Scott Morrison, expressing doubt about Denis Fodor's view that great
orchestras should stick to their traditional specialities, writes:

>If I'm reading you right then by that reasoning the Boston Symphony would
>never have commissioned and premiered Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra nor
>would the Concertgebouw have played the Mahler symphonies as they were
>being written.

The answer to that is that both Boston and the Concertgebouw are orchestras
that are not hidebound by an own national tradition.  Both are beholden to
a certain extent to the German tradition because most of their conductors
were trained in either Germany or Austria.  But Berlin, Vienna, Milan,
Naples, Rome, Paris, Leningrad and Mosocw (have I forgotten any others?)
are, I feel, obligated by their own traditions.  To be sure that did not
stop, and should not have stopped Karajan, who was very much in the old BPO
tradition, from commissioning Stockhausen pieces.  Indeed, what I'm pushing
here is not an absolute regimen, but still a rule of thumb.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]