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Carnegie—The most storied concert hall in the world
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Famous Conductors' Debuts at Carnegie Hall
Used with permission of MidAmerica Productions, Inc.
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Walter Damrosch 1891New York Symphony Orchestra
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1891New York Symphony Orchestra
Anton Seidl 1892- Grand Concert featuring Dr. Antonín Dvorák
Emil Paur 1893 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Theodore Thomas 1898 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Richard Strauss 1904 Wetzler Symphony Orchestra
Modest Altschuller 1904 Russian Symphony Society of New York
Willem Mengelberg 1905 New York Philharmonic
Gustav Mahler 1908- New York Symphony Orchestra
Josef Stransky 1911 New York Philharmonic
Leopold Stokowski 1914 Philadelphia Orchestra
Pierre Monteux 1918 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Arturo Toscanini 1921 La Scala Orchestra
Bruno Walter 1923 New York Symphony Orchestra
Serge Koussevitzky 1924 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Wilhelm Furtwängler 1925 New York Philharmonic
Igor Stravinsky 1925 New York Philharmonic
Fritz Reiner 1926 Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Otto Klemperer 1926 New York Philharmonic
Artur Rodzinski 1926 Philadelphia Orchestra
Thomas Beecham 1928 New York Philharmonic
Eugene Ormandy 1929 Members of the New York Philharmonic (Anna Duncan, dancer, concert)
Leon Barzin 1929 American Orchestral Society
Erich Kleiber 1930 New York Philharmonic
Antonia Brico 1935 New York Women's Symphony Orchestra
John Barbirolli 1936 New York Philharmonic
Nadia Boulanger 1939 New York Philharmonic
Dimitri Mitropoulos 1940 New York Philharmonic
Erich Leinsforf 1943 High School of Music and Art Senior Symphony Orchestra and Choral Ensemble
George Szell 1943 New York Philharmonic
William Steinberg 1943 New York Philharmonic
Leonard Bernstein 1943 New York Philharmonic
Charles Munch 1947 New York Philharmonic
Rafael Kubelik 1953 Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Herbert von Karajan 1955 Berlin Philharmonic
Alfred Wallenstein 1956 Unnamed orchestra -Arthur Rubinstein concert
Sir Georg Solti 1957 New York Philharmonic
Carlo Maria Giulini 1960 Israel Philharmonic
Karl Boehm 1960 New York Philharmonic
Seiji Ozawa 1961- New York Philharmonic
Bernard Haitink 1961 Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam
Zubin Mehta 1963 American Symhony Orchestra
Wolfgang Sawallisch 1964 Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Colin Davis 1964 London Symphony Orchestra
Pierre Boulez 1965 BBC Symphony Orchestra
Lorin Maazel 1968 Philadelphia Orchestra
Andre Previn 1968 American Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim 1968 London Symphony Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas 1969 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado 1970 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Kurt Masur 1974 Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig
Riccardo Muti 1975 Philadelphia Orchestra
Mariss Jansons 1975 Moscow State Symphony
Simon Rattle 1976 London Schools Symphony Orchestra
Neville Marriner 1980 Minnesota Orchestra
Charles Dutoit 1982 Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Herbert Blomstedt 1983 Dresden Staatskapelle
Charles Mackerras 1983 English Chamber Orchestra
Sergiu Celibidache 1984 Curtis Institute of Music Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Chailly 1985 Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin
Esa-Pekka Salonen 1988 Swedish Radio Orchestra
John Eliot Gardiner 1988 Orchestra of St. Luke's
Nikolaus Harnoncourt 1996 Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Gustavo Dudamel 2007 Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela
Marin Alsop 2008 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons 2011 Boston Symphony Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin 2012 Philadelphia Orchestra
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On the Carnegie Stage
Reproduced from https://www.carnegiehall.org
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Consistent Genius
Among the more unusual items in Carnegie Hall’s Archives is one related to pianist Vladimir Horowitz’s performances. Gino Francesconi, director of the Hall’s Archives and Rose Museum, recalls, “When Horowitz would come, he would bring his own Steinway piano from home. Every time, he would have the stagehands move the piano around the stage to achieve the best sound.
The stagehands noticed that every time he said, ‘I’m happy where it is,’ it was pretty much in the same spot. So one of the stagehands decided to drive three screws into the stage to mark where the three different legs of the piano would go. Horowitz would arrive, and he would say the same thing: ‘No, I’m not happy with it there,’ and the stagehands would move the piano around the stage until he said, ‘Yes, I’m happy with it here.’ It always ended up positioned directly alongside the three screws.
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“Periodically at Carnegie Hall, we have the stage floor redone, and I was watching them removing the stage floor one particular time when I realized, ‘Oh my goodness, they’re taking up the Horowitz screws!’ So I yelled, ‘Save those screws!’ And they did. One of the screws is in the museum on display. It just shows how remarkably precise he was. Every time he was satisfied with the movement of the piano, it was almost always over those nails.”
Longevity
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Over a period of almost six decades, Horowitz appeared at Carnegie Hall nearly 100 times. He made his Hall debut on January 12, 1928—a mere 40 years after the Hall opened—with Sir Thomas Beecham and the New York Philharmonic (one of three concerts in four days), and appeared here for the final time on December 15, 1986, as part of the Hall’s gala reopening following an extensive renovation. (Other artists who performed at the gala included Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, Marilyn Horne, and Frank Sinatra.)
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The Comeback
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On February 25, 1953, Horowitz performed a recital that included works by Brahms, Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy. After he left the stage, he began an unannounced retirement from live performance. While he continued to release recordings, he did not perform again in public for 12 years. His return took place at Carnegie Hall on May 9, 1965; the news made the front page of The New York Times. As these were the days before telephone and online booking, people lined up around the block, from the Box Office on 57th Street around the corner to the stage door on 56th Street. Horowitz was back!
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The great pianist went on to perform more than a dozen more concerts at Carnegie Hall through 1978, before returning once more after an eight-year hiatus to help celebrate the successful renovation of the Hall he had graced for nearly 60 years.
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