Great Orchestras -- Beyond the Standard List

Tom Martin -- Thu, 10/16/2008 - 17:26

I had the opportunity to hear the Dallas Symphony, with new conductor Jaap Van Zweden, a few weeks ago. They did the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 (with Horatio Gutierrez) and the Shostokovich Symphony No. 5.

Frankly, I thought the performance was phenomenal. The folks I was with agreed. The sound was also great in Meyerson Hall. I've heard the CSO, the BSO, and NY Phil. This was as good and sounded better.

Could it be the case that some of the "Tier 2" orchestras are fully competitive? Are there some unsung halls out there? Or was I just lucky or in a good mood (being accompanied by five women could have thrown my judgment off)?

If there are some really good Tier 2 orchestras and halls, which are these?

ARQuint -- Mon, 10/20/2008 - 05:57

What a wonderful truth this posting underscores! American music schools are known for producing large numbers of superbly proficient players that populate many orchestras beyond the traditional symphonic royaltyâ€”Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, etc. In fact, the best American orchestra at this time, in my opinion, is the San Francisco Symphony, an ensemble that would have been characterized as "Tier 2" 25 or 30 years ago.

Beyond NY, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston, SF, and LAâ€”the obvious high-profile groupsâ€”you've got:

Dallas (as Tom mentioned), Atlanta, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and Baltimore. Several of these groups have excellent hallsâ€”the recorded evidence is there on multichannel SACDs from Telarc, BIS, and Hyperion.

A bit further down on my (prototypically male) heirarchal listing comes groups like Seattle, St. Louis, Detroit, and Houston.

Note that we're talking only full symphony orchestras here: we're not even considering smaller groups like Orpheus and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, or early music ensembles like the Boston Baroque.

The days of worshipping at the alter of the "Top Five" are definitely over!