Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest orchestra in the United States and one of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, the BSO performs most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood.

Since its founding, the orchestra has had 17 music directors, including George Henschel, Serge Koussevitzky, Henri Rabaud, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf, William Steinberg and James Levine. Andris Nelsons is the current music director of the BSO. Seiji Ozawa had held the title of BSO music director laureate. Bernard Haitink had held the title of principal guest conductor of the BSO from 1995 to 2004, then conductor emeritus until his death in 2021. The orchestra has made gramophone recordings since 1917 and has occasionally played on soundtrack recordings for films, including Schindler's List.

The BSO was founded in 1881 by Henry Lee Higginson. Its first conductor was George Henschel, who was a noted baritone as well as conductor, and a close friend of Johannes Brahms. For the orchestra, Henschel devised innovative orchestral seating charts and sent them to Brahms, who replied approvingly and commented on the issues raised by horn and viola sections in a letter of mid-November 1881. The BSO's first concert took place on October 22, 1881. The program consisted of Beethoven's The Consecration of the House, as well as music by Joseph Haydn, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Franz Schubert and Carl Maria von Weber.

The orchestra's four subsequent music directors were all trained in Austria, including the seminal and highly influential Hungarian-born conductor Arthur Nikisch, in accordance with the tastes of Higginson. Wilhelm Gericke served twice, from 1884 to 1889 and again from 1898 to 1906. According to Joseph Horowitz's review of correspondence, Higginson considered 25 candidates to replace Gericke after receiving notice in 1905. He decided not to offer the position to Gustav Mahler, Fritz Steinbach, and Willem Mengelberg but did not rule out the young Bruno Walter if nobody more senior were to accept. He offered the position to Hans Richter in February 1905, who declined, to Felix Mottl in November, who was previously engaged, and then to previous director Nikisch, who declined; the post was finally offered to Karl Muck, who accepted and began his duties in October 1906. He was conductor until 1908 and again from 1912 to 1918.

The music director 1908–12 was Max Fiedler. He conducted the premiere of Ignacy Jan Paderewski's Symphony in B minor "Polonia" in 1909.

Following American entry into World War I, Muck (born in Germany but a Swiss citizen since childhood), was falsely accused by unscrupulous newspaper editor John R. Rathom of knowingly refusing a request to play The Star Spangled Banner. Although Higginson had not told Muck of the request and the BSO always ended future concerts with the American national anthem, Muck was subjected by Rathom to a trial by media anyway and was arrested by Federal agents shortly before a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion in March 1918. Along with 29 of the BSO best musicians, Muck was imprisoned in Fort Oglethorpe, a German-American internment camp in the State of Georgia, without trial or appeal until the summer after the Armistice, when he and his wife agreed to be deported to neutral Denmark. Muck felt deeply insulted by the injustice of these events, vowed never to perform on American soil again, and conducted thereafter only in Europe.

The BSO's next two titled conductors were French: Henri Rabaud, who took over from Muck for a season, and then Pierre Monteux from 1919 to 1924. Monteux, because of a musician's strike, was able to replace 30 players, thus changing the orchestra's sound; the orchestra developed a reputation for a "French" sound which some claim persists to some degree to this day.

The orchestra's reputation increased during the 1924–1949 music directorship of Serge Koussevitzky. One million radio listeners tuned in when Koussevitzky and the orchestra were the first to perform a live concert for radio broadcast, which they did on NBC in 1926.