The year was 1896, the venue was Oakland's Carnegie Music Hall and the man with the baton was Englishman Frederic Archer when the then-Pittsburgh Orchestra played its first concert.
The program included works by Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Wagner, as well as a Saint-Saens piece that was only about 25 years old at the time.
One-hundred-twenty years later to the day, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will play that same Saint-Saens work at that same venue, along with some other seminal pieces it’s performed along the way.
During its twelve decades, the orchestra has grown accustomed to having big personalities at the helm, from Irish-born composer and conductor Victor Herbert in 1898 to the current maestro, Austrian Manfred Honeck.
"Coming from Europe, I was astonished to see how this great orchestra is so professional, having enormous technical ability, an enormous way of playing that came very close to my heart," Honeck said in an interview with Essential Pittsburgh this week.
The PSO has experienced its share of turbulence along the way. Just fourteen years after it was founded, the orchestra disbanded for what was expected to be a short hiatus as financial difficulties cleared up.
The disbandment lasted 16 years. When at last the ensemble was reformed in 1926, the Syria Mosque in Oakland became its new home.
Just a year later, nine orchestra board members were arrested under Pennsylvania’s Blue Laws for holding a concert series on Sunday – one of many activities then prohibited during the Sabbath by a 1794 law. However, the series continued, all fines were overturned in court, and the orchestra gained some popularity for its pluckiness.
After leadership stints of Elias Breeskin and Braddock native Antonio Modarelli, the orchestra asked renowned conductor Otto Klemperer to reorganize the group. In an oral history interview, longtime PSO concertmaster Wilbert Frisch said Klemperer could be severe.
“We had all these young people – who became great people – playing in the orchestra, and he would fire maybe 40 people in a year," Frisch said. "It didn’t make any difference [to him].”
Klemperer is credited with bringing the orchestra’s playing to a higher level than ever before.
That set the stage for the legendary Hungarian conductor Fritz Reiner to take up a permanent position at the head of the orchestra in 1938.
Frisch called Reiner a “demon.”
Longtime Pittsburgh Symphony Radio host Ray Lehman said in an earlier interview that the maestro did have a bit of a reputation, but he led the orchestra well through some tough financial times.
“They didn’t know from week to week whether they could meet the payroll for the next week, but that didn’t deter the playing of the orchestra,” Lehman said. “Reiner, as I understand, was a real martinet with the baton in his hand, but I didn’t have to deal with him. I just listened to the music he made and I thought it was wonderful.”
Lehman remembered buying his first subscription to the PSO in 1942 – four dollars for sixteen concerts. He noticed something unusual for the time period.
“Reiner had lost a ton of musicians to the military, and he had 43 women in the orchestra that year," Lehman said. "I guess in a way, World War II opened the door for women in symphony orchestras.”
After Reiner’s tenure was up in 1948, several guest conductors stood in before William Steinberg took command in 1952. His time with the Pittsburgh lasted 23 years, and he’s remembered fondly by those who played for him.
Byron McCulloh, the late PSO trombonist and Carnegie Mellon University professor, said the city misses Steinberg’s deep love of music.
“He had extremely expressive eyes, and even when you couldn’t tell a thing about what he was doing with his hands, you could always watch his eyes and play, and that’s what we did,” McCulloh said.
Former PSO principal flutist Bernard Goldberg said Klemperer, Reiner and Steinberg established a heavier, German sound in the orchestra that has influenced the Pittsburgh ever since. But Goldberg said the ensemble’s next music director, Andre Previn, took things in a different direction.
“Previn tried to lighten the sound. He liked the English sound," Goldberg said. "He thought I played too loud.”
During his tenure, the orchestra’s current home, Heinz Hall, was opened in 1971. Previn is also credited with increasing the visibility of the orchestra with the public television concert series, Previn and the Pittsburgh. One of Previn’s own compositions, the Triple Concerto for Horn, Trumpet and Tuba, will be performed in part on Saturday.
Following Previn’s departure, Lorin Maazel led the Pittsburgh from 1984 to 1996. Flutist Goldberg called Maazel a true virtuoso who inspired his musicians to perform at an extraordinarily high level.
“Maazel, it’s the international sound of incredible precision, intonation – you know, to play all the notes – and brilliance," Goldberg said. "It’s a much stronger sound than orchestras used to play with.”
After Maazel left, the orchestra found its eighth music director in Mariss Jansons. His ascension was nearly concurrent with the much-beloved Marvin Hamlisch’s nomination as principal pops conductor. Though he originally hailed from New York, Hamlisch expressed his love for this city an interview with Essential Pittsburgh.
“This is what I call a ‘little big town,’" Hamlisch said. "People are still nice here. People don’t cut you off in mid-sentence. People say ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome.’ There’s a gentility here that’s not in New York -- it’s just a rough-edged town.”
Hamlisch remained principal pops conductor of the PSO until his death in 2012.
In 2008, Maestro Honeck accepted the job as ninth music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. After two extensions, his contract now runs through 2020.
"I fell in love immediately, because I thought, 'This is how I want to make music,'" Honeck said.
It’ll cost you a bit more than four dollars, but Saturday night’s 120th anniversary concert begins at 7:30 at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.
This story used interviews from Maurice Levy Oral History of Music in Pittsburgh collection, housed at the Music Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
