Vienna Philharmonic / Andris Nelsons

Dazzling orchestral culture

Dmitri Shostakovich was a fan of the Vienna Philharmonic. We don’t know exactly when the Russian composer first encountered the orchestra, which was founded in 1842 under the name »Philharmonische Academie«; but in 1955, after attending a concert given to mark the reopening of the Vienna State Opera, he praised the »dazzling orchestral culture« that the Austrian musicians had evolved. Shostakovich’s own Ninth Symphony was already a few years old by this time, but like so many of his works it had been banned from performance.