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New Year's Concert - The Complete Works

Wiener Philharmoniker Release Date: 11/13/2015
Label: Sony Catalog #: 503203 Spars Code: DDD
Composer:  Johann Strauss Jr. ,  Johann Strauss Sr. ,  Josef Strauss ,  Johannes Brahms  ...  Conductor:  Zubin Mehta ,  Carlos Kleiber ,  Riccardo Muti ,  Seiji Ozawa  ...  Orchestra/Ensemble:  Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Number of Discs: 23
Recorded in: Stereo

Click here to purchase New Year's Concert 2016 with the New Year's Concert - The Complete Works 23-CD box for a special bundle price of $49.99! (Special bundle price ends at midnight ET 1/21/16.)

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New Year's Concert: The Complete Works contains all 319 works ever performed at the concert over its 75-year history. This unique collection of musical highlights, performed live under 14 great conductors, includes 25 previously unreleased recordings from the Read more ORF's broadcasting archives as well as a special CD with 13 new recordings by members of the Vienna Philharmonic, capturing music from the concert's early years not recorded at the time.

The great tradition was launched on New Year s Day 1941, when Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss presented an all-Strauss-family concert with the Philharmonic in spite of his fears that the after-effects of New Year s Eve might have a detrimental influence on attendance . His concern proved unwarranted. Until his death in 1954 except for 1946-47, when Josef Krips took his place, Krauss shaped the concert's profile. In those years it was broadcast only on radio. Under Krauss s successor, Philharmonic concertmaster Willy Boskovskyz who directed the concert no fewer than 25 times standing with fiddle in hand as Johann Strauss himself had done, the TV broadcasts began and soon became an event enjoyed by audiences all over the world.

Since 1980 the Philharmonic has invited leading conductors to join them in Vienna to usher in the new year. From 1980-1986, and again in 1994, 1996, 1999 and 2005, Lorin Maazel was on the rostrum. He was followed by Herbert von Karajan (1987), Claudio Abbado (1988, 1991), Carlos Kleiber (1989, 1992), Zubin Mehta (1990, 1995, 1998, 2007, 2015), Riccardo Muti (1993, 1997, 2000, 2004), Nikolaus Harnoncourt (2001, 2003), Seiji Ozawa (2002), Mariss Jansons (2006, 2012), Georges Prêtre (2008, 2010), Daniel Barenboim (2009, 2014) and Franz Welser-Möst (2011, 2013). This distinguished roster, all with special ties to the orchestra, as well as a special flair for Viennese music, conducts the Vienna Philharmonic on these discs in 319 compositions from the musical dynasty founded by Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss in the 1820s, then carried on triumphantly by Strauss's sons Josef, Eduard and, of course, the Waltz King Johann II. Recently, the Strauss-Lanner core repertoire has been broadened with music by figures including Mozart, Schubert, Weber, Brahms, Berlioz, Suppé, Offenbach, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner and Richard Strauss. All of which, needless to add, is included in this set.

CD 23 is made up of stylish new recordings of eleven Strauss-family works that were given only a single performance, under Clemens Krauss or Josef Krips, during the early years of the New Year s Day Concerts occasions that were not recorded. (Two selections are included here from that first 1941 concert under Krauss, which was recorded.)

The accompanying booklet contains a new essay by Dr. Clemens Hellsberg long-time Philharmonic violinist, historian and former president as well as images from the orchestra s archives. Read less