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F ounded in 1870, the Dresden Philharmonie has long played a distinguished role in the cultural life of Germany, giving over 60 concerts a year at its home, the Cultural Palace on the “Altmarkt,” and touring frequently throughout the world. Originally called the Guild House Orchestra, it was established as Dresden’s concert orchestra, theyoungest of the city’s great musical institutions which date back to the sixteenth Century. In the Philharmonic's early years, Brahms, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky performed their own works with the orches tra. Other musicians who have appeared with the Philharmonie include Hans von Bülow, Anton Rubenstein, Fritz Busch, Artur Nikisch, Erick Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Seiji Ozawa, Klaus Tennstedt, Pablo Casals, Emil Gilels, Gidon Kremer, Wilhelm Kempff and Mstislav Rostropovich, to name only a few. Among the Dresden Philharmonic’s music directors over the past half-century have been Paul van Kempen, Carl Schuricht, Heinz Bongartz, Kurt Masur, Günter Herbig and Herbert Kegel. Since 1986 Jörg-Peter Weigle has held the post of chief conductor. Throughout its history the Philharmonie has been heard in the world’s music centers as a representative of Dresden’s famed musical culture. As early as 1871 it gave concerts in St. Petersburg and, in 1909, made a historic tour of the United States. More recently, the Philharmonie has toured China, Japan and, for the first time in 1992, South America. The Philharmonie musicians have an expansive repertoire encom- passing the Standard orchestral classics and numerous Contemporary works. The orchestra is especially known for its programming of unusual and innovative repertoire as well as for its concert per- formances of choral music and opera. It has made many recordings, which during the last 10 years have included the complete Beethoven symphonies, Britten’s War Requiem, Schoenberg’s “Gurrelieder,’’ and works of Berlioz, Dvorak, Hindemith, Martin, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Saint-Saens, among others.
