Wiener Philharmoniker

The Wiener Philharmoniker started in 1842 when Otto Nicolai gathered musicians from Vienna's Court Opera Orchestra. They wanted more control over their work than the opera house allowed. The orchestra has kept that self-governing structure, with the musicians themselves owning and running the organization.

They've made many recordings over the decades, like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1951 and Mahler's Eighth with Leonard Bernstein in 1975. Their annual New Year's Concert from Vienna has become a broadcast tradition. In 2018, that concert included Beethoven's "O Freunde, Nicht Diese Töne", the "Ode to Joy" section of the Ninth Symphony, as part of a program remembering Holocaust victims, which drew some criticism about the piece's historical associations.

The orchestra has worked with various conductors, including Herbert von Karajan, whose 1989 reading of Beethoven's Ninth was called too slow by some. Players have included violinists like Fritz Kreisler and Anne-Sophie Mutter, and cellists such as Emanuel Feuermann.