It’s good to see The New York Times taking constructive note of the Vienna Philharmonic’s The Times’ acknowledgment of this issue is vitally important because it’s the sole newspaper Just getting to this point, after many years of protest initiated by composer-musicologist In Interestingly the orchestra has always sought young players. At auditions no one over 35 is If more women join its ranks, the orchestra will certainly change. But why should that not be <\/P> Tommasini’s mention of auditions brought up another question, also raised by Riding’s article, At the time that Tommasini’s critique appeared, Osborne hailed it as a mainstream
\ndiscrimination against women,
\nSunday about Seiji Ozawa’s role in Vienna’s musical world,
\n“He Got His Opera, Vienna Got Its
\nMaestro,”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> Alan Riding noted: <\/P>
\n[Ozawa] hopes to exercise influence in one area that has brought the Vienna
\nPhilharmonic reams of negative publicity: its longstanding resistance to admitting women into its
\nranks. True, in 1997 it voted to admit women through the existing audition process. But even
\ntoday, it has just 3 among its 148 members: a harpist, a violist and a cellist. Other women
\noccasionally play with the orchestra as substitutes.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\nin the United States that the Vienna Philharmonic cares about, mainly due to the fact that its
\nreporting can affect opinions among the New York audience for its annual tours to
\nCarnegie Hall — the orchestra plays there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week —
\nand among the American audience-at-large that buys its recordings. <\/P>
\n
\nU.S. women activists, has taken too long. The Times music critic Bernard Holland and the
\nclassical music editor James Oestreich tended to pooh-pooh the issue, and for years they were
\nseen by feminists as, in effect, apologists for the orchestra. It wasn’t until another Times music
\ncritic, Anthony Tommasini, made the issue a central point of a critique of the Vienna
\nPhilharmonic’s Carnegie Hall performance in 2000 that the issue began to gain traction at the
\npaper. <\/P>
\n
\nVienna Philharmonic Returns, Virtually a Male Bastion,”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>
\nTommasini faulted the orchestra’s musical and cultural “unanimity of purpose” as a defense
\nfor its exclusion of women. He echoed points that Osborne had made in
\nas M.I.T,’s
\nof the International Alliance of Women in Music<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. Tommasini
\nwrote:<\/P>
\nObviously, the unanimity of purpose that the Vienna Philharmonic has
\nachieved is a precious thing and you can understand their fear of diluting it. But what accounts for
\nthis quality? The maleness of the players? Maybe that was so in a time when women were
\nroutinely oppressed, but it makes no sense any longer. More likely the special cohesiveness comes
\nfrom a shared commitment to a revered heritage. Why should fine female musicians not be able to
\nembrace this heritage and work ethic as well as men? Over the decades many sons have followed
\ntheir fathers into this orchestra. Cannot daughters do the same?
\n
\nselected. Looking at all the youthful faces, I kept wondering what these men must think about the
\norchestra’s history of prejudice against women. Do they approve? Are they go-along, get-along
\nchauvinists or closet feminists waiting for the old guard to pass away? <\/P>
\n
\nan enriching change? The players already have a weighty tradition to uphold. It must be tiring to
\nalso cart around all that manhood.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nin which Ozawa is quoted as saying: “It’s true that since I came here, more women have come for
\nauditions, because the record says that some 60 percent of the musicians I chose for the Boston
\nSymphony were women. But I have to say, the auditions I have seen have been fair.” <\/P>
\n
\nbreakthrough. But he was well aware that it fell short of telling the whole story. Auditions then
\nand even now, despite Ozawa’s claim, are stacked against women. <\/P>
\n