The sleepiest Vienna New Year’s Day ever
OrchestrasGreytops are struggling to remember a New Year’s Day in Vienna that has been preceded with less hype, controversy or Schadenfreude as the concert hour approaches.
The run-up has been soporific.
Here’s this morning’s message from the orchestra’s chairman.
Wake me up when it’s over.
And what happened to the lady concert master who was announced to be on the first chair today?
I would really like to know the back-story to this one. She was announced as the lead, but she was then moved sideways at the concert itself. Given the Wiener Philharmoniker’s well known history of misogyny (not to mention their other prejudices), this doesn’t look good.
Goodness, do you mean an orchestra is going to play a concert programme? That the audience will attend in person or on television just to enjoy what is on? I really don’t know how life can go on.
No surprise. Thielemann is not realy a man of the New Year Concert. During the last years Dudamel and Nelson were promising but they prefere to do always the same things with every years the same ugly costumes. I only hope that new year they not call one more time the bad Riccardo.I stoped to hope that they will call the good one, the one from La Scala, even if he worked several times with the VPO.
Agree; but we need an Austrian, that understands the music; like Harnoncourt.
By that logic only French conductors can understand Debussy and only American conductors can understand Gershwin – which we know is patently untrue. It’s a waltz….not quantum physics.
Harnoncourt was more the type of believing that no one understands wiener music like him
Harnoncourt was a GREAT new year concert conductor
Olivia, Count Johann Nicolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d’Harnoncourt-Unverzagt is slightly dead.
Thielemann did a good job with a rather diverse programme full of novelties, plus a tribute to Bruckner’s upcoming bicentenary.
Oh, and Japanese Sony was rather pleased, wich is what ultimately counts!
Harnoncourt was born in Berlin.
And one of his cousins was Anne d’Harnoncourt, long time director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art until her untimely death from cardiac arrest.
A specialist in modern art, and especially in that of Brancusi and Duchamp, she was one of the organizers of the landmark Brancusi exhibition from the 1990s that was seen both at Centre Pompidou and in Philadelphia.
OK. here’s how the New Year’s concert conductors rank. Sorry for typos.
The great one. Clemens Krauss. But try to obtain the recordings from the actual New Year’s concerts, not the more widely available Decca recordings, good as these may be. Some years ago the VPO has edited the first New Year Concert in a CD, and this is truly desert island stuff.
The one who has a clue. Willi Boskovsky is not half, heck not even one tenth of the conductor Krauss is. But there is something enjoyable about his way with Strauss, not to mention being echt-wienerisch.
The one who has a clue and should have been better: Zubin Mehta. No one knows the vienese style better than him, and yet his outings have always left something to be desired – just like his career in general. OK, the 1995 concert was really good, but the recording that came out had horrible sound; the 1998 one was stiff, and after that his powers have diminished.
The clueless greats. Both Karajan and Carlos Kleiber are undoubtedly among the greatest of conductors. But their approach to Strauss is wrong headed. Karajan is simply too heavy – although I have to admit that I like some of his phrasing, but not the texture. Kleiber treats these pieces like major symphonic works, and in the process loses track of the fact that this is dance music. Plus he is surprisingly weak in Hungarian-flavored music. There are of course, magic moments – the opening of Tausend und eine Nacht being just one such example, but overall this is more about Kleiber than about Strauss.
The Frenchie simpatico. OK, so Georges Prêtre is more Offenbach than Strauss. But since there was a vienese and French operetta styles are related, and since his first concert was so enjoyable, we’ll give it a pass.
The one who did better elsewhere. I am not the only one who heard Franz Welser-Möst doing wonderful Strauss in Cleveland. But his New Year’s Day concerts were, alas, nothing special.
The one who gets the sound right. Alas, just the sound, not the phrasing or atmosphere: Riccardo Muti, ironically, the one who destroyed Philadelphia’s sound.
The ones we think were greats because the real greats have passed away some time ago: Abbado, Jansons, Maazel, Ozawa.
The one without a heart: Ha! non coeur.
The Seinfeld conductor – about nothing: Andris Nelsons.
The one who cannot phrase: Daniel Barenboim.
The one mit zwei left beine feet foosen. Christian Thielemann is a great Strauss conductor. Richard Strauss, that is. And not “fun” Richard Strauss such as Der Rosenkavalier (yes, even here there are dark undertones, but save that thought), but the disturbing one of, say Elektra. And this is, well, disturbing.
The one who should have been invited: Kleiber. Erich Kleiber, that is. Perhaps the one Strauss conductor greater than Clemens Krauss, and what an influence he had on his son. Except Kleiber Sr. understood Strauss, though perhaps overall Kleiber Jr. is the greater one.
The one who should have been invited. Really. besides Krauss and Kleiber Sr., the other great Strauss conductor is the forgotten kapellmeister Anton Paulik. Once a formidable presence in the city’s life, where he gave the premier of Kalman’s Grafin Märitza, he has the style in his blood. Tantalizingly, he led the VPO in an all-Strauss program on December 30 and 31 1944, though it was Clemens Krauss who led the ones on January 1 and 2 1945 with a different program.
The one who should have been invited and would have been interesting. You never know which Hans Knappertsbusch shows up, whether the great one or the undisciplined one, or perhaps both. But if the results would have been something close to what he achieved in the few Strauss pieces he recorded for Decca, it would have been a stunner.
The one who was invited, could not make it, and would have been interesting. From what I understand Leonard Bernstein was invited to lead a New Year’s concert, but he passed away before he could lead it. It’s our loss.
The one who should be invited but will never be. Manfred Honeck is the best Strauss (and not only Strauss) conductor today. His two CD’s with the Vienna Symphony give us hope that not all is lost.
The bad joke whose time has come to end. There is no shortage of conductors who can make Strauss boring; see above. But it does take a genius – an Ed Wood / Tommy Wiseau (whom the dude freakishly resembles) type genius to actually make Strauss’ music dumb. Yet the dude accomplishes this seemingly impossible thing. Well, I suppose even classical music needs to have its own disaster artist.
Oh, hi Mark!
I always wondered why Rudolf Kempe was never invited to conduct the VPO New Year’s concert.
Because, alas, Kempe, did not really have a big relationship with the orchestra, and I also wondered why.
He only conducted the VPO in studio or in their guise as the Vienna State Opera orchestra – and there mostly repertoire operas with little or no rehearsal. The only two premieres he was given were Simon Boccanegra and Werner Egk’s Der Revisor. In studio, besides the landmark Lohengrin, we mostly recorded miniatures with the VPO – but what a great disc is Vienna Philharmonic In Holiday that Testament reissued; it does show promise for a great New Year’s concert.
The only time he conducted them as the Vienna Philharmonic outside the studio was in a Salzburg Festival production of Pfitzner’s Palestrina which was initially entrusted to Furtwangler, who passed away.
OMG !
This website’s annual dig at something millions enjoy.
Don’t want to watch then don’t.
There were 9 new pieces out of 15 and the audience was very enthusiastic.
And some were played beautifully… The Blue Danube as was exquisite as I have ever heard it and mercifully free of dancers on the tv relay!
And Thielemann spoke German not English to deliver his anti-war homily?
I strongly suspect that Mr. Thielemann is German. Even worse, most people in Vienna speak German. Of course it could be a conspiracy.
Soporific, indeed.
Lack of pre-concert hype is a bad thing? Maybe just focus on the music?
In any event, while I agree this concert and program are a bit of an anachronism and one should also not forget the origins of the event, the VPO’s stylistic cohesion is this repertoire is truly a thing of wonder.
Perfectly played – boring as hell – as expected and as almost always. Muti again next year. TOZ Zürich produced an exciting Silvesterkonzert – conductor Alondra de la Parra. An outstanding event.
The Vienna Symphony, Beethoven
and an angry audience provided the excitement this year.
At leat he didn’t wear that conducting sweatshirt.
Dullest Vienna New Year’s Concert EVER. The music was boring, the conductor was boring, and the orchestra and audience looked bored beyond belief. They need do to something adventurous and have someone like Mirga do it — THAT would be exciting, a breath of fresh air and she would surely respect the traditions.
I thought Thielemann was great yesterday. I’ve heard enough fluffy VPO New Year’s concerts to have heard the orch play sloppily & hack their way thru the more unfamiliar works. That didn’t happen yesterday. Thielemann really brought out the best in the orch. Every player was on their A game. (except maybe the slapstick player in the percussion who was behind the beat for his 1st entrances in the racehorse polka). All else was impeccably played.
It looked like the orch respected Theilemann & wanted to play well. I saw lots of orch eyes on him, following carefully. He looked pretty insistent with the first violins trying to get them to bring their dynamics down at one point. He looked to be going for the best performance possible & he wasn’t letting anything slide by. To my ears, he succeeded.
Nice inclusion of the Bruckner Quadrille & the piece by the Danish composer known as the “Strauss of the North”.
The history the narrator gave this year was particularly interesting: from the tragic love story of Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, to commentary on Brucker with views of the church where he played as organist, to a visit to the salon of Sigmund Freud, showing his treasured photo of Albert Einstein on the wall, all fascinating.
The dancing got a little avant-garde for my taste this year, but all in all, it was an enjoyable program, in my opinion!
Sadly, the event came across as too stiff and uninspired as far as the orchestra was concerned – one might get the impression that the conductor of this year was not the right choice for this particular concert. That is, until the Beautiful Blue Danube and the Radetzky March came on and suddenly everyone was at the top of their game – orchestra, audience and yes, even the conductor himself!
The two orchestral players that I know, who have played under Thielemann, are full of praise for him. The concert brought out his strengths … very well prepared, carefully thought through, and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, hence every one at the top of his or her game! So, technically excellent. But Thielemann is a deeply serious conductor with a dour expression. He just didn’t look the part. And excellent conductor that he is in a very limited repertoire, he doesn’t do joie de vivre. So, earnestly dull at the same time. As for other past conductors, I found Harnoncourt too serious and dour as well. Carlos Kleiber in my view was excellent. I heard him on a number of occasions, including once at the Bavarian State Opera, doing Die Fledermaus … stunning! I would support giving Welser-Most another chance. And what about Kirill Petrenko, in my view, the most exciting conductor around? This new year, though, he was doing Wagner at the Philharmonie in Berlin. I am regularly in Berlin, and Petrenko in whatever repertoire, is outstanding.
I was listening rather than watching the concert – the little boys playing at being actors were boring – then I saw a black-clad dancer writhing around on a balcony! She looked like a refugee from When Harry met Sally! Later she sank down on camera in front of the male dancer who appeared to be in ecstacy and his face became blurred – what on earth was going on? It was quite embarrassing to watch in company!