The Vienna New Year's Concert (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, Carl Zeller, Carl Millöcker, Franz von Suppé, and Carl 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, Émile Waldteufel, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky have been featured in recent programmes. In 2020, music by Ludwig van Beethoven was played to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, and in 2024, music by Anton Bruckner was played for the 200th anniversary of his birth. in 2025, Music by Johann Strauss II was played for the 200th anniversary of his birth. The announced programme contains approximately 14 to 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 light applause of recognition and a New Year's greeting in German (originally added by Willi Boskovsky) from the conductor and orchestra to the audience. The origin of this tradition stems from the New Year's Concert of 1954, when the audience interrupted three pieces by enthusiastically applauding and cheering. The final encore is Johann Strauss I's Radetzky March, during which the audience claps along under the conductor's direction. This did not start until 1958. In this last piece, tradition also calls for the conductor to start the orchestra as soon as they step onto the stage, before reaching the podium. The complete duration of the event is around two and a half hours.
"Goldener Saal" (Golden Hall) of the Musikverein
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, e.g. Schönbrunn Palace, Schloss Esterházy, the Vienna State Opera or the Wiener Musikverein itself. In 2013, the costumes were designed by Vivienne Westwood.[1] From 1980 until 2013, the flowers that decorated the hall were a gift from the city of Sanremo, Liguria, Italy. In 2014, the orchestra itself provided the flowers. Since 2014, the flowers have been arranged by the Wiener Stadtgärten. New attire by designers Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler debuted in 2017.[2]
History
There has 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 Year's concerts in the Musikverein, conducted by Johann Strauss III. These concerts were broadcast by the RAVAG.[3] In 1939, Clemens Krauss, with the support of Vienna Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach, devised a New Year's concert which the orchestra dedicated to Kriegswinterhilfswerk ('Winter War Relief'), to improve morale at the front lines.[4] After World War II, this concert survived, as the Nazi origins were largely forgotten, until more recently.[5]
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). Johann Strauss II was the only composer performed, in a modest program:
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. Since that year, their position as twin encores has become inviolable tradition, with two exceptions:
In 1967, Willi Boskovsky made the Blue Danube part of his concert program to commemorate the work's centenary; its encore position was occupied by Johann Strauss II's Unter Donner und Blitz, polka schnell, Op. 324. Additionally, an actor impersonating the composer of the work appeared during the concert.
One unannounced encore, a gallop or polka schnell, is always placed before the Blue Danube, and after the final announced work on the printed concert programme. It has also been a scherz.
Conductors
Boskovsky, concertmaster of the orchestra from 1939 until 1970, directed the Vienna New Year's concerts from 1955 to 1979. In 1980, Lorin Maazel became the first non-Austrian conductor of the concert. The orchestra subsequently changed practice, to choose a different conductor every year. The first such choice was Herbert von Karajan, for the 1987 concert.
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.
Map of the countries in which the New Year Concert 2019 of the Vienna Philharmonics was distributed via TV in 2019
The event is televised by the Austrian national broadcasting service ORF – from 1989 to 1993, 1997 to 2009, and again in 2011 under the direction of Brian Large – and relayed via the European Broadcasting Union's Eurovision network to most major broadcasting organizations in Europe. On 1 January 2013, for example, the concert was shown on Één and La Une in Belgium, ZDF in Germany, France 2 in France, BBC Two in the United Kingdom, Rai 2 in Italy (on some hours delay), RSI La 1 in Switzerland, La 1 in Spain, ČT2 in the Czech Republic, RTP1 in Portugal, and TVP2 in Poland, among many other channels. The concert was again televised by ORF on 1 January 2015 and 1 January 2016. Estimated audience numbers are ~50 million, in 73 countries in 2012, 93 countries in 2017 and 95 countries in 2018.[16][17][18] Past television presenters have included Ernst Grissemann, who presented the concert for 25 years, and Barbara Rett, from 2008 to 2022. The current ORF TV presenter for the concert is Teresa Vogl, beginning with the 2023 concert.[19]
Outside Europe, the concert is also shown on PBS in the United States (beginning in 1985, as part of the performing arts anthology Great Performances, in abridged form), CCTV in China since 1987 (being telecast live since 1989, except in 1990)[20] while also being broadcast live by CNR in China since 2013,[21]NHK in Japan since 1973,[22]MetroTV in Indonesia, KBS in South Korea, and SBS in Australia (until 2018, on delay). Since 2006, the concert has also been broadcast to viewers in several African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe). In Latin America the concert is shown in Chile by La Red, and in Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia. Indonesia's MetroTV broadcasts the concert although it is delayed by four to five days. The concert was broadcast for the first time in Mongolia, Mozambique, Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago in 2010.[23]
In 2021, the Vienna New Year's Concert took place without an audience, for the first time in the concert's history, because of public-health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.[24] The 2022 concert with Daniel Barenboim featured a live audience limited to 1,000 patrons,[25] and the ORF radio transmission on Ö1 featured Eva Teimel[de] as presenter, the first female radio presenter for ORF in the history of the concert.[26] The 2023 concert featured the Vienna Girls Choir (Wiener Chormädchen) in its first-ever appearance in the concert, the first female choir ever to participate in the concert.[27]
Commercial recordings
A commercial recording has been made for every concert from 1987, the more recent being released within a matter of days of the event.
Decca Records made the first of the live commercial recordings in 1975. The 1979 digital recording was the label's first digital LP release, marking Boskovsky's last appearance. The recordings made with Maazel in 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983 did not specify the year on the album cover (opting instead for the titles, New Year's in Vienna, New Year's Concert, Prosit Neujahr! and Wiener Bonbons respectively). The 1983 concert also marked the first simultaneous CD release (all the earlier concerts would follow as CD reissues). The Karajan recording was similarly undated on the cover, being entitled Neujahrskonzert in Wien. Only with the first Abbado concert in 1988 was the year specified, which has been the case on each release thereafter.
Johann Baptist Strauss II, also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son, was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas as well as a violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer", "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known.
Johann Baptist Strauss I, also known as Johann Strauss Sr., the Elder or the Father, was an Austrian composer of the Romantic Period. He was famous for his light music, namely waltzes, polkas, and galops, which he popularized alongside Joseph Lanner, thereby setting the foundations for his sons—Johann, Josef and Eduard—to carry on his musical dynasty. He is best known for his composition of the Radetzky March.
Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music. One of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, he is best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.
Willibald Karl Boskovsky was an Austrian violinist and conductor, best known as the long-standing conductor of the Vienna New Year's Concert from 1955 to 1979.
"Die Bajadere" is one of Johann Strauss II's polkas, Op. 351. A bajadere was a temple dancer in the European vision of legendary India being popularized by the first translations of Indian classic literature into European languages. The European view melded all the world east of Suez into an exotic locale. The themes of "Die Bajadere" were drawn from the score of Strauss's first operetta, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber, loosely based on the Arabian Nights, which premiered in 1871 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
Eduard "Edi" Strauss was an Austrian composer who, together with his brothers Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss made up the Strauss musical dynasty. He was the son of Johann Strauss I and Maria Anna Streim. The family dominated the Viennese light music world for decades, creating many waltzes and polkas for many Austrian nobility as well as dance-music enthusiasts around Europe. He was affectionately known in his family as 'Edi'.
Wiener Blut Op. 354 is a waltz by Johann Strauss II first performed by the composer on 22 April 1873. The new dedication waltz was to celebrate the wedding of the Emperor Franz Joseph I's daughter Archduchess Gisela Louise Maria and Prince Leopold of Bavaria. However, the waltz was also chiefly noted by Strauss' biographers as the début of Strauss with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra where for many years, the Philharmonic had dismissed any association with the 'Waltz King' as it had not wished to be associated with mere 'light' or 'pops' music. The festival ball celebrating the event was held at the Musikverein Hall which is the venue for the present day Neujahrskonzert.
Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna.
The "Radetzky March", Op. 228, is a march composed by Johann Strauss (Senior) which was first performed on 31 August 1848 in Vienna to celebrate the victory of the Austrian Empire under Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz over the Italian forces at the Battle of Custoza, during the First Italian War of Independence. It has been noted that its tone is more celebratory than martial, but nevertheless it soon became popular among regimented marching soldiers.
Christian Thielemann is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the designated Generalmusikdirektor of the Berlin State Opera.
Edith Mathis is a Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worldwide. She is known for parts in Mozart operas, but also took part in premieres of operas such as Henze's Der junge Lord.
Brian Large is a television director and author. He is among the world's foremost TV directors specializing in opera and classical music.
The Vienna Singverein is the concert choir of the Vienna Musikverein with around 230 members. It is regularly requested by top orchestras and conductors for large and varied projects.
Freuet euch des Lebens, Op. 340, is a Viennese waltz composed by Johann Strauss II. It was written for the Vienna Musikverein, and premiered at the new Musikverein building in Vienna in 1870.
Derek Gleeson is an Irish/American musician. Born in Dublin, Ireland. He is currently the music director and conductor of the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and has been the conductor at the Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival. Since 2012 Gleeson is also music director & conductor of the Rachmaninov Festival Orchestra. Since January 2016 Gleeson is Principal Guest Conductor or The Harbin Symphony Orchestra, Harbin, China. He also composes musical scores for film and television and of symphonic music for the concert hall.
This is an audio and video discography of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. Founded in 1842, the orchestra has a long history of recording music dating back to 1905. The orchestra has made numerous critically acclaimed recordings, of which several have been ranked as the greatest classical recordings of all time, such as Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 with Carlos Kleiber and Wagner's complete Ring des Nibelungen with Sir Georg Solti. The orchestra has primarily made recordings with the Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Decca labels.
Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn is an annual free entry outdoor concert in Vienna held by the Vienna Philharmonic. The venue for the concert is the Schönbrunn Palace. It has telecast on PBS in the United States as part of the series Great Performances.
Dorfschwalben aus Österreich, Op. 164, is a Viennese waltz composed by Josef Strauss in 1864 or 1865.
The Wiener Männergesang-Verein is a men's choir in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1843. The choir has regularly appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic, and has performed worldwide. Notable composers, particularly Johann Strauss II, have composed music for the choir.
↑ 曹利群 [Cao Liqun] (31 December 2018). 直播新年音乐会的那些事儿[Live, the New Year's Concerts]. Tencent (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
↑ 张艺龄 [Zhang Yiling] (2016). 广播电台跨国合作的意义探析[Analysis of the Transnational Cooperation of Radio Stations]. Baidu. 3 (2016年第03期) (in Chinese). China Broadcasts (中国广播). Retrieved 11 June 2019.
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