Synopsis

On today's date in 1862, while President Lincoln was fretting over General McClellan’s unwillingness to confront Secessionist rebels, New York concert-goers could find some relief from Civil War headlines by attending a New York Philharmonic concert at Irving Hall.

Conductor Carl Bergman had programmed some brand-new music by a Hamburg composer named Brahms, whose Serenade No. 2 received its American premiere at their February 1 concert — a concert that took place almost two years to the day after the serenade’s world premiere in Hamburg in 1860.

Give the New York Philharmonic some credit for daring programming. After all, it would be another year before the same Serenade would be performed in Vienna. Moreover, in 1863, during the Vienna Philharmonic’s final rehearsal of this “difficult” new music by a composer nobody there had ever heard of, open mutiny broke out.

The first clarinetist stood up and declared that the music was too darn hard and the orchestra simply refused to play it. Conductor Otto Dessoff, who had programmed the Brahms, turned white with anger, laid down his baton, and resigned on the spot, joined by the Vienna Philharmonic's concertmaster and principal flutist.

Alarmed at the threatened disintegration of their orchestra, the Viennese rebels capitulated; and the performance of Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 took place as scheduled and was, to the mutineers’ chagrined astonishment, a tremendous success.

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Serenade No. 2; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor; Telarc 80522