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| Celebrating New Year's Eve |
After celebrating the New Year's Eve, today, The Grandma has travelled to Vienna to listen to The Vienna New Year's Concert. The Grandma loves classical music and this event is one of the most important of the year.
Austria is a wonderful country and The Grandma has decided to stay some days there, visit her old friends in Tyrol and enjoy these wonderful lands. Claire Fontaine, Tina Picotes, Joseph de Ca'th Lon and Tonyi Tamaki are going to join The Grandma during the next days.
During the flight to Vienna, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 60 & Checkpoint 10).
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The Vienna New Year's Concert or Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker is an annual concert of classical music performed by the Vienna Philharmonic on the morning of New Year's Day in Vienna, Austria. The concert occurs at the Musikverein at 11:15. The orchestra performs the same concert programme on 30 December, 31 December, and 1 January but only the last concert is regularly broadcast on radio and television.
The concert programmes always include pieces from the Strauss family -Johann Strauss I, Johann Strauss II, Josef Strauss and Eduard Strauss. On occasion, music principally of other Austrian composers, including Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Joseph Lanner, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Otto Nicolai, the Vienna Philharmonic's founder, Emil von Reznicek, Franz Schubert, Franz von Suppé, and Karl Michael Ziehrer has featured in the programmes.
In 2009, music by Joseph Haydn was played for the first time, where the 4th movement of his Farewell Symphony marked the 200th anniversary of his death. Other European composers such as Hans Christian Lumbye, Jacques Offenbach, Emile Waldteufel, Richard Strauss, Verdi, and Tchaikovsky have been featured in recent programmes.
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| The Grandma in the Musikverein, Vienna |
The announced programme contains approximately 14-20 compositions, and also three encores. The announced programme includes waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, and marches.
Of the encores, the unannounced first encore is often a fast polka. The second is Johann Strauss II's waltz The Blue Danube, whose introduction is interrupted by applause of recognition and a New Year's greeting from the conductor and orchestra to the audience. The final encore is Johann Strauss I's Radetzky March, during which the audience claps along under the conductor's direction.
In this last piece, the tradition also calls for the conductor to start the orchestra as soon he steps onto the stage, before reaching the podium. The complete duration of the event is around two and a half hours.
More information: Wiener Philharmoniker
The concerts have been held in the Goldener Saal, Golden Hall, of the Musikverein since 1939. The television broadcast is augmented by ballet performances in selected pieces during the second part of the programme. The dancers come from the Vienna State Ballet and dance at different famous places in Austria like Schönbrunn Palace, Schloss Esterházy, the Vienna State Opera or the Wiener Musikverein itself.
In 2013, the costumes were designed by Vivienne Westwood. From 1980 until 2013, the flowers that decorated the hall were a gift from the city of Sanremo, Liguria, Italy.
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| Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker |
In 2014, the orchestra itself provided the flowers. Since 2014, the flowers have been arranged by the Wiener Stadtgärten.
In 2017, the orchestra performed for the first time in new attire designed by Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler. There had been a tradition of concerts on New Year's Day in Vienna since 1838, but not with music of the Strauss family. From 1928 to 1933 there were six New Years's concerts in the Musikverein, conducted by Johann Strauss III. These concerts were broadcast by the RAVAG.
In 2017, the orchestra performed for the first time in new attire designed by Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler. There had been a tradition of concerts on New Year's Day in Vienna since 1838, but not with music of the Strauss family. From 1928 to 1933 there were six New Years's concerts in the Musikverein, conducted by Johann Strauss III. These concerts were broadcast by the RAVAG.
In 1939, Clemens Krauss, with the support of Vienna Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach, devised a New Years' concert which the orchestra dedicated to Kriegswinterhilfswerk, Winter War Relief, to improve morale at the front lines. After World War II, this concert survived, as the Nazi origins were largely forgotten, until more recently.
More information: Wien
The concert was first performed in 1939, and conducted by Clemens Krauss. For the first and only time, the concert was not given on New Year's Day, but instead on 31 December of that year. It was called then a special, or extraordinary concert, Außerordentliches Konzert.
There were no encores in 1939, and sources indicate that encores were not instituted until 1945. Clemens Krauss almost always included Perpetuum mobile either on the concert or as an encore. The waltz The Blue Danube was not performed until 1945, and then as an encore. The Radetzky March was first performed in 1946, as an encore. Until 1958, these last two pieces were often but not always given as encores.
The concert is popular throughout Europe, and more recently around the world. The demand for tickets is so high that people have to pre-register one year in advance in order to participate in the drawing of tickets for the following year. Some seats are pre-registered by certain Austrian families and are passed down from generation to generation.
More information: Salute to Vienna
Where would I be without Johann Strauss's beautiful 'Blue Danube?'
Without this piece of music I wouldn't be the man I am today.
It's a tune that brings out the emotion in everyone
and makes them want to waltz.
Andre Rieu
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