Believe it or not, most audience members are much younger than this … © eva101
With 2009 fast approaching, you may not be starting to think about 2010. Vienna is, however, and while you can’t catch the city’s famous 70th Anniversary New Year’s Concert next week, you can get in line now for next year’s tickets.
The Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic) began their annual New Year’s Concert in 1939 to celebrate the legacy of then-recently departed Johann Strauss. Concerts dedicated to the Father of Waltz (and one of Vienna’s most famous musicians, up there with Mozart) had begun ten years earlier, but it was in 1939 that they became serious about making an annual tradition of music from the Strauss dynasty. It was in this musical period that Vienna was characterized by lively polkas and sweeping waltzes, and in these concerts the Viennese were able to preserve their identity above that of their annexors in Nazi Germany.
Since then, the concerts have been the be-all and end-all for January 1st entertainment, televised internationally, sold on CD (and now DVD), and featuring a Who’s Who of 20th and 21st Century conductors including Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Mariss Jansons. With a pedigree and history, it’s no surprise that this concert is a quick sell-out (usually, tickets go practically a year before the actual concert). However, if you can plan that far ahead you can go onto the Philharmoniker’s website between January 2nd and January 23rd and will stand an excellent chance of picking up a ticket. And this is one of those occasions where picking up a 20 Euro Standing Room (Stehplatz) ticket is not only a wise investment budget-wise, it’s a cheap way to party like it’s 1899. Just opt for the fancy flats.
Wiener Philharmoniker
Kärntner Ring 12
A-1010 Vienna
+43 1 505 65 25
http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at