True believer in power of music
Music builds friendships: Daniel Froschauer in Colombo. Pix by Indika Handuwala
Daniel Froschauer, Chairman of probably the world’s most prestigious musical ensemble – the Vienna Philharmonic – after more than three decades of playing classical music professionally, still finds himself inspired by the music he plays, by the connections it creates among complete strangers, and the power it carries to make a difference in the world.
Earlier this month, Daniel, who is also a first violinist for the Vienna Philharmonic, performed in Sri Lanka at a private dinner held at President’s House with a few local musicians. “I find it truly inspiring because we have not met each other before, yet our mutual love of music makes us friends right away. So I can say, the three musicians I played with, they’re my friends, my friends from Sri Lanka, and I’m sure they feel the same,” Daniel said in an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times.
The visit by the distinguished musician was organized on invitation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to discuss the possibility of future collaboration with the famed Austrian orchestra and Sri Lankan musicians to celebrate the 70th anniversary of bilateral relations between the two nations. The small audience at the private performance included President Ranil Wickremesinghe and his wife Prof. Maithree Wickramasinghe.
Daniel’s first connection with the island was made during his time at the Juilliard School in New York where he made friends with Sri Lankan pianist Rohan De Silva who he describes as “an excellent person” who “is very proud of his country”. So when he received an invitation from the Foreign Ministry of Sri Lanka to visit and consider a collaboration with local musicians, he considered it “a very natural thing” to accept.
Daniel Froschauer: "The world needs these kinds of chances"
“And I saw a chance for our orchestra to connect and reach out to a country or to a situation we haven’t been in…To have a positive effect… The world needs these kinds of chances, because we have wars now, and we have situations that are very ugly.”
Daniel was born and raised in Vienna where his father, Helmuth Froschauer, was the Director of the Vienna State Opera. He would beg his father to let him accompany him to rehearsal and recalls the awe which was inspired in him by the sights and sounds he took in during those occasions. It still lives in him. “When I play music, from where I sit, I can see the conductor, I can see the audience, and sometimes I feel, now is a great moment, and I’m so happy I can share it.”
The Vienna Philharmonic was established in 1842 as the first professional orchestra in Vienna. The organization is based at Musikverein (translated music society) in Vienna, and its members are selected from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. “I love playing opera. It’s where the music gets its purest… You get every composer in their own language expressing the full range of emotional content. So, you always think, ‘I want to have a little bit of this transformation’.” It was also in this same venue that Daniel made his debut as a solo violinist in 1993.
Daniel joined the Vienna Philharmonic in 1995 and went on to win the prestigious Pierre Lantier international competition in Paris in 1997. In the nearly three decades since, his role, his appreciation of the organization and the organization itself have all changed.
The biggest and most visible change in the organization is the inclusion of women. At the time Daniel first joined, the Vienna Philharmonic was notorious among the great organizations of its kind for being an all-male orchestra. Soon after, in 1997, they finally allowed women members to join the prestigious ensemble and Daniel finds that “the life around [the performances]” has become more lively and robust since.
Daniel Froschauer with President Ranil Wickremesinghe at the private performance at President's House earlier this month
The orchestra was also “older” he says, with more members who were in the latter years of their lives. “They were the old guys and we had so much respect for them,” he recalls. Respect translated to distance. “I wouldn’t talk to them.” Today’s Vienna Philharmonic is much younger and “more equal,” Daniel believes.
Having a younger membership in the orchestra has also translated to a better acceptance of newer music, Daniel finds. “When I joined the orchestra, and when they brought in pieces [by composers] like Schoenberg you could feel this collective upset. It was not open, but there was an opposition. Now, it’s a young orchestra, and all the people are very curious, and the main goal is to play this super well. And so when we played Schoenberg Variations on the last tour to America, it was just amazing for me, and I did not feel it at all, this old opposition to new music… And consequently, the performances were strong.”
Comments from the audience on that particular tour indicated to the Chairman that the commitment of the orchestra to first explore and then share well, the newer music, made a difference to their performance. And this commitment, is for him, the better part. “Even if somebody is not a perfect musician or something, but if they are super serious and they try to improve, that’s worth much more than a person who is super talented and they feel like, ‘oh, it’s nothing,’” Daniel says. “It’s the attitude that’s attractive.”
To convey the importance of this attitude is Daniel’s mission as Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic. “I am really older, so I appreciate the luck I’ve had. There is, of course, the hard work, but essentially you have to be lucky… I think my biggest goal is to make the young people appreciate this luck, to give it to others who weren’t as lucky or who have different circumstances… I want them to realize the responsibility they carry.”
This responsibility, to Daniel, translates to using the power of art which he believes “is the gift of God” to inspire and transform their audience in the same way that they as performers are inspired and transformed each time they play. On the one hand, Vienna Philharmonic has nearly 300 concerts scheduled through to June 2025 and tickets for their New Year’s Concert, priced from 35 Euros up to 1200 Euros, sell out months in advance. And on the other, they function under the motto “from the heart, to the heart” (taken from Beethoven’s preface to the Missa Solemnis in D major Op.123), playing for numerous humanitarian causes, and also making an annual donation of 100,000 euros from their New Year’s Concert to a variety of humanitarian organizations.
“Austria has no cricket, but we have Musikverein,” he jokes, adding that “I think we have to be careful that we don’t unlearn how to appreciate beauty.”
| The Vienna Philharmonic—a proud history | |
| Founded in 1842, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (VPO) has enjoyed a prestigious position as one of the finest orchestras in the world.The orchestra, which is self-governed, is famous for its unique sound which the current Chairman credits partly to the fact that they are primarily an opera orchestra accustomed to accompanying singers and therefore to less “shining” and more listening. Also contributing to the sound of the orchestra are unique instruments and adaptations including the Viennese Oboe, the German-system Clarinet and timpani with sheepskin, Viennese horns among others. Also uniquely, the VPO does not employ a permanent Director of Music but engages different conductors for different performances. While this position is rooted in specific historical circumstances, it allows the orchestra to learn from multiple conductors over the course of each year. On May 7, 2024, VPO will celebrate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The symphony was premiered by, among others, musicians who went on to be founding members of the VPO, under the baton of the composer himself. Composers who have conducted performances of their own works by VPO include Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi.
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