Women and the
Vienna Philharmonic

Women's Roles in Austria

An online supplement to The German Way by Hyde Flippo
McGraw-Hill/Passport Books
ISBN 0-8442-2513-4

For over a century and a half, the private enterprise (with government funding) known as the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra managed to avoid hiring even one woman musician—until 1997. In early March of that year, bowing to largely outside pressure, the venerable all-male Vienna orchestra relented and officially hired harpist Anna Lelkes—who has been with the orchestra unofficially for many years. This Austrian bastion of masculinity also agreed, albeit less than enthusiastically, to hold open auditions in 1998. The private Philharmonic selects its members from the state-supported Vienna State Opera, which does have females.

All the attention to this vestige of Austrian macho attitudes put the spotlight on a fact of life in the southern realms of the German-speaking world: women have NOT come a long way, baby. While women in Austria and Germany have their rights guaranteed in their respective constitutions, the reality of women's rights is often 10 to 20 years behind that of the United States. Generally, the further south one goes in Europe, the stronger the macho views. In fact, most of the push for musical and sexual equality in this case came from the U.S., with very little impetus from within Austria itself. The International Alliance for Women in Music, based in Culver City, California, led the protest on behalf of its 800 members in 31 countries. The Vienna Philharmonic wanted to tour the U.S. without controversy, but American feminists made it clear that the Viennese needed to change their exclusionary practices if they wanted to avoid boycotts and huge protests along the way. Thus did Mrs. Lelkes become the Vienna Philharmonic's token female musician.

The Austrians, unhappy about what they see as American interference, argue that women will change the sound and character of the Vienna Philharmonic, and some music critics do indeed credit the Viennese orchestra with a sound and a musical style that remain unique among the world's more-or-less homogenized symphony orchestras. Some observers have also pointed out that, even in the U.S., women musicians still comprise a clear minority in big-city symphony orchestras. The 100-strong San Francisco Symphony, with one of the highest percentages of females, employs only 35 women musicians. Of the New York Philharmonic's 103 members, only 32 are female. Counting the totals for the top five symphonies in the U.S., about 25 percent are female. To put U.S. progress in perspective, consider that in 1970 the percentage was a mere five percent. Today most U.S. orchestras use blind auditions (in which the player's gender is hidden behind a screen) to even the playing field (pun intended) for new hires.

But the respected Minnesota Philharmonic has a female concertmaster, and Vienna even lags far behind other European symphony orchestras. The Berlin Philharmonic has a dozen women among its 120 musicians, the London Symphony 16 out of 100. With a ratio of 147 to one, Vienna is definitely bringing up the rear. As Bernard Holland put it in the New York Times (3 Mar. 1997), ?Vienna and Culver City live according to different clocks and may occupy different centuries.?

So had the situation improved by 2004? Not really. Frau Lelkes was forced into retirement in 2001. Another female harpist hired to replace Lelkes left over a pay dispute. But the Philharmonic has always permitted female harpists, even if it never hired them on a permanent basis. A possible female replacement for the replacement would not represent any true breakthrough.

The Philharmonic's lone female non-harpist is 28-year-old Ursula Plaichinger, hired as a tutti violinist in 2001. If she lasts long enough and the orchestra decides to actually hire her, she'll be eligible for full membership in the Philharmonic in late 2004. In the meantime, the Philharmonic has hired 15 men... not exactly encouraging for women.

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Sources: The New York Times, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal

Copyright © 1997-2004 Hyde Flippo

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