For more than seven decades, the first day of the year is recognizable by the sounds of waltzes, polkas and mazurkas of the Vienna Philharmonic, which, thanks to a live television broadcast, resonates in every corner of the world.
When you woke up at the dawn of the New Year, stunned by a sleepless night, waiting for a late breakfast, someone would always turn on the TV.
Due to the lack of other content on television at the time, and due to the likable melody of waltzes that would somehow fit nicely into the New Year's decor, the New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic became a nostalgic reminder of childhood and a kind of love for classical music. a habit that is almost ritually nurtured in most homes on the first day of a new one.
But apart from being part of many personal stories, this concert has its own history dating back to 1939, when for the first time in the heart of Vienna, under the direction of conductor Clemens Krauss, the concert resounded, then on New Year's Eve, and from the following year on the first day of the first month. years.
Although the central part of the concert always features works by the Strauss family, Johann the Elder, Johann the Younger, Eduard and Josef, occasionally works by other composers who have created compositions of a fast and cheerful character such as waltzes, polkas, mazurkas and marches are included. Because serenity is what everyone needs on the threshold of a new chapter in life, and the tradition of that concert was created on such motives.
When the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra first held a concert in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Music Society (Wiener Musikverein), which then and all other years took place just before noon, at a time of day when there is the most light around us, the intention was to send around the world messages of hope, friendship and peace.
Many of Vienna's first New Year's concerts were performed in a dark and difficult period for Austria, in the 1940s, but the survival of this great world musical spectacle proves that hope never dies and that darkness overcomes.
In the second part of the program, the orchestra is joined in a television broadcast by ballet couples who dance in places where even the poorly informed will recognize Vienna. The official program is always accompanied by three encores: a fast polka chosen by the conductor, a waltz "On the beautiful blue Danube", whose first few bars the audience interrupts with applause and when the conductor addresses the audience with a message and congratulations. The concert ends with a "Radetzky march" during which the conductor "conducts" the audience.
Anyone who wants to experience it live in a hall decorated with flowers donated by Sanremo since 1980, must think about it immediately after the concert. Namely, it is so difficult to get tickets that a lottery is organized where the lucky winner gets the opportunity to buy two tickets, the price of which is from 50 to 950 euros. But even if you don’t catch a ticket, sit in front of the TV on the first day of the new year and watch the broadcast and at that moment more than a billion people around the world will share that unique moment of serenity and hope. That seems even bigger than just going to a concert.
I like listening to the concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic.