While there will be no internal audience for the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve concert this time around, lovers of classical music from around the world will be able to experience it and applaud the musicians together.
Viewers from more than 90 countries, on networks such as the BBC and PBS, can register online to share their recognition via their tablets, smartphones or computers. (As of Wednesday, due to the large number of registrations, new applications were temporarily blocked.) These recorded applause will be played through the Musikverein’s sound system for musicians playing in the “Golden Hall”, as well as an estimated audience of 30 to 50 million, will be able to share their delight.
The director of the concert is Riccardo Muti, whose 50-year relationship with the orchestra will be celebrated throughout the performance with various gestures in his Italian homeland. They include Josef Strauss’s “Margherita Polka”, originally composed in 1868 for the wedding of Princess Margherita of Genoa to Crown Prince Umberto of Italy.
Also appearing will be Johann Strauss Sr.’s “Venetianer Galopp,” which is the oldest work on the show and had been out of fashion for a while. It was first performed in 1834 in Vienna’s Augarten Park during a Venetian-inspired gala ball that had backdrops based on St. Mark’s Square. The initial success of the piece, which includes the click of castanets, was said to have convinced Austrian composer and music editor Tobias Haslinger to publish the piece in editions for both piano and orchestra.
Daniel Froschauer, who is both chairman of the board of the Vienna Philharmonic and first violinist, said talks about the pieces that would be played for the 2021 New Year’s Eve concert began with Mr. Mute the summer of 2020, during the Salzburg Festival. .
“Riccardo Muti was pretty easy because he has a lot of experience, this will be his sixth New Year’s Eve concert, so he knows the show,” Froschauer said. “And then my first question would be,‘ Which direction would you like to go? “
Most major musical decisions were made in early January of this year, via phone calls and emails, including the Philharmonic files, to make sure the concert would be neither too long nor too short. In June, when Mr. Muti was in Vienna to perform two performances with the orchestra in front of an audience of up to 100 people, the programming ended.
The “big challenge,” Froschauer said, “is to make this New Year’s Eve concert a joyous event,” which will set the tone for next year.
One of the pieces that Mr. Froschauer said he was eager to play was the “Fatinitza” march, which the Philharmonic has never performed. The piece, from the operetta of the same name, premiered in 1876 at the Carltheater in Vienna. Written by the Austrian composer Franz von Suppé -known for his light operas-, the story, a comedy of costumes, is set during the Crimean War.
He also made his Philharmonic debut on the show: two 19th-century composers, Carl Millöcker and Carl Zeller.
Best known as a composer and conductor, Millöcker was also a talented flutist who worked with von Suppé when his operettas were performed in Vienna at the Theater in der Josefstadt. Millöcker’s “In Saus und Braus Galopp” (Living It Up) was written for his operetta “Der Probekuss” (The Test Kiss) and premiered in 1894.
As a child, Zeller performed as a soprano with the orchestra in the chapel of the Vienna court. His operetta “Der Obersteiger” (The Mine Foreman) begins with a strike call in a mine in southern Germany and the waltz “Grubenlichter” takes its name from the portable miners who had a wick and a flame locked in a mesh. screen.
Just before worldwide applause passes through the Musikverein speakers, the orchestra will play the joyful “Sturmisch in Lieb’ und Tanz ”by Johann Strauss Jr., which was written 140 years ago for an annual publication. dance celebrated for local Viennese writers and journalists.
“I’m looking forward to playing the great waltzes that have been part of our tradition for so long,” Froschauer said. “And the only thing Master Muti never gives up is trying to make us sound more beautiful.”