New Year’s day Concert/ Vienna
Like many people I prefer New Year’s Day to the overhyped New Year’s Eve. Fortunately I no longer celebrate the latter in an over-priced restaurant or the gala rip off of a hotel.
My highlight is the traditional New Year’s day concert in Vienna, broadcast simultaneously on Radio 3 and BBC 2 presented by Petroc Trelawney. This year I chose to listen to the concert in the morning on Radio 3 and the whole concert repeated at 7.00 pm on BBC 4
The concert is very much Austrian in tone and content featuring the music of the Strausses. It’s now a tad repetitive like The Last Night of the Proms.
The setting in the gilded Musikverein Hall exemplifies the glory of Vienna as the centre of the Habsburg Empire and the Vienna philharmonic orchestra conducted by Christian Thielemann was impressive but I did not get the same uplifted feeling as in previous years.
Having listened to the Rest is History podcast on the Rise of the Nazis I could imagine a bunch of Reichsmarshals and the Fuhrer himself occupying the best seats with their swastila armbands. Richard Strauss was a supporter too.
As one gets older the bucket list contracts and the Vienna concert is now off it.
