Does the Vienna Phil discriminate?

The Vienna Philharmonic is touring the UK, and The Independent has re-visited the question of whether the orchestra discriminates on the basis of gender or national origin:

Bernstein called it “that unbelievable orchestra, which plays like one hundred angel-fingers growing out of my hands”. Yet once Stravinsky immolates into silence, pause, for before you is a bald fact: an orchestra almost exclusively male and white. No other internationally ranked orchestra has so few women and non-whites: respectively three percent and zero per cent. The belief system surrounding classical music seems to reach its most conservative apotheosis in Vienna. The Philharmonic’s maleness and whiteness seems to remain as inviolable a part of its identity as the liquid legato of its Vienna horn.

In February 1997, the Philharmonic voted to end its discrimination against women. The date was no coincidence, being a week before the orchestra flew to New York to play the Carnegie Hall. American public opinion, due to the research of conductor and musicologist, William Osborne, was turning against it. It found itself threatened with 800 protesters and negative press so it hastily voted to admit Anna Lelkes, a harpist, and to ensure open auditions would follow. Its then chairman, Werner Resel, resigned shortly afterwards.

…After the vote, four years passed. Auditions came and went. In 2000, Jörg Haider came and the Ministry for Women went. Unsurprisingly, nary a female ticket came out of the VPO audition hat. Lelkes’ name migrated to the retired list.

The second women tenured was her replacement, Charlotte Balzereit. Two more women passed their probejahr, four remain today on probation – all in the string section. In 2003, a string player lamented “three women are already too many. By the time we have 20 per cent, the orchestra will be ruined”. And in 2006, Werner Resel, who had resigned in 1997, reappeared in the newly created role of Director of the State Opera Orchestra, then aged 71. (The Vienna Philharmonic is the private band of the State Opera Orchestra, which holds the auditions. After three years, a State Opera musician is eligible for the Philharmonic. Thereafter, musicians work for both.) Dr Wolfgang Zinggl, the Green politician, concluded: “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a woman to get into the State Opera Orchestra under Resel.” The State Opera responded by saying Mr Resel’s role was “administrative”. Yet 2006 saw the firing of Iva Nikolova, a move documented by Zinggl, that exposed the conflicted heart of the orchestra: Zinggl documented petitions denied, threats nailed to dressing-room doors and attempts to revise orchestral laws. Yet the one tarred in the press was Zinggl.

The appointment of a woman, Albena Danailova, as a concertmistress, seems groundbreaking. She was promoted in 2008, shortly after the orchestra fired Helene Kenyeri, oboist and only woman outside the string section. No women have been tenured since. While Danailova’s ability is unquestionable, was this tactical? There are still no women outside the string section even when women comprise 62 per cent of students at the Viennese University of Music and Performing Arts, and have done for 20 years with better graduation results than men, so why does the VPO hire 20 times more men and why is the firing rate for women higher? (another Austrian orchestra, the Bruckner, has 35 per cent women.) There are a number of Philharmonic women substitutes but a musician of the State Opera said: “You cannot have a female principal because if she’s hired at 23, you can be guaranteed within 10 years, she’ll have to take two years off to have a child, which is an impossible situation for the orchestra”, and an ex-VPO musician snapped: “I like women. Just not in the Philharmonic.”

The same pattern emerges with race. Asian students comprise 25 per cent of music students in Vienna yet the Philharmonic’s only non-white musician, tuba player Yasuto Sugiyama, was fired before he completed his trial year in 2003…

There is a 1996 quote from Dieter Flury, flautist and current business director: “From the beginning, we have spoken of the special Viennese qualities…. The way we make music here is… something that has a lot to do with the soul. The soul does not let itself be separated from the cultural roots that we have here in central Europe. And it also doesn’t allow itself to be separated from gender… Therefore, I am convinced that it is worthwhile to accept this racist and sexist irritation, because something produced by a superficial understanding of human rights would not have the same standards.” (This statement was made before women were admitted)…
The Austrian government has what the orchestra calls a business “kontrakt” with the Philharmonic worth about 2.8 million euros annually. The Chancellery refers to this kontrakt under “arts funding”, which is interesting; firstly, because it’s illegal for governments within the EU to subsidise discriminatory organisations and secondly, the Philharmonic is a private organisation. The VPO also gets cheap mobile-phone contracts and its members get out of National Service. However, let us skip over this grey area. Underpinning this kontrakt is the commitment to “absolute equality between men and women”.

Hellsberg said: “There is no racism and no sexism in the orchestra” and added that they are “ambassadors for Austria”. He noted “the mathematical disparity between, for example, female flute students and the orchestra” and said “it must be addressed” but added that “playing for both the State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic makes it very difficult for family life”. He pointed out “two more women have been confirmed”. He also pointed out: “In the first violin section we have two half-Japanese players.”

Of course there’s “no racism and no sexism” in the VPO. That’s because it’s composed entirely of musicians who apparently don’t belong to the same species that’s been practicing racism and sexism for  the past 100,000 years or so.

Now the VPO is not the only orchestra with a history of discriminatory hiring practices. There’s some reason to believe that even the American system of screened auditions does not prevent gender discrimination in hiring practices. But the situation in the VPO is way outside the current international norm. (William Conant has written extensively about the VPO’s hiring practices; his most recent post is here.)

It is also true that the VPO is one of the world’s greatest orchestras and has an unique musical tradition. I had the pleasure of sitting in the front row at the Salzburg Festival for a performance of Don Giovanni with the VPO in the pit, courtesy of Alberto Vilar (long story). The unanimity of approach, both technical and musical, within the strings was absolutely extraordinary. It was if all the violinists had studied with the same teacher; one, moreover, who really got what orchestral playing is all about.To hear a pianissimo rise out of the firsts, with no single player appearing to make any sound at all, and (what was equally impressive) then to stay pianissimo, was unforgettable. I’ve never seen a string section with that kind of unanimity about bow use or control of bow distribution.

There was, by the way, a woman in the orchestra; she played the mandolin, and left after the mandolin moment. There was also an American in the trombone section; in that sea of Austrian-ness, he was pretty easy to spot.

Is it plausible that “the way we make music here is… something that has a lot to do with the soul… [the soul] also doesn’t allow itself to be separated from gender…”? I don’t think so. I’ve heard more screened auditions over the years that I care to remember, but not once did I ever think “that’s a guy” or “that’s a woman.” There is no question that an orchestra composed exclusively of men is going to have different interpersonal dynamics than one that’s 50/50 men/women. But that’s not the same as saying that men and women play differently in ways that are aurally or musically perceptible. There simply is nothing that could remotely be construed as evidence for that proposition, and it does not speak well of the VPO that, as recently as 1996, the orchestra’s leadership was still claiming otherwise.