The New Year’s concert under the direction of Christian Thielemann sent a greeting to a “world torn apart by wars and intolerance,” according to the conductor, with the “wonderfully variable” melodies of the Strauss brothers, from Viennese ball and military music as well as the annual regent Anton Bruckner.
The German Thielemann, who will make his move from the Staatskapelle Dresden to the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden this year, made his debut at the New Year’s desk in 2019. Even five years later, the specialist for the large, serious German repertoire attacks the flattering Viennese melodies with a good portion of Kapellmeister’s exaggeration. Gallop and polka thunder over the cobblestones with diamond-sharp hooves, the march and the waltz, almost interchangeable twins of Viennese music, allow Thielemann to approach the parade with great volume rather than the dance floor.
Thielemann: Closely connected with the orchestra for years
The close connection that Thielemann and the orchestra have maintained for years will culminate this year not only on New Year’s Day, but above all in the musical celebrations for Anton Bruckner’s 200th birthday, which is coming up on September 4th. Together they recorded all of the Upper Austrian composer’s symphonies. And for the first time ever, a piece of Bruckner’s was put on the New Year’s menu. Not an easy exercise, as the great symphonic musician didn’t exactly work in small-scale number format – and writing dance music was frowned upon for a church musician and organist anyway.
Traditional break film in the spirit of Bruckner
However, a precious piece by the very young Bruckner was found in the archive – a quadrille for piano four hands, which he had probably made for a private ball. The Philharmonic Orchestra had Wolfgang Dörner orchestrate the piece for a large orchestra in the style of Viennese music. A surprise, precisely because it doesn’t sound surprising: on the first day of the jubilee year, you would hardly have heard this Bruckner out of the Strauss brothers, the Hellmesbergers and Ziehrers. For television viewers, the traditional intermission film was also focused on Bruckner – directed by Felix Breisach, two choir boys from St. Florian Abbey go on a discovery tour to the Upper Austrian’s central stations in life, including Ansfelden and Bad Ischl.
Ballet performances from Bad Ischl
This year’s ballet performances were also filmed in the Upper Austrian health resort of Bad Ischl – with a view to this year’s Salzkammergut Capital of Culture year 2024, in which Bad Ischl acts as an anchor city. With the posthumously completed “Ischler Waltz”, Johann Strauss also dedicated the appropriate sound carpet to the imperial summer retreat. At Rosenburg in Lower Austria, choreographer Davide Bombana staged the dancers of the Vienna State Ballet for Carl Michael Ziehrer’s Waltz of the Self-Confident “Viennese Citizens” in costumes by Susanne Bisovsky.
Strategically well positioned in the ball season, the Viennese greeting to the world was once more in three-four time this year. Josef Strauß contributed the ambiguous “Delirien” waltz, Josef Hellmesberger Junior not only the “Estudiantina” polka with a high proportion of pizzicato, but also the expansive waltz “For the whole world”, which was quite programmatic on the day, Johann Strauß served sweet “Viennese candies” – even ones that bear that title – and of course the most iconic of all waltzes, “On the beautiful blue Danube”.
Eduard Strauss’ polka “Die Hochquelle”, which was composed on the occasion of the opening of the Vienna Hochquelle pipeline, was dedicated to water and its protection. This dedication goes hand in hand with this year’s New Year’s concert donation of 100,000 euros to an environmental protection project run by the umbrella organization of Austria’s Alpine clubs.
Official Austria was represented by, among others, Federal President Alexander van der Bellen and Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer. He attended the concert together with South Tyrol’s Governor Arno Kompatscher and the Tyrolean Governor Anton Mattle. As every year, towards the end of the concert event, the secret of the following year’s conductor was revealed: Riccardo Muti will be at the New Year’s podium for the seventh time on January 1, 2025 – at the start of the anniversary year on the occasion of Johann Strauss’ 200th birthday.
