Spectacle: Mimeographed Music

Brahms is another real work horse of Philadelphia’s musical stables. The Orchestra has posted only 16 of his works, but they’ve run those 16 a total of 65 times. Brahms First Symphony is the all-time winner, having been in the chips every single season. The Second and Fourth both run a close second, having played nine of the ten seasons. The Third showed up only five times. In the strangest of all oversights, works by Mahler and Bruckner have been slated only five times each. If any orchestra is suited to play this sublimely "romantic" music written on the largest orchestral scale, it is the Philadelphia. On the other hand, Debussy’s "La Mer" has been worked overtime — eight out of ten seasons, and Ravel’s "Daphnis and Chloe" Suite, No.2, "La Valse" and "Rhapsodie Espagnole" five times each.

There are almost as many repeaters among the list of solo instruments that appear with the Orchestra as there are in the repertoire. An average of seven pianists and five violinists perform with the Orchestra annually. This means that the variety of other solo instruments, like the flute, harp, clarinet and horn, get called to the Academy spotlight only once in every several years at best.

Counting in special concerts and performances out of town, the pianists included Rudolf Serkin every year but one, Byron Janis seven years, Philippe Entremont six years and Van Cliburn all but one year since he won the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958. Of the violinists, Isaac Stern appeared with the orchestra every season but two, and Zino Francescatti all but four. Hilde Guedin is far and above the favorite singer. She has vocalized with the Orchestra seven times.

OLD UNFAVORITES. If the Orchestra is overfeeding audiences in some respect it is starving them in others.

Surveying the last ten year’s concerts, it is shocking to find how little pre-Classical period music has been scheduled. Works by Corelli, Telemann, Vivaldi and Rameau have been performed a total of 12 times. Telemann, alone, wrote 1000 orchestral suites.

Bach, of course, is well represented. But Orchestra-goers hear some 25 transcriptions of chorale-preludes and organ works and not many of the pieces, like the Third, Fourth and Fifth Brandenburg Concerti, specifically written for orchestra.

Haydn is performed scandalously little — a total of 18 times over these ten seasons. And invariably it is one of his last 12 symphonies (Haydn wrote 104). It took a guest conductor like Hermann Scherchen in his American debut this fall to bring Haydn’s lovely “Passione” Symphony, No. 49, to the attention of Philadelphia. Mozart comes out a little better than Haydn, but, contrary to what the Orchestra would have us believe, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” is no the only serenade he composed. Orchestra audiences do get a good sampling of the piano concerti, but heard two of his three violin concerti only one time each. These beautiful works could be performed more often and thus relieve the monotony of listening to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto five out of the last ten years, Tchaikovsky’s seven out of then and Brahms six.