Features: The Unfinished Symphony

That lack of innovation went largely un-criticized for years. Perhaps it took a Gray Old Lady to know a Gray Old Lady: one Bulletin review that appeared in the mid-1960s, though lavish in its praise of the orchestra’s superb technical accomplishments, also made note of its less-than exciting selection of compositions. "Programs heard during the season again place the Philadelphians among the most conservative and least adventurous of major orchestras," wrote reviewer Max de Schauensee. "But it seems the public would have it so, and the management is only too happy to acquiesce."

A decade and a half has passed since those words were written; the baton of the Philadelphia, Orchestra has now passed from Ormandy’s grasp into the younger hands of Riccardo Muti. Yet that assessment of the orchestra’s limited programming holds true today. At least some of the musical cognoscenti, however, aware of what happened to that first Gray Old Lady, are now fearful for the future of the second.

Though few believe that major orchestras should play only modem music, most critics feel that a continued emphasis on standard classics is detrimental to both an orchestra and its audience. In his slim but insightful book about the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bach, Beethoven and Bureaucracy, Edward Arian noted that Eugene Ormandy’s programming style was prized because it offered "no stunts, no loud noises, nothing to offend." But Arian, himself a Philadelphia Orchestra member for 20 years, saw the danger in perpetuating such conservative scheduling: It’s a widely accepted fact that many works of art which have been truly creative or innovative have generated controversy or given offense," wrote Arian, Indeed, audiences reacted with antipathy to, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Brahms’ Symphony No.1 in C minor, Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade and Strauss’s Thus Spake Zarathustra when those now classics were originally presented. "If a symphonic organization adopts a policy of playing nothing to offend its audiences," Arian continued, " .. , it need hardly be added that it runs the risk of automatically excluding many vital contemporary works. In addition, from an educational standpoint, it would appear that this policy will hardly advance the level of audience appreciation or stir it from a somnolent lethargy " Despite that warning, little has been done to update the orchestra’s programming As Donal Henahan wrote at the outset of Muti’s tenure, in The New York Times, the Philadelphia Orchestra continues to be "a captive of its own history."