A & E

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is poised to enter a new golden era due to several recent developments and capped by Wednesday's announcement that Manfred Honeck will be its next music director.

It's a remarkable turnaround for an organization whose problems have been making headlines for years. The loss in 2004 of music director Mariss Jansons, whose leadership took the symphony within reach of the pinnacle of the musical world, and severe financial problems combined to jeapordize the organization's future artistic excellence.

Smart marketing has produced a big increase in subscription sales for Mellon Grand Classics, which are now up to more than 50 percent of Heinz Hall's capacity for the season. By the time Honeck arrives in September 2008, subscription sales might well account for 60 percent of the house.

Poor concert attendance often is mistakenly seen as a reflection on classical music's viability. The orthodoxy defying steps taken by the Pittsburgh Symphony to increase ticket sales -- including increasing discounts for subscribers -- suggests management failures common in the orchestra business could be the real culprit. Ticket revenues at Heinz Hall have risen despite lower prices for subscribers.

Symphony board chairman Dick Simmons' $29.5 million gift to the symphony in November is another crucial piece of the strong foundation being built for artistic excellence. It provides both short-term and long-term benefits. As Simmons joked about his gift, it's a long way from Benjamin Franklin's "a penny saved is a penny earned" to the half million dollars the symphony will save annually by avoiding interest costs resulting from necessity to use a $6 million line of credit.

Simmons' gift also provides incentives for achieving the fiscal discipline of balanced budgets and rewards for success in an $80 million fundraising campaign that started this fall.

Financial health is necessary but not sufficient for an orchestra's success. The raison d'etre of orchestras is not monetary gains -- it's artistic excellence.

For all the good news in ticket sales and finances, the most impressive aspect of management's performance has been the ability to listen and learn.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's hiring of Christoph Eschenbach in 2003 as its music director -- over the strong opposition of its musicians -- is a classic example of a heavy-handed, top-down failure in decision making. It's not a question of authority. The real issue is whether power is used wisely. Eschenbach announced his resignation when he realized how bad the problem had become and will leave at the end of next season.

In the case of the Pittsburgh Symphony, however, Honeck's appointment was greeted with delirious joy when he was presented to the symphony musicians as music director designate Tuesday evening, according to several sources who were present. The hooting, hollering and hugging is said to have lasted four minutes. The joy was only partly relief that the artistic leadership team concept -- initially proposed as only a stop gap but implemented as a "new paradigm for the 21st century" -- was being retired.

Honeck inspires the confidence that his strong leadership will enable the musicians to fulfill their potential and collectively return to the eminence they deserve. Making great music is what conductors, players and audiences want most.

He is a soft-spoken, well-rounded man who leads performances that are as exciting, moving and pleasurable for the musicians to play as for the audience to hear. After Honeck's rehearsal in Philadelphia in May, principal trombone Peter Sullivan came off stage with a flushed and sweaty face from the hard work. His comment: "This is fun."

Audiences go wild for Honeck, too. His May concerts at Heinz Hall created such a buzz in Pittsburgh that his return in November produced the best attended concerts of the season -- and that was on Thanksgiving weekend when ticket sales are traditionally weak. The line at the box office for his Sunday concert in November stretched out of the hall's Sixth Street entrance and went up Penn Avenue.

Honeck might well take the orchestra further than Jansons did. Jansons had a heart attack shortly before he was to assume to the Heinz Hall podium, and began more slowly than Honeck is likely to do. Moreover, the trajectory Jansons achieved, including favorable comparison with the Berlin Philharmonic on his last European tour with the symphony, was interrupted by his departure after only seven seasons.

The symphony is the flagship of local cultural life, and Honeck's appointment already has produced some extraordinary international response. The Musikverein in Vienna already has extended an invitation for the Pittsburgh team to play two concerts in May 2010, and a four-concert residency during the 2011-12 season. Even under Jansons, three concerts was the most the symphony played at the Musikverein, one of the most prestigious and selective concert halls in the world.

Honeck won't be back for more than a year. The real work and delights will begin in September 2008. Don't be surprised if tickets to Heinz Hall then become a scarce and prized commodity.

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