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01/01/21 Enough flowers in the foreground, and you can’t see that nothing is missing. That is, the audience. If a camera in a higher position takes over, the empty rows of seats in the Musikverein’s Golden Room are, of course, almost imperceptible. Floral decorations are more colorful and magnificent than ever. And Riccardo Muti and the Vienna Philharmonic will not let verve and ingenuity be wiped out by something akin to a pandemic.
By Heidemarie Klabacher
The 81st New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic has just ended in the 63rd broadcast by ORF, broadcast in sixty countries, alphabetically between Austria and Ukraine. It was the sixth New Year’s Concert under the direction of Riccardo Muti, the first without an audience and at the same time the first with a final live applause.
The applause was almost a bit grumpy: at first, no applause between Franz von Suppès Fatinitza-Marsch and Carl Millöckers gallop Too much fun. Music without applause and with this quality too? Emptiness in a silenced echo chamber nothing against.
At the end of the first part, applause (sound and more and more images) from people from all over the world. Reverence of an absent audience for conductor and orchestra. You can only get so close to musicians when they are broadcast on television. One was inclined to describe the strained smiles of individual instrumentalists as “headdresses.”
As always, known numbers (between Spring voices– and Kaiserwalzer) also debuts the New Year’s Concert. This year there were also individual works related to Italy (such as Johann Strauss Vaters Venetian gallop) as an honor for Riccardo Muti in his eighties (you can’t see it with a glance) and for his professional jubilee: in 50 years the maestro has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic 550 times.
The new favorite pieces from this area are actually very rarely (that is, exactly once a year) perceived music: Johann Strauss Sohns Sound waves. Walzer op. 148. The solemn introduction (always the best of almost all concert waltzes anyway) recalls the venerable planets in their orbits. In addition, air-to-electrically driven music players from various stages of development were recorded on film from the organ drum to the original record player and electric piano. Also, a fine bellows in time,
Carl Zellers Waltz of Mining Lights has a particularly enjoyable slow intro: a brilliantly staged crescendo culminates in a delicate pianissimo before the mine gases ignite with flourish. No one can play descending horn fifths as well as the Vienna Philharmonic. No one can light such a vivid flourish without the slightest cheap show.
Both parts of the concert opened with Franz von Suppè, “where there is much to discover and many popular things to hear again,” said the ORF presenter. the Fatinitza-Marsch debuted at the New Year’s Concert. And the overture of the comedy (play) Poet and farmer It is a single stroke, open with wise bubbles and string chorale that includes a small apotheosis at the beginning, including cello and harp solo for kneeling. Only then does one of the famous catchy tunes appear in the woodwinds … the poet and the farmer must be potentates of two world empires so energetic that at least Muti and the Philis get close to the Sacher …
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Her first ballet performance was for Josef Strauss Margherita – Polka Danced at the Looshaus, the ladies were dressed in the style of the 1920s, less “flavorful” and therefore decidedly more compelling than many of the earlier kitsch-soaked ballet films of recent years. Johann Strauss Sohns danced in a more “classical” way, but also pleasantly elegant. Spring voices in the lounge and park of the Palais Liechtenstein.
Then Donauwalzer. Then Radetzkymarsch. Almost as always. Still, hopefully next year with a live audience again. The New Year’s Concert 2022 will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
