The Vienna Philharmonic concluded its preparations for the 82nd New Year’s Concert yesterday with a dress rehearsal in front of an audience. The performance does not leave long-time musicians unaffected: “I was so moved by the waltz” Spheres sounds “that I almost started to cry,” said board member Daniel Froschauer recently.
ORF 2 will broadcast the concert tomorrow from 11.15 a.m. live from the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein in 92 countries. In Austria, with more than a million viewers, the performance is traditionally one of the most watched TV programs of the year, with around 40 million attending worldwide.
Nehammer: “No exception”
Due to the pandemic, only 1000 visitors are allowed in the hall this year – one of them waives voluntarily: Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer will not be present. “In a difficult pandemic situation that demands a lot from us all, I would consider a visit to be the wrong signal,” Nehammer wrote on Facebook. The impending wave of omicrons calls for stricter measures for all people – “I don’t want to exclude myself from it.” The other members of the ÖVP government do not come either.
The program of the concert, which is being conducted for the third time by Daniel Barenboim, includes 15 waltzes, marches and polkas, mainly from the pen of the Strauss dynasty. Six works can be heard for the first time at the New Year’s Concert, including “Kleiner Anzeiger” and “Heinzelmännchen” by Joseph Hellmesberger, who himself was once conductor of the court opera. But not only the musical preparations are in full swing: TV director Michael Beyer is fine-tuning the transmission with a total of 16 cameras, the Viennese city gardeners are decorating the Golden Hall with 30,000 flowers.
If you want to listen to the concert, you don’t have to wait long: the concert will be available digitally on January 7th, the CD will be available in stores from January 14th, and the DVD from January 28th.
Source: Nachrichten
