New Year's Day Concert 2011

[Boilk]

If this annual snore-athon of Strauss music did not occur on New Year's Day, when people are full of optimism about the new year, and at a loose end on a public holiday, I wonder how many people would be raving about it?

I dread to think how much audience members pay for this piece of cultural bubble gum.

[verismissimo]

The sequence of Liszt-related pieces early in the second half (three of them) was presumably because a) it's the bi-centenary of his birth in 2011, and b) JS II was a fan. Petroc didn't mention any reasons for it so far as I could tell. Wonder if they said why on Austrian TV?

[Barbirollians]

I am afraid I thought that was the worst NYD concert I have ever heard even Muti was better - staid is far too kind I found it very dull indeed . Had to go and listen to Kleiber to hear how it should be done.

[Alison]

There's quite a tradition of marking centenaries if memory serves correctly. There was the Haydn symphony movement with Barenboim two years ago.
Having listened online I have enjoyed the concert much more. The BBC relay simply didn't convey the glory of the VPO violins, the percussion
oddly muted too.
I feel the choice of music a little lacking, always good to have the novelties but maybe we needed a couple more of the many absolute
masterpieces this year. Nothing quite took my breath away and the Blue Danube lacked something of the airborne, soaring quality I found with Pretre
last year. A lot of this is no doubt personal. I'd have Muti and Mehta scoring somehwat higher than FWM and Barenboim with Pretre best of all in recent years.

[Petrushka]

I do wonder why we have had no live recordings of Willi Boskovsky's 25 year reign emerging from the ORF vaults. True, we do have the 1979 concert cobbled together from three performances as Decca's first digital LP and true again we do have the DG DVD of the whole of the 1974 2nd half plus excerpts from 1963 to 1979. And, of course, we do have Boskovsky's commercial recordings. Some of Clemens Krauss's have appeared on CD. Does anyone know of any live WB New Year concerts?

Alison, you will not remember Karajan in 1987. That was the most wonderful of all.

[Alison]

Is the Hvk available on CD ?

Sorry to labour the point, Petrushka, but you're rating this FWM concert very highly are you not ?

I know we normally agree on most things so I am fascinated. I am not saying you are wrong

and Im still at a comparatively early stage of assessment !

[Alison]

Yes, just found the Hvk and on order (1987)

[Cellini]

For Alison (M# 2):



Yes. It's scheduled to be Mariss Jansons:

http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at/2012_nyc.html

Edit -> peripherally related YT link added:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR4-rd3plys

I worked for Jansons quite lot a long time ago and he was very good. But I have never liked his Viennese interpretations, far too Russian.

[Alison]

I worked for Jansons quite lot a long time ago and he was very good. But I have never liked his Viennese interpretations, far too Russian.

Once again I completely agree with my pal Cellers.

Jansons was the New Year concert I enjoyed least. Full of drive and detail and somehow not in the true spirit of
the music - of which the depths were not reached.

[Alf-Prufrock]

The Karajan concert has a wonderful performance by Kathleen Battle of the vocal version of 'Voices of Spring' as well as a great selection of Strauss favourites that Karajan was supreme at conducting.

I think FWM suffered from having too many unknown and perhaps second-rate pieces in the concert, even if his ancestor heard them in his establishment.

[Barbirollians]

The Karajan was splendid . I have it on cassette somewhere . I think Alf P has a point - I just found the FWM concert very dreary generally.

[Petrushka]

Is the Hvk available on CD ?

Sorry to labour the point, Petrushka, but you're rating this FWM concert very highly are you not ?

I know we normally agree on most things so I am fascinated. I am not saying you are wrong

and Im still at a comparatively early stage of assessment !

To be honest, Alison, I'm in two minds about it. There is no doubt in my mind that FWM has what is needed for this music but I think he was let down by a) too many unknown and, perhaps, less than first rate pieces b) the Liszt Mephisto waltz which was horribly out of place and being in the central position in the second half, the momentum that builds up was instantly gone c) from our UK perspective the BBC presentation, PT in a matchbox and the swift fading down of applause made it all sound rushed as if they couldn't wait to get the Mozart show on the road.

I could not believe the difference when listening to the ORF broadcast, like listening to a completely different concert.

So no, I am not rating it as highly as hoped but, like you, still thinking about it! Anyone know what the Vienna critics were saying?

[poshsussex]

The programme looks quite exciting. Quite a few works I don't immediately recognise from the titles.

Though I have adored both Pretre concerts I fancy this will be something quite special. Idiomatic and all that.

ANY NEWS ON NEXT YEAR'S CONDUCTOR ?

Unfortunately, I did not hear anything about next years conductor, but how about Sir John Elliot Gardiner, who I think has conducted the VPO before on more than 1 occasion.Has any British conductor done so at the New Year Concert before, I wonder ?
I did enjoy this years programme, especially the Ballet sequences (which Schloss was the dancing performed in ?), but yet again the BBC did not broadcast the Concert in HD, while most other EBU TV is in HD. Why doesnt BBC2 do HD for this event ?
Anyway, I am hoping that the recording due out in February will be available on bLu-Ray disc, aswell as DVD and CD, and the DVD will probably be filmed in HD format , as last year it said so on the disc box(in very small letters !)

[Alison]

Yes, a good summation, Petrushka.

I have been listening to a new (to me) Neujahrskonzert, Harnoncourt in 2001 - in itself suggesting that I havent found sufficient
nourishment in the 2011 event.

Quite a few of the works featured ten (crumbs - ten!) years ago would have nicely supplemented this year's fayre.

eg Overture Eine Nacht in Venedig or the glorious Seid umschlungen, Millionen, Walzer.

Equally there is just that bit more 'fizz' on offer from Harnoncourt, not a conductor to whom I normally respond.

With the online recording now unavailable it really is time to await the CD release and try FWM later in the month.

What a shame we don't have Wilf on board to give us the official line from Vienna.

[Petrushka]

ten (crumbs - ten!) years ago

Yes, time flies! 2011 was my 40th NYDC and I can still remember the programme of the first half (the only bit on R3 in those days - the TV showed Part 2 in the evening). Anyway, I've just ordered, or rather pre-ordered, the DVD of the 2011 concert but won't have the CD this time as I'm happy enough with the ORF relay.

Old NYDC hands like me wax lyrical about the Boskovsky years when there really was fizz. I strongly recommend the DG DVD I've mentioned already but which alas appears to be unavailable at present.

I've also ordered the 1954 concert with Clemens Krauss on the Opera Kura label. Should be interesting.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Krauss-New-Years-Concert-1954/dp/B000ICMDDC/ref=sr_1_8?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1294613264&sr=1-8