Type
Text
Type
Dissertation
Advisor
Minor, Ryan | Sugarman, Jane | Lochhead, Judith | Winkler, Peter | Albarelli, Jerald.
Date
2015-05-01
Keywords
Music | communities, institutions, New York Philharmonic, oral history, orchestral musicians, symphony orchestras
Department
Department of Music.
Language
en_US
Source
This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11401/76556
Publisher
The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.
Format
application/pdf
Abstract
When Stanley Drucker, a 19-year-old clarinetist from Brooklyn, joined the New York Philharmonic in 1948, he became part of a " men's club," populated primarily by European immigrants who had to find supplementary sources of income to augment the orchestra's meager 28-week season. By the time he gave his final performances as Principal Clarinet, six decades later, he was surrounded by a far more diverse assemblage of musicians who had vied to win coveted lucrative year-round employment in the prestigious ensemble. This dissertation takes advantage of the rare opportunity granted by Drucker's historic tenure to offer an oral history of the social, financial, and logistical changes that transformed the New York Philharmonic between 1948 and 2008. Previous institutional histories have presented chronological and factual data about the formation and development of the orchestra since 1842, and, in some cases, have considered the Philharmonic’s relationship with its audience. This study refocuses attention on the long-neglected concept of the Philharmonic as a community, in and of itself, comprising individuals with voices worthy of exposure. In addition to an extended series of interviews with Drucker, fifteen other orchestra members were interviewed, as well as two composers who became drawn into the Philharmonic community when they were commissioned to write concertos for Drucker. Excerpts from these personal narratives are then woven together with contextual and documentary information, concentrating on four main issues: the changing face of the orchestra, orchestral logistics, the commissioning and premiering of new works, and the music directors. By allowing overarching themes and greater significances to emerge from the words of the Philharmonic community itself, this work is intended to reach as broad a readership as possible, so as to demystify an institution too often thought of as elitist. In so doing, it provides an innovatively structured examination of how the New York Philharmonic community changed over a 60-year period and just what it means to be an orchestral musician in the 21st century. | When Stanley Drucker, a 19-year-old clarinetist from Brooklyn, joined the New York Philharmonic in 1948, he became part of a " men's club," populated primarily by European immigrants who had to find supplementary sources of income to augment the orchestra's meager 28-week season. By the time he gave his final performances as Principal Clarinet, six decades later, he was surrounded by a far more diverse assemblage of musicians who had vied to win coveted lucrative year-round employment in the prestigious ensemble. This dissertation takes advantage of the rare opportunity granted by Drucker's historic tenure to offer an oral history of the social, financial, and logistical changes that transformed the New York Philharmonic between 1948 and 2008. Previous institutional histories have presented chronological and factual data about the formation and development of the orchestra since 1842, and, in some cases, have considered the Philharmonic’s relationship with its audience. This study refocuses attention on the long-neglected concept of the Philharmonic as a community, in and of itself, comprising individuals with voices worthy of exposure. In addition to an extended series of interviews with Drucker, fifteen other orchestra members were interviewed, as well as two composers who became drawn into the Philharmonic community when they were commissioned to write concertos for Drucker. Excerpts from these personal narratives are then woven together with contextual and documentary information, concentrating on four main issues: the changing face of the orchestra, orchestral logistics, the commissioning and premiering of new works, and the music directors. By allowing overarching themes and greater significances to emerge from the words of the Philharmonic community itself, this work is intended to reach as broad a readership as possible, so as to demystify an institution too often thought of as elitist. In so doing, it provides an innovatively structured examination of how the New York Philharmonic community changed over a 60-year period and just what it means to be an orchestral musician in the 21st century. | 261 pages
Recommended Citation
Shapiro, Amy Beth, "Sixty Years at the New York Philharmonic Through the Eyes of Clarinetist Stanley Drucker: An Oral History of the Philharmonic Community, 1948-2008" (2015). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 2454.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/2454