. Best regards
Please read my comment to dffs above.
I think we’ve demonstrated here, beyond a shadow of the doubt, that you are simply not willing to accept the fact that the women in the photo above are not permanent members of the VPO. As one reader commented, you don’t want the facts to get in the way of your personal narrative. Best to you.
The Vienna Philharmonic
One of the many, many high school orchestras who buys time at Carnegie Hall ( the h.s. charges $2,000+ to each kid) so they can smugly say, “we played at Carnegie” ?
I see a bunch of Wieners. Any mustard?
Vienna? A friend counted 22 women onstage for last night’s concert.
They hire those women as subs for their US concerts precisely because people like your friend are counting. VPO has been picketed in the US in the past because people couldn’t “count” many women. Most of these women are not regular tenured members of the orchestra.
Nonsense.
Absolute nonsense. Check their roster on the website.
No, YOU check the roster! You will not find the names of the women pictured here because they are not all members of the VPO.
Not the Viennese then! Perhaps one of our many BBC orchestras or other British orchestras full of women, and not all playing violins or harps, but brass and percussion – ha, ha!
That count was correct. 20% of the players. The Frau Suite was absolutely sensational
Women represent 14.7% of the orchestra’s personnel. The VPO apparently brought along some Rent-A-Frau subs for its US audiences. For more info, see my other posts in this blog entry.
The DEI traveling Vienna Phil.
If that’s DEI I will take it. Principal flute and principal clarinet (female) absolutely top class. And Sophie Deneuve their principal bassoon seems to have stayed home for this tour.
She is on a solo tour
The woman principle flute and woman principle clarinet were subs brought along to create a better image for US audiences. A Rent-A-Frau scheme.
Regarding the flute see my post above.
Regarding the clarinet: the lady apparently is Andrea Götsch who is a confirmed member of the VPO as a second clarinet.
Still waiting for any proof of that mysterious Rent-A-Frau scheme!
Yes, Andrea Gotsch is one of the 3 tenured female members of VPO’s wind/brass/perc sections. Her position is SECOND clarinet. She is pictured playing PRINCIPAL Clarinet in the photos at Carnegie.
Why is she, as a 2nd player, and a woman, suddenly assigned to a position of more importance & visibility on the US tour?
This makes VPO’s US female-forward tour strategy even clearer. Thank you for pointing it out!
Principal flute is a sub. VPO has identified her on their FB page as a VPO academist. VPO has one tenured female clarinetist and her position is 2nd, not 1st. There is a woman clarinetist in the VPO Academy so it’s probably her.
Sophie Dervaux is one of the 3 actual tenured women musicians in VPO’s wind/brass/perc., and the only Principal. Amazing artist and a lovely and gracious person. Just noticed a clip of her conducting Beethoven 4 in July in Thailand & she’s quite a fine conductor. Great musicians like Sophie break the gender barriers for all of us. What an inspiration she is!
Correct
I think I recognize Principal Viola Tobias Lea in one of the pictures. Wiener Philharmoniker.
Well, shiver me timbers, it seems to be the venerable Philharmonic Orchestra of Vienna.
(Looks like they’ve adopted a similar strategy to Liverpool FC’s Carabao Cup winning team!)
VPO
Vienna Phil?
Based on the schedule, I’d assume that’s Vienna prepping for their 3-concert run. Nice try at a trick question, though 🙂
Cleveland obviously
Vienna Philharmonic with Welser-Most
Trying to trick us by showing the women? Didn’t work: it’s the Vienna Philharmonic, a few days ago.
VPO
Vienna
Vienna Philharmonic
Can’t possibly be the Vienna Philharmonic. Look at all those women.
Most of the women are not regular members of the VPO, they were hired just for the US tour.
At least 3 of the women in the pictures Norman posted can be clearly identified as students from VPO’s orchestra academy. They are not regular VPO members.
Violinists Carolin Lindner & Assia Weisman as well as flutist Petra Lantschner are 3 of the women in the pictures above. They are not VPO members, they are subs provided by VPO’s Academy. They are listed on the Academy’s website. Hiring students is cheap labor for VPO, and these women also conveniently serve VPO’s PR agenda in the US.
I can only hope that these young women are fairly compensated for their services and receive the same salaries as the regular VPO male members performing in exactly the same positions. Somehow, I doubt that they are. . .
Even when you repeat it the third time here, it´s absolute nonsense!!!!!!
Look at the names I’ve provided above. Cross check them with VPO’s Academy website. The 3 women pictured above are not members of the VPO or even the Staatsoper. They are students.
Another correspondent uninterested in facts spoiling their narrative.
Can you say with absolute certainty that all the women in the photos identify as women?
What did H von Karajan use to say to his orchestras before the morning rehearsal? Guten Morgen, meine Herren.
Except when Sabine Mayer was playing. He imposed her to the Berlin Phil and resigned in part because of her expulsion . A precursor in this as in many other things.
Yes, the orchestra now has 22 women members (if my latest quick count is correct.) That’s 14.7% of the 149 positions in the orchestra, still the lowest ratio of any orchestra in the world.
The orchestra agreed to admit women in 1997, but didn’t begin really admitting them until 2007. That was 17 years ago. The average rate of increase for women in top orchestras is about 1% per year, so the VPO isn’t doing too badly in its employment practices, even if it could be a bit better. It would be great if they would finally hire their first woman brass player.
Before admitting women, the orchestra used to hire women subs just for US tours in order to curb protests. After I exposed this Rent-A-Frau scheme, they stopped the practice. The Berlin Phil used to do the same thing before they began admitting women and I suspect that’s where they got the idea.
That all the VPO’s 22 women were on stage at once is unusual because the services are rotated. At least its not a Rent-A-Frau scheme.
Anyway, compliments to the VPO for the progress it is making.
Thanks, William.
I disagree with your assessment, though, that these are all regular tenure or tenure track women VPO members pictured. That would be lovely, but it’s not true.
Look at how young those women violinists are. Have you ever seen any of them in VPO concerts before? I watch & I certainly haven’t.
I believe that the young women are, at best, VPO academists (students), not regular members, carefully selected for PR purposes to play this concert. Any way you slice it, it’s still Rent-A-Frau.
If you check the full VPO FB post from which these pics were taken, one of the women pictured is specifically identified as a Vienna Phil Academy student. Her name is given as Petra Lantscher. She is the woman in the photos subbing on Principal Flute (the 2 VPO Principal flutes are both men). She is not a regular member of the VPO.
The woman sitting 2nd flute to Petra is the legendary Karin Bonelli, who is one of just 3 tenured female musicians in VPO’s wind/brass/perc sections. Karin was the first of these 3 women to receive tenure, and her appointment was historic. Notice how they don’t have Karin on Principal, but put the new, younger “Rent-a-Frau” in the more visible Principal position. “Ooh, a young woman principal, VPO must be changing”. US audiences buy into it, & they just love it.
I’m sure if you went one by one thru each of the young women in these photos, you’d find that most, like flutist Petra Lantscher, are women hired only as subs for the US tour. Yes, VPO is improving, but unfortunately, US audiences are still falling for this “Rent-A-Frau” VPO PR maneuver.
Thank you!!! Very important information. I’m happy others like you are following the developments in the orchestra.
Bullshit.
So you’re saying that violinists Carolin Lindner & Aussia Weisman and flutist Petra Lantschner who are pictured in the photos above in Norman’s post are all regular tenured members of the VPO?
Now that’s bullshit.
There were plenty of female players at the VPO concert with Shani in Salzburg. I don’t care about the sex of the artists. Only that they play well and are well integrated in the orchestra. Female, male or any other gender.
In regards to 22 women, I only saw the pictures and didn’t count all of them, but not all of them were regular members. There would have been a mix of regular VPO members, Staatsoper members (but not yet VPO), and the VPO academy members who belong to neither the VPO nor the Staatsoper. There could have been some others who may not belong to any of those, and may simply have come from other orchestras in Vienna.
By chance, the VPO does have 22 women members listed on their website. I didn’t know they once again hired subs for the USA. Apparently, they couldn’t have all 22 of the women who are regular members on stage at once due to contractual restrictions on the number of services allowed within a given time period. Women subs were thus needed for cosmetic reasons. And as I noted in my post, I was wondering how they had all 22 regular women members on stage at once. Now we know what is being done. Thanks!
Todays Frau concertmaster was Albena Danailova and she sounded FANTASTIC.
Having looked at their roster, performance videos, photos for many years, I noticen that they have been hiring subs, both men and women, plus retired former members, for their concerts at home at Musikverein, Schönbrunn, European tours, and other concerts also. If I am correct, it seems that the only time they don’t or very rarely hire subs(who are neither Staatsoper members nor retired members) is when they perform new year’s concerts.
All orchestras regularly use subs, but they don’t specifically hire women to deceive audiences in the USA. The VPO stopped doing this years ago. The question is, why has revived this practice?
If you’re sending a very large orchestra on tour (Berg 3 Pieces!), and servicing the nightly Wiener Staatsoper performances concurrently, OF COURSE there are going to be subs on the tour — there’ll be subs at home too, even with a large orchestra like the VPO. Great that the Academists get to go on the tours: any orchestra with an academy will do the same — a tour is a great work-culture building time. As for someone’s conspiracy theory about putting the Academy flautist on 1st ahead of the regular member for optics (I wager just one for one piece), get real — that’s an artistic and contract-related decision made by the section, nothing else.
Exactly. It would be interesting to know how many male subs (from the academy or not) are touring with the VPO. Probably as many, if mot more, than the female ones. Obviously one cannot know that from the picture posted here.
We’re to think that hiring a lot of women subs for the US tour where the orchestra has face large protests against its sexism was just a coincidence.
Yes, of course there are subs on tour, and yes, many are men. It’s easy to identify several young men in the photos above as players from the Academy as well.
But some readers here are convinced that counting female orchestra heads in a VPO Carnegie Hall concert is an accurate method of determining how well VPO has turned the corner on including women as regular members. It’s absolutely not! The women they are counting are not regular members of the VPO.
You have to do a much deeper dig & know who is winning auditions for open seats, who is doing trials for the Staatsoper, which is then followed by trials with the VPO itself, and who is actually awarded tenure positions after that lengthy process.
It’s absurd to go to a Carnegie Hall concert of VPO on tour, count how many women you see in the orch and then announce that VPO has completely solved its “no women” issue. Come on, people!
While they’re at it why didn’t they rent a player of African descent? That would really have wowed our audiences here…..
Well, the VPO now has one fully Asian member. Wow! What progress for the 21st century. (The Chicago Symphony has over 20.)
You’re all miles off. Iolanthe was on last week, followed by Kieran Hodgeson and then a musicals gig. Those photos must just be a local Fife pick-up band.
https://www.onfife.com/event/centre-stage-the-musical-concert-da79/
The photos included with the report also show an Asian musician, Hannah Cho. She joined the Vienna State Opera Orchestra two years ago and hasn’t yet been made a member of the VPO because she hasn’t yet completed the required three year tenure in the State Opera Orchestra. The Vienna Philharmonic still does not have a fully Asian member because the orchestra long had a policy of excluding Asians. The orchestra believed Asians make music differently and that their appearance would also destroy the ensemble’s image of Austrian authenticity.
In his memoirs, published in 1970, Otto Strasser, a former chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic describes the problems blind auditions caused:
“I hold it for 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, especially after I became Chairman of the Philharmonic, 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.”
I know these attitudes can be difficult for people from other cultures to comprehend, but its true.
For more info and additional documentation see:
http://www.osborne-conant.org/purity.htm
Concertmaster today was Albena Danailova who was superb in her solos during Mahler 9. A bit too quick in the finale (20 mins) so I wasn’t “taken on the journey” like I have been by Abbado and Bernstein. Walter had same tempi. Can’t have everything but I must say the string playing is the 8th wonder of the world in this orchestra. Such intensity of tone. Magnificent.
P.S,
You are going with the agenda of all the people that are also anti Israel (anti Jews) … so keep going!!!