NEW YEAR'S CONCERT 2009

Two major “premieres” distinguish the Vienna Philharmonic’s 2009 New Year’s Concert. To mark the beginning of the Haydn bicentenary year, a work by this great Classical master, who died in Vienna on 31 May 1809, has found its way onto the concert programme for the very first time; and Daniel Barenboim, General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and a regular guest of the Vienna Philharmonic since his debut in 1989, is directing his first New Year’s Concert, becoming the fourteenth conductor of the event in its sixty-nine-year history.

The first part of the concert establishes links with the conductor’s biography. When Daniel Barenboim performs the opening work, the Overture to Eine Nacht in Venedig (A Night in Venice), we may be reminded that Johann Strauss’s 1883 operetta first saw the light of day in Berlin — the only one of his creations for the stage to have had its premiere outside of Vienna. The waltz Märchen aus dem Orient (Fairy Tales from the Orient), which Strauss wrote for the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II and which is here heard for the first time at a New Year’s Concert, alludes to a modern “fairy tale” written by Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian literary scholar Edward Said when, in 1999, they co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble comprising young Israeli and Palestinian musicians as well as players from the Arab countries of the Middle East. This bold experiment has come to symbolise inter-cultural openness and tolerance, reflecting the life of Daniel Barenboim himself, who in 2007 was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

The Annen-Polka (Anna’s Polka), composed by Johann Strauss in 1852, offers a glimpse into his family history. Ten years earlier Johann Strauss père had written the Beliebte Annen-Polka (Beloved Anna’s Polka), and now his son was directly competing with him (yet again), while also setting himself the challenge of providing a musical contribution to the Annen-Fest (Feast of St Anne), the annual celebration of which, on 26 July, was enormously popular in Vienna at the time. Both Annen-Polkas, however, had a deeper personal significance: the wife of the elder Johann Strauss, and thus the mother of the “Waltz King”, was named Anna, née Streim. By way of a brief interlude, the Schnellpost-Polka (Express Mail Polka) — heard for the first time in a New Year’s Concert — leads us on to another connection with the family life of Daniel Barenboim: programming the waltz Rosen aus dem Süden (Roses from the South) was a special request of his wife, the Russian pianist Elena Bashkirova. The quick polka Freikugeln (Magic Bullets), a high-speed conclusion to the concert’s first part, owes its origin to an event promoting reconciliation: it was composed for the International Shooting Association Contest, which in 1868 took place at the Prater in Vienna. Among the participants were both Austrians and Prussians, embroiled just two years earlier in a bloody war, but now clashing only in a peaceful competition.

The second part of the New Year’s Concert constantly alludes, if sometimes obliquely, to Joseph Haydn. The master served from 1761 to 1790 and from 1795 to 1809 as kapellmeister to the princes Paul Anton, Nikolaus I and Nikolaus II Esterházy, and in this capacity he spent almost three decades — a significant proportion of his working life — at their residence in Eisenstadt and at the palace of Eszterháza, often referred to as the “Hungarian Versailles”. In appreciation of the great services rendered to European cultural and music history by the aristocratic Hungarian family, this portion of the 2009 New Year’s Concert is principally devoted to the “Hungarian” Strauss. It begins with two pieces coming directly from Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron), followed by the Schatz-Walzer (Treasure Waltz), based on dance motifs from that operetta; and it concludes with the quick polka Éljen a Magyár! (Hurrah for Hungary!), which Johann Strauss dedicated “to the noble Hungarian nation”.

Coming between these Hungarian works is, first, a little “musical journey” through Europe. The Valse espagnole by Joseph Hellmesberger, junior, marks the eighth time that a work by the former Vienna Philharmonic conductor (1901–03) has been performed at a New Year’s Concert. The elder Johann Strauss, referred to by his famous son as a “musician graced by God” and described as a “demon of the Viennese musical spirit” and a “magical violinist” by none other than Richard Wagner, is represented by the first performance here of his Zampa-Galopp, a work based on the French composer Ferdinand Hérold’s sensationally successful opera of that name. The younger Johann Strauss’s Alexandrinen-Polka recalls a significant chapter in the composer’s life: it was written in St Petersburg, where he conducted summer concerts for twelve years with tremendous success.

The quick polka Unter Donner und Blitz (Thunder and Lightning) by Johann Strauss and his brother Josef’s waltz Sphären-Klänge (Music of the Spheres), one of the greatest and most searching works of that entire genre, are also programmed between the framing “Hungarian” works. Finally, the year’s musical regent gets his turn to be heard with one of his most famous compositions. The “Farewell” Symphony continues to be the subject of numerous theories, the most popular of which claims that Haydn was using it to express the displeasure of the Esterházy court musicians at the Prince’s excessive prolongation of their “summer” season at Eszterháza. Whatever the explanation, the indication to the players, found in numerous copies of the score, that they should leave the podium one by one, is naturally observed at the 2009 New Year’s Concert. This homage to the father of the symphony, as Haydn is called, is also a tribute to the unique humour of an incomparable musical genius, who, even now, is far from adequately appreciated.

The first encore, the quick polka So ängstlich sind wir nicht! (We’re not that worried!), for which the whole orchestra reappears on the podium, isn’t simply meant as a “rhetorical gag”. It also returns us to the start of this programme with motifs drawn by Johann Strauss from his operetta Eine Nacht in Venedig.

Clemens Hellsberg
Translation Richard Evidon