History
The orchestra was founded in 1918 by Adella Prentiss Hughes, with Nikolai Sokoloff as its principal conductor. From early in its existence, it toured throughout the eastern United States, made radio broadcasts, and recorded many albums. Subsequent principal conductors, with the title of Music Director, were Artur Rodziński (1933–1943), Erich Leinsdorf (1943–1944), George Szell (1946–1970), Pierre Boulez (Musical Advisor 1970-1972), Lorin Maazel (1972–1982), and Christoph von Dohnányi (1984–2002). Franz Welser-Möst has been Music Director since 2002 and is contracted to remain through the 2017-2018 season.
George Szell's long reign as Music Director has been largely credited for the orchestra's rise to eminence. He reformed the orchestra in the late-1940s, firing a dozen musicians in the process with a dozen more leaving of their own volition. Szell is also credited with giving the orchestra its distinct, European sound. He pushed an ambitious recording schedule with the orchestra, bringing its music to millions worldwide. Szell's influence has continued, even decades after his death.
Cleveland is the smallest city amongst the traditional "Big Five" orchestras; the others are based in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. However, musicians in Cleveland are often treated as local celebrities, and, much like sports heroes elsewhere, fans seek autographs after performances and greet musicians on the street. Clevelanders are proud that their city boasts an orchestra that has several times been touted as America's finest, and compared favorably to many of the great orchestras in Central Europe. In the 1960s fans were known to "have airport rallies when the orchestra comes home from tour chant, 'We're the best! We're the best!' and carry placards reading 'Bravo!'"
In addition to a vast catalog of recordings created with the ensemble's music directors, the orchestra has made many recordings with guest conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Oliver Knussen, Kurt Sanderling, Yoel Levi, Riccardo Chailly, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Louis Lane (the orchestra's longtime Associate Conductor). Past assistant conductors of the Cleveland Orchestra include James Levine, Sasha Mäkilä, Alan Gilbert, James Judd and Michael Stern.
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“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)