Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert 2023

[Ein Heldenleben]

First trumpet of the London Philharmonic, I believe. He did apologise to the maestro later.

For some reason Lunchtime O’Boulez in Private Eye ran a long campaign of negative articles about F W-M . He always struck me as no worse than some and better than many. Sadly Klaus Tennstedt’s don’t grow on trees . As a direct comparison I preferred him to Kurt Masur who I found a somewhat dour conductor. The LPO had a stellar run of chief conductors and there just aren’t enough truly outstanding talents to go around the many orchestras demanding them.
I thought he did a good job yesterday and the orchestra seemed to be enjoying themselves.He is , however, no actor.

[Petrushka]

Me too, but I've seen elsewhere some negative comments already about next year's conductor. I think it must be part of the New Year tradition! Anyway, full marks to FW-M for this year's programme.

If that's on the Lebrecht site, you'd get negative comment even if Karajan and Carlos Kleiber were resurrected to jointly conduct this concert!

FW-M was too young to take on the LPO but the hammering that both he and Sinopoli at the Philharmonia received from the British press was shameful. FW-M's name tag was actually a really great pun but it all got very silly and most, if not all, of those critics are now gone.

As I noted in my first post after the concert, FW-M looked much more assured than his previous outings on this occasion and he was well in control.

[kernelbogey]

As I noted in my first post after the concert, FW-M looked much more assured than his previous outings on this occasion and he was well in control.

His face remains relatively deadpan but he talks a lot with his eyes.

[Petrushka]

His face remains relatively deadpan but he talks a lot with his eyes.

The body language of the orchestra showed that they were completely relaxed with him. The decision to include mostly unknown pieces could have gone wrong if the works had been less than of good quality but the choice was clearly vindicated.

2025 might seem a long way off but it will see the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss' birth so it would be a good idea to have some unknown pieces from him.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

FW-M couldn’t have progressed as far as he has, we’re he not extremely capable. My only gripe is his interpretation of Eine Alpensinfonie (which he has recorded twice). Strauss’s sunset is so rushed that it sounds as though the sun has fallen out of the sky and has crash-landed on Earth. But one work alone shouldn’t be used to judge a conductor.

[richardfinegold]

If that's on the Lebrecht site, you'd get negative comment even if Karajan and Carlos Kleiber were resurrected to jointly conduct this concert!

FW-M was too young to take on the LPO but the hammering that both he and Sinopoli at the Philharmonia received from the British press was shameful. FW-M's name tag was actually a really great pun but it all got very silly and most, if not all, of those critics are now gone.

As I noted in my first post after the concert, FW-M looked much more assured than his previous outings on this occasion and he was well in control.

I don’t know how familiar you are with FW-M work in Cleveland but at least in the broadcasts that I heard leading up to Covid (several of which I auditioned during the first year of the Pandemic when everyone was shut down) I was very impressed.
I didn’t get to listen to the entire program as I wound up getting a New Years phone call from a friend about halfway in but I really enjoyed what I heard primarily due to the unfamiliar numbers. I was listening on the radio so no visuals but given the amount of unfamiliar repertoire I wonder if there was more “Conducting “ than the norm. Usually the players seem to do their own thing and the Conductor just tries to look good for the camera

[richardfinegold]

FW-M couldn’t have progressed as far as he has, we’re he not extremely capable. My only gripe is his interpretation of Eine Alpensinfonie (which he has recorded twice). Strauss’s sunset is so rushed that it sounds as though the sun has fallen out of the sky and has crash-landed on Earth. But one work alone shouldn’t be used to judge a conductor.

Is that particular work one that you have high standards for

[oddoneout]

His face remains relatively deadpan but he talks a lot with his eyes.

The eyebrows came into play after the choir piece; I'm still wondering what the double flick meant.

[RichardB]

given the amount of unfamiliar repertoire I wonder if there was more “Conducting “ than the norm. Usually the players seem to do their own thing and the Conductor just tries to look good for the camera

There were plenty of moments involving hardly any conducting at all! I found him a genial presence and, as I remarked before, not someone to put himself in between the players and the music. I don't have much of an idea of him as a conductor because he's recorded so little repertoire that I'm particularly interested in. I see that some of his work at Cleveland has been released, including a whole album of music by George Walker whose work I don't know at all.

[jayne lee wilson]

Franz Welser-Möst’s much-derided LPO years were no wasteland: the CD legacy includes a stunningly swift, dramatic, live Bruckner 5th (in the acoustically glorious Vienna Konzerthaus), a lyrical, Schubertian neo-classical 7th (rec. live at The Proms); a fascinating, sonorously gorgeous c/w of the Pärt 3rd with the rarely heard Kancheli 3rd; one of the best Schmidt 4ths on record; a Dvorak/Glazunov c/w with Zimmerman….. this is by no means an exhaustive list (there's a Bruckner Mass No.3, with high praise in the Gramophone, which I haven't heard) .

I often heard him live with the LPO on Radio 3 back then; nearly always enjoyed his concerts (and taped them…)…

If you love Bruckner, this 5th is essential listening! Oh, that coda! You’ll be out of your chair….

[ahinton]

If you love Bruckner, the 5th is essential listening! Oh, that coda! You’ll be out of your chair….

To me, the Fifth Symphony was by far the finest work that Bruckner had composed at the time of its completion - and I believe that it suffered rather less then some of his others from subsequent revision at the persuasion of those who seemed to think that they knew better than the composer how some of his works should be...

[RichardB]

[FONT=verdana][COLOR=#000000]Franz Welser-Möst’s much-derided LPO years were no wasteland: the CD legacy includes a stunningly swift, dramatic, live Bruckner 5th (in the acoustically glorious Vienna Konzerthaus)

OK, you're on, I've bookmarked that for listening soon.

[jayne lee wilson]

To me, the Fifth Symphony was by far the finest work that Bruckner had composed at the time of its completion - and I believe that it suffered rather less then some of his others from subsequent revision at the persuasion of those who seemed to think that they knew better than the composer how some of his works should be...

As aforesaid.... the 5th is his greatest, most perfect achievement, and the finale very different in its double-fugue form from all of his others....(although the autograph shows some revisions from 1876-8, he never revised it after this (or sought to publish any earlier draft); it was definitive in 1878, and he knew it.).

The only problem it ever had was Schalk's appalling butchery of it, still to be heard, if you wish to torment your ears and your Brucknerian heart, in Knappertsbusch' recording...
(No Brucknerian will want to submit to this more than...twice; in a state of appalled fascination...

The 5th is the glorious, triumphant culmination of his earlier phase, so supremely confident in its scale, its formal daring, its closely-integrated cyclic form, with an extraordinarily deep thematic cross-reference. There's almost something perfectly Apollonian in the fact that he never heard it; never played in his lifetime.
Then the black comedy of the Schalk Edition, based on truly profound misunderstanding (this happened to the 3rd as well, the most damaged by the revisions) .

****
Richard Osborne's brilliantly evocative review of the FWM 5th is in G., 4/95. "A performance .....that could have been filmed by Ken Russell or apostrophised by Dylan Thomas."

[Barbirollians]

OK, you're on, I've bookmarked that for listening soon.

I recall an interesting Mahler4 with the LPO and Felicity Lott on EMI Eminence in the late 1980s .

[Petrushka]

Moving back to the New Year's Day Concert...

I listened to the Austrian Radio relay last night which is available for 7 days on their equivalent to our BBC Sounds. I presume that it's the same as that on Sounds with Petroc's presentation in place of ORF's Eva Teimel. The whole thing comes across in really excellent sound, much better than TV, and ideal, as bsp would say, for anyone wishing to brush up on their German.

Without the added distraction of the dancers, Josef Strauss' Perlen der Liebe comes across with astonishing beauty, the wistful melancholy and glorious melodies caught to perfection by the VPO in outstanding form.

For those interested, the ORF relay is available in surround sound.

https://oe1.orf.at/player/20230101/702905 (part 1)

https://oe1.orf.at/player/20230101/702907 (part 2)