VPO New Year's Day Concert 2015

[bluestateprommer]

It's early, but since the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has its 2015 New Year's Day concert program up on its website, figured that I'd set up the thread now. The selections (with a few translations where the English titles aren't obvious), minus the encore and the two standard closers:

Franz von Suppé: Overture Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien
Johann Strauss, Jr.: Märchen aus dem Orient, Walzer, op. 444
Josef Strauss: Wiener Leben, Polka francaise, op. 218
Eduard Strauss: Wo man lacht und lebt ('Where you laugh and live'), Polka schnell, op. 108
Josef Strauss: Dorfschwalben aus Österreich, Walzer, op. 164
Johann Strauss, Jr.: Vom Donaustrande ('From the banks of the Danube'), Polka schnell, op. 356

-- Pause --

Johann Strauss, Jr.:
(a) Perpetuum mobile, Musikalischer Scherz, op. 257
(b) Accelerationen, Walzer, op.234
(c) Elektro-magnetische Polka, op. 110
Eduard Strauss: Mit Dampf ('With Steam'). Polka schnell, op. 70
Johann Strauss, Jr.: An der Elbe, Walzer, op. 477
Hans Christian Lumbye: Champagner-Galopp, op. 14
Johann Strauss, Jr.: Studenten-Polka, Polka francaise, op. 263
Johann Strauss, sen.: Freiheits-Marsch, op. 226
Johann Strauss, Jr.:
(a) Annen-Polka, op. 117
(b) Wein, Weib und Gesang, Walzer, op. 333
Eduard Strauss: Mit Chic, Polka schnell, op. 221

R3 link here.

[Petrushka]

This looks a most enticing programme though I would have preferred the second part to have begun with an overture. Goodness knows, there are enough of them including those not by Strauss (may I nominate Die Landstreicher by Ziehrer and Boccaccio by Suppe?).

Zubin Mehta is a sure hand when conducting this music so it should be quite a party. I'd be looking forward to it even more if it wasn't for the fact that it signifies the end of the Christmas break

[Alison]

Not so much of your beloved Josef as last year, Pet.

Yeah, we like the substantial overture to start part two.

I hadn't remembered that Barenboim didn't actually conduct the Radetzky March last year. He went round shaking hands with the players, one of whom refused to do so.

I am grateful to Richard Osborne for pointing this out in his column in the Oldie, a pleasurable discovery during a recent spa visit!

[Alison]

RO went on to say that the discourtesy was Barenboim's and argued persuasively that the Radestsky doesn't have military overtones.

Yet this was a glorious musical event all the same, maintained RO, in which the melancholic undertow of much Austrian music was more than usually present.

[Flosshilde]

Something of a machine theme to the first few items in the second half?

[Petrushka]

Not so much of your beloved Josef as last year, Pet.!

No, but we do at least get one of his very best waltzes in the first part and it is, after all, the 190th anniversary of Johann's birth next year. Let's hope that we get lots of Josef in 2017 his own 190th. You'd be too young to remember 1977 when Willi Boskovsky constructed the entire programme out of the music of Josef Strauss, save for the Blue Danube and Radetsky which concluded the concert as normal.

[Petrushka]

Don't forget that you can watch the entire concert live on the BBC Red Button channel 601.

[mercia]

an article by the presenter

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30536313

[Alison]

I wonder who's conducting next year?

[Petrushka]

I wonder who's conducting next year?

We should know tomorrow. Any guesses? I'd like to see Manfred Honeck (a former player with the VPO) take it on. One problem with the advancing years is that the older conductors are slowly departing and and some new blood is urgently required. But who?

[Alison]

Is Pretre still conducting? You weren't so keen on him.

Did you investigate the Honeck Strauss disc this year? I haven't so far but very good reports.

You're right, somebody new please!

As my dad would say, just enjoy today's concert for now!

[Petrushka]

Is Pretre still conducting? You weren't so keen on him.

Did you investigate the Honeck Strauss disc this year? I haven't so far but very good reports.

You're right, somebody new please!

As my dad would say, just enjoy today's concert for now!

I didn't know about a Honeck Strauss disc but did see him at the Proms when he conducted the Pittsburgh SO in some Strauss after a thrilling Mahler 5. You could have thought it was the VPO themselves.

This will be my 44th New Year's Day Concert! My all time favourite was Karajan in 1987; my least favourite, Welser-Möst in 2011. Every Boskovsky year was special.

[Keraulophone]

James May may not be tuning into what he and Mrs May refer to as 'Ho-hum Strauss'!.. though I may.

[MickyD]

It's odd...the concert has already begun here on French television...is the UK broadcasting it an hour later?

[Mary Chambers]

I always watch the television version, since I'm more interested in the setting than I am in most of the music - and I can play 'Spot the women in the Vienna Phil'.

Petroc Trelawny's article is a bit depressing, but I shall try to forget about it as I watch.