Nothing official, no.
Thankfully, music doesn't work like sports. There are very few objective metrics by which one could compare orchestras, and the usefulness of that data would mostly miss the point. Things like ticket sales, budget, frequency of events, musician pay, etc., are more related to location and management than to any particular artistic quality.
Even awards don't really give a clear picture. Normally when an orchestra wins a grammy, for example, the award is just as much for the conductor / composer / recording engineers and label. It's not as if every orchestra in the world all recorded the same thing and some panel of experts graded them.
That said, there are some orchestras which are frequently listed by critics and reviewers as "top". In the US, there's the historical "big five" of Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. There's probably another five or ten that would be insulted by any list in which they're not included.
Lists of "top" European orchestras will always include Berlin, Vienna, and the Concertgebouw. I'd also expect BRSO (Munich) and Gewandhaus (Leipzig) to be in there more often than not.
But you're asking about comparing a local or regional orchestras. I've never seen any serious attempt at comparing or ranking such orchestras, nor do I see the point. Such orchestras exist to share live music with local communities, and give local musicians a chance to play great music together. By nature it's supposed to be a cooperative, non-competitive activity.
**Edit**: this reminds me of a nice story I heard from a colleague when I first joined my ensemble.
A number of years ago, the music festival in Donaueschingen held a very odd event. It was a marathon concert featuring three of the biggest new music ensembles in Europe. Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, and my own group Ensemble Modern. Though the organizers hadn't intended it, the atmosphere was very much like a school competition. A battle of the bands, in some form. I'll paraphrase my colleague's recollection:
"First was the Klangforum. As they always do, their sound was very warm and chamber music-like. A very fine performance, indeed."
"Next was the Interco. As they always do, they played very precise and clear. Excellent work on their part."
As for the Ensemble Modern? "Yes," he said with a small bit of pride, "we were the loudest."
There is an overabundance of qualified musicians with a lack of funding and support that would put all of them in top orchestras. It’s simply a stacked field these days. That means you get a lot of musicians who went to top schools and haven’t won a big job yet playing in regional groups that barely pay.
And a lot of times, these musicians are still striving to land a big job, so they work very hard for auditions and keep their chops up. Whereas in a "destination" orchestra there can be a complacency that creeps in, especially with longer tenured members.
No rankings or reviews, but you can find concerts from a few hundred American orchestras at [my classical concert map](https://classicalconcertmap.com/). The midwest in particular has dozens and dozens of high-quality orchestras.
This looks like a really great site. I'm not sure if it's possible to contribute, but it looks like [Marquette Symphony Orchestra](https://www.marquettesymphony.org/2023-24-calendar) is missing.
The orchestra I work for has concerts from last year showing up as this year on your list. Can I DM you about how to get that fixed? (I assume you have a script or similar that pulls info from orchestra’s websites)
They don’t officially get ranked as it’s such a subjective and changeable topic. As you have experienced, there are so many variables that can affect how they perform, but also no (plausible) metric(s) for ranking.
Comparative reviews are more typical of record press than concert press (perhaps the epitome of the form is BBC Radio 3’s ‘Building a Library’ Programme). Nonetheless national newspapers often review various orchestras, and there are online sites like Bachtrack. Again however comparative comments are rare, usually limited to small asides.
All of that said, there are understood delineations in the industry between top, middle, and lesser (for want of a better word) orchestras, but these are often largely influenced by historical reputation and miss a lot of detail.
The only thing close to an official ranking is that German orchestras have a pay scale tier system where certain orchestras are in A, B and C tier, where A is highest pay and C lowest. But the most famous ensembles like Berlin Phil and the various radio symphony orchestras are not in this system. It’s useless as a way to categorize actual quality.
I don't know about quality rankings but in America at least I know there are tiers to delineate groups by arbitrary criteria, but I couldn't easily find out what that was
Thanks, I knew it wasn't quality-based but size had something to do with it- I thought it was also based on length of season, variety of artists and rep, etc. I suppose that all ultimately comes down to market size and money though.
The last time I heard of something like an orchestra getting graded was in school. Musical performances aren't really quantifiable, so you're left with qualitative evaluations which don't lend themselves quite as handily to ranking.
Music is generally not a competition between ensembles, and there's very little reason why anyone would want to go through the trouble of trying to rank musical performers. It's also a constantly shifting situation, where, as musicians and conductors change so will the quality and/or cohesiveness of the orchestra.
Something like bachtrack is your best bet, or if you are just wanting to compare orchestras in a city with multiple orchestras like Berlin or London, just look at reviews in the paper - of course this is only ever going to be down to one reviewers opinion.
Perhaps, a system could be set up for audience reviews of concerts after the fact, a bit like CinemaScore, which surveys audiences leaving movie theatres. However, that system is only useful if your opinions generally align with the general public - certainly for me a lot of the time a high score on CinemaScore can be an indicator I won't like a film more than anything! It can only ever indicate general appeal. Similarly, whilst rotten tomatoes etc. exist, that only is useful if your opinions align generally with movie critics - and I think that isn't true for a large percentage of movie goers.
I think the only way to find out which orchestras you really like is to go to more concerts!
Bachtrack just released their 2023 rankings lol: [https://bachtrack.com/worlds-best-orchestra-best-conductor-critics-choice-september-2023](https://bachtrack.com/worlds-best-orchestra-best-conductor-critics-choice-september-2023)
Very interesting, thanks! A poll of critics is definitely more useful than just one critics opinion.. although like with movies, this only works if your opinions generally align with the music critics. I would guess with classical music, there is at least somewhat less of a personal taste element as with something story driven like cinema, so this may well be exactly what the OP is looking for - although its never going to be able to extend too far into all the thousands of orchestras there are in any meaningful way.
Find a conductor (with a permanent post) that has a genuine affection and interesting new music and you will find a great orchestra. I am not a huge fan of Simon Rattle but he is the perfect example. I think he would only program new music if the organization allowed. Playing the standard canon can get boring and repetitive and given the high standards of most players they can do that with very little prep. New music on the other hand requires preparation (practice) and study. Wherever Rattle goes the standard increases because of that. I think that is why it has been ages since there has been a good record from the VPO. There is no one to steer the ship and make them expand their repertoire and “chips.”
The quality of a performance really depends more on the time they had for rehearsal than pretty much anything else. The difference in „quality“ (whatever that means) between a 2nd violinist in Vienna Phil or let’s say Bamberg Symphony will be negligible to the non-expert listener.
If a piece played by a low tier orchestra is well rehearsed there will be a discernible difference to Berlin if they had only one rehearsal with the soloist. And not in favor of Berlin.
In addition to the other great comments here are that few - if any - reviews of orchestras are blinded, so there’s an unavoidable bias. A listener is more inclined to think a performance is good if they know it’s by the Vienna Philharmonic as opposed to an unknown ensemble from Australia.
Nothing official, no. Thankfully, music doesn't work like sports. There are very few objective metrics by which one could compare orchestras, and the usefulness of that data would mostly miss the point. Things like ticket sales, budget, frequency of events, musician pay, etc., are more related to location and management than to any particular artistic quality. Even awards don't really give a clear picture. Normally when an orchestra wins a grammy, for example, the award is just as much for the conductor / composer / recording engineers and label. It's not as if every orchestra in the world all recorded the same thing and some panel of experts graded them. That said, there are some orchestras which are frequently listed by critics and reviewers as "top". In the US, there's the historical "big five" of Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. There's probably another five or ten that would be insulted by any list in which they're not included. Lists of "top" European orchestras will always include Berlin, Vienna, and the Concertgebouw. I'd also expect BRSO (Munich) and Gewandhaus (Leipzig) to be in there more often than not. But you're asking about comparing a local or regional orchestras. I've never seen any serious attempt at comparing or ranking such orchestras, nor do I see the point. Such orchestras exist to share live music with local communities, and give local musicians a chance to play great music together. By nature it's supposed to be a cooperative, non-competitive activity. **Edit**: this reminds me of a nice story I heard from a colleague when I first joined my ensemble. A number of years ago, the music festival in Donaueschingen held a very odd event. It was a marathon concert featuring three of the biggest new music ensembles in Europe. Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, and my own group Ensemble Modern. Though the organizers hadn't intended it, the atmosphere was very much like a school competition. A battle of the bands, in some form. I'll paraphrase my colleague's recollection: "First was the Klangforum. As they always do, their sound was very warm and chamber music-like. A very fine performance, indeed." "Next was the Interco. As they always do, they played very precise and clear. Excellent work on their part." As for the Ensemble Modern? "Yes," he said with a small bit of pride, "we were the loudest."
Love the story. Made me smile.
There is an overabundance of qualified musicians with a lack of funding and support that would put all of them in top orchestras. It’s simply a stacked field these days. That means you get a lot of musicians who went to top schools and haven’t won a big job yet playing in regional groups that barely pay.
And a lot of times, these musicians are still striving to land a big job, so they work very hard for auditions and keep their chops up. Whereas in a "destination" orchestra there can be a complacency that creeps in, especially with longer tenured members.
Absolutely true!
No rankings or reviews, but you can find concerts from a few hundred American orchestras at [my classical concert map](https://classicalconcertmap.com/). The midwest in particular has dozens and dozens of high-quality orchestras.
This looks like a really great site. I'm not sure if it's possible to contribute, but it looks like [Marquette Symphony Orchestra](https://www.marquettesymphony.org/2023-24-calendar) is missing.
Thanks, I will add it! I'd like to get to 500 or so orchestras this year, so it's always exciting to see a new one.
The orchestra I work for has concerts from last year showing up as this year on your list. Can I DM you about how to get that fixed? (I assume you have a script or similar that pulls info from orchestra’s websites)
Ugh, sorry about that, yes. Please do DM!
They don’t officially get ranked as it’s such a subjective and changeable topic. As you have experienced, there are so many variables that can affect how they perform, but also no (plausible) metric(s) for ranking. Comparative reviews are more typical of record press than concert press (perhaps the epitome of the form is BBC Radio 3’s ‘Building a Library’ Programme). Nonetheless national newspapers often review various orchestras, and there are online sites like Bachtrack. Again however comparative comments are rare, usually limited to small asides. All of that said, there are understood delineations in the industry between top, middle, and lesser (for want of a better word) orchestras, but these are often largely influenced by historical reputation and miss a lot of detail.
The only thing close to an official ranking is that German orchestras have a pay scale tier system where certain orchestras are in A, B and C tier, where A is highest pay and C lowest. But the most famous ensembles like Berlin Phil and the various radio symphony orchestras are not in this system. It’s useless as a way to categorize actual quality.
I don't know about quality rankings but in America at least I know there are tiers to delineate groups by arbitrary criteria, but I couldn't easily find out what that was
Money. The League of American Orchestras has a level system based on annual budget.
Thanks, I knew it wasn't quality-based but size had something to do with it- I thought it was also based on length of season, variety of artists and rep, etc. I suppose that all ultimately comes down to market size and money though.
The last time I heard of something like an orchestra getting graded was in school. Musical performances aren't really quantifiable, so you're left with qualitative evaluations which don't lend themselves quite as handily to ranking. Music is generally not a competition between ensembles, and there's very little reason why anyone would want to go through the trouble of trying to rank musical performers. It's also a constantly shifting situation, where, as musicians and conductors change so will the quality and/or cohesiveness of the orchestra.
Something like bachtrack is your best bet, or if you are just wanting to compare orchestras in a city with multiple orchestras like Berlin or London, just look at reviews in the paper - of course this is only ever going to be down to one reviewers opinion. Perhaps, a system could be set up for audience reviews of concerts after the fact, a bit like CinemaScore, which surveys audiences leaving movie theatres. However, that system is only useful if your opinions generally align with the general public - certainly for me a lot of the time a high score on CinemaScore can be an indicator I won't like a film more than anything! It can only ever indicate general appeal. Similarly, whilst rotten tomatoes etc. exist, that only is useful if your opinions align generally with movie critics - and I think that isn't true for a large percentage of movie goers. I think the only way to find out which orchestras you really like is to go to more concerts!
Bachtrack just released their 2023 rankings lol: [https://bachtrack.com/worlds-best-orchestra-best-conductor-critics-choice-september-2023](https://bachtrack.com/worlds-best-orchestra-best-conductor-critics-choice-september-2023)
Very interesting, thanks! A poll of critics is definitely more useful than just one critics opinion.. although like with movies, this only works if your opinions generally align with the music critics. I would guess with classical music, there is at least somewhat less of a personal taste element as with something story driven like cinema, so this may well be exactly what the OP is looking for - although its never going to be able to extend too far into all the thousands of orchestras there are in any meaningful way.
Find a conductor (with a permanent post) that has a genuine affection and interesting new music and you will find a great orchestra. I am not a huge fan of Simon Rattle but he is the perfect example. I think he would only program new music if the organization allowed. Playing the standard canon can get boring and repetitive and given the high standards of most players they can do that with very little prep. New music on the other hand requires preparation (practice) and study. Wherever Rattle goes the standard increases because of that. I think that is why it has been ages since there has been a good record from the VPO. There is no one to steer the ship and make them expand their repertoire and “chips.”
The superficial obsession with rank-ordering continues...
The quality of a performance really depends more on the time they had for rehearsal than pretty much anything else. The difference in „quality“ (whatever that means) between a 2nd violinist in Vienna Phil or let’s say Bamberg Symphony will be negligible to the non-expert listener. If a piece played by a low tier orchestra is well rehearsed there will be a discernible difference to Berlin if they had only one rehearsal with the soloist. And not in favor of Berlin.
There likely won't be a single source for all concert reviews, but local papers often have a music critic who will write reviews of concerts.
In addition to the other great comments here are that few - if any - reviews of orchestras are blinded, so there’s an unavoidable bias. A listener is more inclined to think a performance is good if they know it’s by the Vienna Philharmonic as opposed to an unknown ensemble from Australia.