{"id":541,"date":"2004-02-02T09:33:08","date_gmt":"2004-02-02T17:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/02\/the_tarnish_beneath_the_charm\/"},"modified":"2004-02-02T09:33:08","modified_gmt":"2004-02-02T17:33:08","slug":"the_tarnish_beneath_the_charm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/02\/the_tarnish_beneath_the_charm.html","title":{"rendered":"THE TARNISH BENEATH THE CHARM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, Vienna. Such a wedding cake. How gem\u00fctlich<\/EM>. So warm and cozy. But
\nwhen you look closer, you discover the tarnish beneath the charm. Consider Austria’s major
\ncultural export, the world-famous Vienna
\nPhilharmonic<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>, which performs later this month at Carnegie Hall under
\nthe direction of Seiji Ozawa.<\/P>
\n

Seven years ago, after being criticized<\/FONT><\/EM><\/A><\/B> and pressured to change<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> its hiring policy, the orchestra
\nsaid it would end its discrimination against women<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. <\/P>
\n

But today there are still just two non-harpist women in the ensemble: violist Ursula
\nPlaichinger, hired in 2001, and cellist Ursula Wex, hired in 2003. All the rest of the 149 orchestra members<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> are men. And let’s not forget,
\nneither Plaichinger nor Wex are officially members of the Philharmonic. They must first complete
\na three-year tenure at the Vienna State Opera.<\/P>
\n

At any rate, perhap a small grimace of congratulation is in order: The VPo also hired its first
\nperson of color<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> last year. In Vienna, that’s considered progress. After
\nall, the VPo has had a 162-year policy of “whites only” membership. But that naturally goes
\nunmentioned in the official narrative<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> of the orchestra’s charming history,
\nwhich nevertheless manages to make sorrowful, clucking noises about its Nazi
\npast.

Come to think of it, Philip Kerr’s Berlin private eye Bernhard Gunther puts the
\ncity’s charm itself in a certain perspective:<\/P>
\n

There’s nothing the Viennese love more than getting “cosy.” They look to
\nachieve this conviviality in bars and restaurants, to the accompanisment of a musical quartet
\ncomprising a bass, a violin, an accordion and a zither. … For me, this omnipresent combination
\nembodies everything that was phoney about Vienna, like the syrupy sentiment and the affected
\npoliteness. It did make me feel cosy. Only it was the kind of cosiness you might have experienced
\nafter you had been embalmed, sealed in a lead-lined coffin, and tidily deposited in one of those
\nmarble mausoleums up at the Central Cemetery.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

Painting with a broad brush? Of course.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, Vienna. Such a wedding cake. How gem\u00fctlich. So warm and cozy. But when you look closer, you discover the tarnish beneath the charm. Consider Austria’s major cultural export, the world-famous Vienna Philharmonic, which performs later this month at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. Seven years ago, after being criticized and pressured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-8J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}