London Symphony Orchestra - Reputation

Reputation

In his 1988 Gramophone article James Jolly said of the LSO:

Some would claim … that it is the most American of our orchestras, thinking no doubt of the Previn legacy, Bernstein's Presidency and Tilson Thomas's appointment. Others, looking back further to Pierre Monteux's reign, think it our most French orchestra, a quality nurtured by Previn and latterly Claudio Abbado. But what of their essaying of the Slavonic repertoire under Istvan Kertész, or of Mahler, whose idiom has been finely honed by Abbado? No, the LSO remains enigmatic, unpredictable and supremely individual. Of all the London orchestras the LSO seems to have more "personalities", more "individuals" and has given the solo world more than its fair share of "star" performers. As an orchestra the LSO has never been prepared to submit to one principal conductor for long (one thinks of Karajan in Berlin, Haitink in Amsterdam or Mravinsky in Leningrad) but one of its greatest strengths remains its ability to attract fine conductors and dedicate itself wholeheartedly to creating a genuine performance.

For many years the LSO had a reputation as an almost exclusively male ensemble (women harpists excepted). Morrison describes the LSO of the 1960s and 70s as "a rambunctious boys' club that swaggered round the globe." Before the 1970s one of the few women to play in the orchestra was the oboist Evelyn Rothwell, who joined in the 1930s and found herself regarded as an outsider by her male colleagues. She was not admitted to full membership of the orchestra: the first woman to be elected as a member of the LSO was Renata Scheffel-Stein in 1975. By that time other British orchestras had left the LSO far behind in this regard.

By the time of its centenary about 20 per cent of the LSO's members were women. Some musicians, including Davis, judged that this improved the orchestra's playing as well as its behaviour. Others, including Previn and the veteran principal trumpet Maurice Murphy, felt that although the technical standard of playing had improved, the diminution of the orchestra's machismo was a matter for regret. Comparing the LSO of 2004 with the orchestra of the 1960s and 70s, Murphy said, "Now the strings have improved so much, the playing is fantastic, but it has lost something of its gung-ho quality." The orchestra of the 1960s had a reputation for tormenting conductors it disliked; even such notorious martinets as George Szell were given a hard time. By the 21st century the orchestra had long abandoned such aggression; civilities were maintained even with conductors whom the orchestra took against: they were simply never re-engaged.