It has been my habit, and the habits of my parents before me, to mark the beginning of the New Year by watching the broadcast from Vienna of the New Year concert, with a glass of champagne in hand. The programme, based around the waltzes, polkas and gallops of Johann Strauss and his family, never fails to throw up a few novelties and surprises. In recent years (the last couple of decades) it has featured dancers from the Viennese ballet, performing in one of the many gilded palaces in Vienna, providing a stunning visual counterpoint to the musicianship on the stage.
The conductor this year, and it changes every year, is maestro Ricardo Muti. I haven’t seen him in concert for some while and he appears to have not slept in the intervening decades, with bags under the eyes the size of steamer trunks. Yet he remains a suave presence in front of the orchestra punctuating the music with the occasional gesture or baton flick. Every conductor finds their own way of communicating that intangible essence at the heart of every piece. Strauss came from the most absurdly musical family. We forget, in the light of his hundreds of waltzes, polkas and so on, that his father, brothers and even mother wrote music and, gradually over the years their music has been accorded equal status with that of young Johann.
The end of the concert is always the same. The last two pieces, invariably unlisted in the programme, are The Blue Danube and the Radetzky March by junior and senior Johann Strauss respectively. There is always a little bit of teasing here as well, with the conductor playing only the first bar of the Blue Danube, to the traditional audience applause before turning to the audience and assuring them that he and the orchestra wish them a happy New Year. The waltz, played then without further interruption is then followed by the Radetzky March to close out the show. The march, in celebration of the Habsburg Field Marshal Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl, Graf Radetzky von Radetz, is as brief as the general’s career was long. The conductor turns from the orchestra to the audience and encourages their clapping along with the music. Nothing more you understand – none of the absurd audience contributions that mark, or should that be mar, the last night of the Proms in the UK. This is Austria, perhaps the most straitlaced and stiff collared of all nations.
The orchestra remains overwhelmingly male (perhaps 90%) and Austrian although it makes great play upon its international nature. It’s 2025 and high time this changed. Every once in awhile I briefly entertain the idea of applying for tickets. But being allocated tickets alone occurs approximately as often as total solar eclipses. In any case this is an idle exercise – without selling a kidney or two (perhaps throw in some liver) they are out of the range of mere mortals such as myself.
Oh well…Until 2026, Ein glückliches neues Jahr to you and yours.