The Beautiful Vienna New Year's Concert 2025

What a start to the Strauss year! A small, intact, waltz world enclosed in a snow globe was presented on Wednesday in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein at the 85th New Year's Concert. They also took the first tentative waltz step towards gender parity in the program. Riccardo Muti stood at the podium for the seventh and last time. "Peace, brotherhood and love all over the world," the maestro wished in Italian.

Hard to imagine today, but for a long time the Vienna Philharmonic wanted nothing to do with this "Viennese" entertainment music by Johann Strauss (Jr.). But that is water under the Danube Bridge. This year, in the first hours of the Strauss year, celebrated on his 200th birthday, a total of eight of his compositions were played - not even counting the traditional encore of the "Blue Danube Waltz".

Riccardo Muti Conducted Vienna Philharmonic Again

"Schani" owed a lot to his father. It is long forgotten that the old man composed more than just the "Radetzky March" (which was of course played as an encore). The Vienna Philharmonic opened the concert not with a work of the regent of the year, but with the triumphant "Freedom March" by Johann Strauss Senior, who with his music "has chased away many a worry," as his son once expressed. The melodies of the "Strausses" are ultimately a world comfort. "Music is the best medicine for the soul," the maestro said at a press conference beforehand.

The last time the Neapolitan stood at the New Year's podium, no audience was allowed in the hall due to the pandemic. Today a different picture was presented. The 83-year-old may not have thrown "flaming glances" at the guests like Johann did, but at times the star conductor seemed like the charming reincarnation of the Waltz King. The maestro is a seasoned, smooth and playful baton master, who has conducted the orchestra over 500 times, including six times on January 1st.

New Year's Concert 2025 Radiated a Touch of Hope

In any case, his New Year's concert had a pronounced touch of hope. Not without tender melancholy, but weightless, and with a lot of longing, he played the waltz "Wine, Women and Song". Like a professional surfer, he rode the sound waves of the "Lagoon Waltz". The "Demolirer Polka" hopped along with new Viennese energy. He paid tribute to the Strauss brothers Josef (the waltz "Transactions" was like a movie) and Eduard ("Light and fragrant" could also be the motto of the morning), as well as to the composer Joseph Hellmesberger - with the graceful march "Fidele Brüder".

The Vienna State Ballet danced in a choreography by Cathy Marston to Strauss's polka "Either - or!" and the lively "Accelerations Waltz", which turned the orchestra onomatopoeically into stamping machines in the age of the technical revolution. Schani was always a chronicler of his time. Of course, hits like the sprightly "Annen-Polka" and the peppery "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka" were not to be missed.

Strauss Odyssey and Premiere with Female Composition

This most listened to and watched classical concert worldwide not only strokes the Austrian identity. The spectacle has long since become an economic factor. The concert was broadcast via television in nearly 100 countries. The ORF television film was also entirely in the spirit of the Waltz King: Barbara Weissenbeck cheekily leaned on Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" - with Thomas Strauss, the great-great-nephew of Johann Strauss (Son), who researched the life of his ancestor.

In the second part, the work of a woman, the "Ferdinandus Waltz" by Strauss' contemporary Constanze Geiger, who must have possessed a soulful softness and fits perfectly into the "men's club", was heard for the first time and finally at a New Year's concert.

Van der Bellen and Nehammer at New Year's Concert

A touch of reality then blew into this "gilded snow globe", after all, the local political celebrities were also represented, including Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), who appeared fresh from coalition negotiations, and accompanied by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Then, at the end, the "crescendo" of every New Year's concert: The spherical string tremolo at the beginning of the "Blue Danube Waltz", the first hit in music history. In his quest for artistic perfection, Johann was tireless. "The audience attends a Strauss concert expecting to be cheered up," he wrote. The expectations were fully met. The audience thanked the orchestra with a whirlwind of passionate bravi calls.

(By Marietta Steinhart/APA)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.