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Since its foundation in the days of the monarchy, the Berlin Philharmonic1922 Orchestra^[1] has been a little republican island. It is the child of a spiritual revolution, a revolution in the presentation of musical masterpieces, a revolution connected with a man with whom the history of modern concert life really begins: Hans von Bülow.

In January 1882 Bülow had come to Berlin with his Meininger Hofkapelle. He conducted in the Sing-Akademie the music of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. First Brahms himself played his Second Piano Concerto under Bülow’s direction; then Bülow played the First Concerto with Brahms conducting. Berlin was overwhelmed. They did not recognize “their” Beethoven and Mendelssohn and for the first time realized the greatness of Brahms.

Twelve years after the second Reich had been founded, its young capital had neither a competent symphony orchestra nor an adequate concert hall. Ever since 1868, however, there had existed among the different musical organizations the Bilse’sche Kapelle, a collection of excellent musicians, especially of wind and strings, who gave concerts and made little tours under the worthy Benjamin Bilse, a former municipal musician from Liegnitz.

Early in 1882 there was a disagreement between the players and the patriarchal, despotic Bilse, and overnight the orchestra of fifty-four members found that they were left to themselves. Under the leadership of the second horn and a second violin, they constituted their own republic, and drew up their own constitution. From the beginning the orchestra was an independent creation of its own members, who held the shares of their limited company, and appointed the conductor and new players by popular vote. By legal deed they pledged themselves to remain inviolably together. This first constitution was enlarged in 1895, but it has never been greatly changed.

On May 5, 1882, they played their first concert as an independent body, and during that summer their concerts in Berlin and the provinces met with great success but little material profit. During that summer of 1882 this first self-governing orchestra in Germany got its name: The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the same year an adequate hall was found for it. The old skating rink, which till then had been devoted to roller-skating, was taken over to be devoted to music. Its name was changed to “Philharmonie” and the ugly, but acoustically perfect, hall remained the home of the Berlin Philharmonic till it was destroyed by a bomb.

The orchestra began by giving three or four popular concerts a week in its new hall. Soon the great choirs gave concerts with them, and soloists began to engage them and finally on October 23, 1882, the first of the great Berlin Philharmonic concerts took place. They combined tradition and a progressive outlook, and were enlivened by the cooperation of famous soloists.

Several conductors officiated that first winter, among them Joseph Joachim. From the beginning he was the patron and friend of the orchestra. He sent them his best pupils, and in 1883 he procured some summer engagements for them, the first of which he conducted himself. He contrived their presence at official functions, and conducted six concerts of a series of twelve. When a financial crisis threatened, he got support from the Mendelssohn and Siemens families. It was exactly fifty years before the Berlin Philharmonic could count on a regular subsidy from Berlin and the Reich, and after both had turned a deaf ear to its early needs, it was Joachim who suggested a Society of Friends of the Orchestra to contribute to its maintenance.

The first five years of the orchestra’s activities had proved the necessity of its existence, but what it lacked was a leading personality. Hans von Bülow filled the need. On March 4, 1884, Bülow, who had left Meiningen in 1882, had conducted one of the great Berlin Philharmonic concerts. Subsequently he had conducted a series of concerts in Hamburg and Bremen, but had not been satisfied. He came to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The first great trainer of a great orchestra in the history of conducting, he was the real founder of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, for it was he who prepared the ground for its tradition.

Bülow was the initiator of the great age of conductors which has lasted for eighty years. Through him the technique and position of a conductor gained their importance and became independent and influential. It was only, in fact, from Bülow’s day that the work of a conductor was taken seriously. He is the founder of modern orchestral culture.

The first of the ten Philharmonic concerts planned under Bülow took place on October 21, 1887. By November, the idea of admitting the public to the final rehearsal was adopted. It was an important innovation, the beginning of a lasting tradition. In the season 1890-91 Bülow conducted the first concert for the newly organized Pension Fund of the orchestra to found another permanent institution, the Pension Fund concert. He conducted in all fifty-one Berlin Philharmonic concerts. At the fiftieth, March 28, 1892, he made a famous speech after a performance of the Eroica, dedicating it to Bismarck; the speech and the dedication were intended as a protest of Bismarck’s brusque dismissal as the First Chancellor of the Reich by the young Kaiser.

In the winter of 1892-93, Bülow was already so ill that he could conduct only the last Philharmonic concert of the season, at which he made a speech praising the artistry of the orchestra. Hans Richter, Raphael Maszkowski, Felix Mottl, and Hermann Levi had conducted the previous concerts of that winter.

The winter of 1894-95 saw a memorable combination of conductors at the Philharmonic desk: Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Strauss conducted the ten Berlin, Mahler the eight Hamburg concerts. But the winter could only be an interregnum, for Strauss, the creative artist, could never submerge himself entirely in the direction of an orchestra. Meanwhile, the right man was found: Arthur Nikisch.

Some people consider it wrong to identify the history of an orchestra with its great conductors. But it seems to me that only in combination with dynamic leadership and a vital personality can the artistry of an orchestra be molded into truly inspired creative performances.

There was no doubt that Arthur Nikisch had that leadership and personality, and the ten Philharmonic concerts under his direction were the highlights of the enormous activity which the orchestra now assumed. He was, in his art, the extreme opposite of Bülow; he gave the orchestra, in addition to Bülow’s discipline, what he himself had to give as a conductor—a great elasticity and a most sensitive adaptability. The orchestra was increased to ninety.

Until January 9, 1922—a full twenty-seven years—Nikisch conducted1922 the Berlin Philharmonic concerts without interruption. He must have conducted about three hundred and fifty great concerts in Berlin, concerts which gave him an even greater prestige than the famous Gewandhaus concerts, which he conducted over the same period. His programs included a constant succession of new works and great soloists.

On January 9, 1922, Nikisch conducted the Berliners for the last time, and a new epoch began with their new chief, the young and idealistic Wilhelm Furtwängler.

[1]

I am indebted to Dr. Alfred Einstein’s brochure, 50 Jahre Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester, for much of the information about the Berlin Philharmonic’s history. Though he quotes me as a source, I could not have written what I have without his booklet, which he wrote on the occasion of the Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary in 1932.