2014 New Year's Day Concert

I'm Petroc Trelawny, good morning and happy new year. You join us in

the Golden Hall of the Musikverein here in Vienna, where the players of

the Vienna Philharmonic are back on stage for the climax of their annual

New Year's Day concert, this year directed by Daniel Barenboim. As

well as the rich splendour of this ravishingly pretty concert hall,

with its busts and caryatids and friezes, over the 90 minutes or so,

we will be enjoying the splendours of a sumptuously restored city

palace later, filled with dancers from the Vienna State Ballet. They

are dressed by one of Great Britain's leading designers. And

alongside the family Strauss, we'll mark the 150th birthday of a great

opera composer who shared their name. Although he is unrelated, she

shares their surname. Richard Strauss.

APPLAUSE Daniel Barenboim conducting the

Overture to Johann Strauss's operetta Waldmeister, a project that

came at an opportune moment, at a time when many were writing the

composer off, saying he'd run out of good ideas. The show was a huge hit,

running for 88 performances. The score also included a Gallop. Part

of the opera is set in a mill and the Gallop was performed by a

chorus-line of apprentice millers. The tune was based on a song Strauss

had written in his youth when he dated a miller's daughter.

The Klipp Klapp Galop from Johann Strauss Junior's operetta

Waldmeister, written by the 70-year-old composer just four years

before his death. The sun has come out here in Vienna after a very

misty start, very mild for the time of year, very warm inside the

Musikverein. Daniel Barenboim is conducting in front of not far short

of 2000 people, but that is dwarfed by the 50 million reckoned to tune

in on radio and television around the world. This year, 92 countries

showing the concert, Daniel Barenboim's involvement meaning for

the first time it is being shown by the Palestine Broadcasting

Corporation and in Argentina, where he was born. The biggest audience is

in China, and this year viewers in the tiny Pacific states of Tuvalu,

the Cook Islands and Nauru also join the party for the first time.

We have a little less far to travel this morning, we are heading to the

Vienna Woods for Tales From The Vienna Woods, dating from the 1860s.

TV viewers will see the music illustrated by pictures of the

Augustinian monastery at Klosterneuburg, filled with art

treasures and with wonderful Gothic architecture. It celebrates its

900th anniversary this year. The zither features in the school. --

score. Wilfried Scharf playing the zither,

delighting Daniel Barenboim in Tales From The Vienna Woods, with pictures

of the 900-year-old Klosterneuburg monastery. The Vienna Woods are very

rural yet just a few miles from the centre of Vienna, very popular for a

weekend trip, although not with Strauss himself, who hated climbing

and never went walking in the woods. He hated heights so much that he

would sit on the floor of his railway carriage to avoid seeing out

the window when he took the train to Linz. Is there any better place to

start the New Year than in Vienna? So much happening here, the annual

race around the Ringstrasse took place yesterday, annual performances

of Offenbach's operetta Die Fledermaus at Vienna State Opera

tonight, Beethoven Nine is performed every new year at the Konzerthaus

across the road. This is principally the day of the Strauss family, but

Josef Hellmesberger also features each year. He was a conductor here

at the start of the 20th century. Daniel Barenboim conducts a French

polka by Hellmesberger. He was. By Mahler, an affair with a dancer

didn't help his case much either! -- forced out.

A French polka by former Vienna Phil concertmaster Josef Hellmesberger.

Next, we are going to serenade the flowers.

Josef Strauss' Bouquet Polka, and if you have been admiring the flowers,

it is difficult not to. This time they are a gift from the gardeners

and florists from Vienna. This year marks the 150th

anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth - not related in any way to

the Strauss family - but his music is often heard here in Vienna.

Capriccio was his farewell to the opera stage. He started work on it

in the summer of 1940. We are going to hear the Moonshine music.

Daniel Barenboim conducts the Moonshine Music from Capriccio,

performed when the countess is deep in thought on the terrace. Radio 3

will be marking Richard Strauss' birthday by broadcasting all of his

prose. Now we find the Vienna State Ballet dancers in the centre of the

city. Music by Josef Lanner, the

Romantics. The dancing could be considered Britain's contribution to

this New Year's Day Concert. The choreography by Ashley Page, former

Royal Ballet principal dancer and director of Scottish Ballet in

Glasgow, and the costumes by Vivienne Westwood, who is married to

an Austrian and in the past has designed for the Burgtheater here in

Vienna. This is the 74th annual New Year's Day concert in Vienna. The

first took place during the dark days of the Second World War.

Clemens Krauss conducted. He was the first to get the Vienna Phil to

regularly play music by the Strauss family. He had instigated an annual

Strauss gala at the Salzburg Festival. It was broadcast for the

first time on radio in 1953. A decade later it was broadcast across

the continent via Eurovision, so beginning its role as a vital part

of many people's New Year celebrations. Two polkas next by

Josef Strauss that have never before been performed at a New Year's Day

Concert. In a moment, shenanigans, but first a polka mazurka with a bit

of teasing going on. The Shenanigans Polka, and before it

the Teasing Polka, both by Josef Strauss, both getting their New

Year's Day premieres. Clemens Hellsberg, Vienna

Philharmonic president, told me yesterday that even after 74

concerts they have still performed less than 50% of the published music

of the Strauss family. More ballet next, music from France.

The pizzicato polka from Sylvia by Delibes with dancers from Vienna

State Ballet in costumes designed by Vivienne Westwood, performing at the

Liechenstein family palace. If you are listening on Radio 3 this

morning and want to see the dancing and the palace, don't forget

extended highlights, two hours' worth, from today's concert on BBC

Four at 7:00pm, now available in HD. The Musikverein was inaugurated in

1870, built on a piece of land given by Emperor Franz Josef I. It's one

of the world's most important concert halls, yet when you sit in

it, it feels very intimate, more like a salon than a great hall. The

richness of its design almost overpowering, the golden caryatids

that appear to support the balcony, the fine tapestries hanging in front

of the boxes, the marbling and the brilliantly bright friezes. The

seating looks a bit utility, because it is designed to be moved on the

two occasions each year when this place becomes a ballroom. Another

reference to the great opera composer Richard Strauss next, born

150 years ago this year. Josef Strauss's Dynamiden Waltz, which

Richard Strauss unmistakably echoed in his masterwork Der Rosenkavalier.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE The Dynamiden Waltz by Josef

Strauss, with the alluring subtitle Secret Powers of Attraction. Music

that was much to influence Richard Strauss when he came to write his

opera Der Rosenkavalier. Josef Strauss died terribly young, just

before his 43rd birthday. Just before he died, he wrote a sparkling

polka called Without A Care. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Daniel Barenboim shouting at the end of that polka by Josef Strauss,

officially marking the end of the 20 14th the Vienna Philharmonic New

Year's Day concert. Though, as regular fans will know, there are a

few treats ahead of us yet. Presented by a member of the

orchestra with that bouquet of flowers, contributed this year by

the orchestra itself, grown by gardeners and nurserymen and women

of Austria. Well put together by the look of it. As he struggles to pull

one out! He has failed! This, Daniel Barenboim's second

appearance at the New Year's Day concert. Significance to the fact

that the orchestra asked to this great peacemaker and musical

diplomat to return to conduct again. He is truly a citizen of the world.

Born in Argentina. Travelling on Palestinian documents as well. It is

a busy time of year for the players in the orchestra. I was talking to

one of those on stage today and she told me she was playing on Christmas

Day in the Nutcracker at the State Opera and then again in rehearsals

for this concert on Saturday and Sunday with performances in the

morning and evening. Easy times. She is making her first appearance this

year. One of nine women on stage this year. It may be a small

percentage but it is up on a year ago. Maybe we'll be in double

figures by 2015. It often causes controversy. This is the first

encore. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The first encore by Josef Strauss. Him showing off his love of horse

riding. The name of it is the fastest speed at which a horse can

be written. It had an unfortunate start in its premiere as it was the

day the Austrian army had been defeated in a key battle in the

Austro Prussian War. Hence the work was rather overlooked. This concert

is being shown on big screens in cafes and hotels across Biela this

morning. I'll imagine the waiters are casting a final eye over the

arrangements of cutlery and glasses before the onslaught of concertgoers

and musicians. -- across Biela. Not far for Daniel Barenboim to go after

the concert. Vienna Philharmonic conductors traditionally stay in the

adjacent Imperial Hotel, which has a back door opposite the Musikverein's

stage door. The carpet is bearable for the maestro to cross.

By The Beautiful Blue Danube, the unofficial national anthem of Vienna

and Austria, played by the Vienna Philharmonic this New Year's Day.

The dancers are from the Vienna State Ballet. Do you use the hashtag

#prosit2014, we can all be part of the celebration.

We are nearly at the end of this year's festivities, the New Year's

Day concert performance by the BNL Philharmonic supported by Rolex and

conducted by Daniel Barenboim. -- Vienna. He is shaking hands with

members of the orchestra. This is his second appearance conducting the

New Year's Day concert, what charm and a spirit he has brought to

proceedings, the lighting the audience, including his wife, his

violinist son Michael, and I spotted Julie Andrews as well! She presents

the American television coverage of this event, broadcast to 92

countries around the world this year. If you fancy being in the

audience next year, for real, tickets cost between 30 and 940

euros. To get then you need to register...

Daniel Barenboim shaking hands with BBN Philharmonic in the Radetzky

March by Strauss Senior. If you want to be here next day, you have until

January the 23rd to register your details at the website. That is it

for this 2014 New Year's Day concert, what a great way to

celebrate the New Year here at the Musikverein in Vienna with Daniel

Barenboim on the rostrum after delightfully leading us through this

programme of 21 musical treats from this city and further appeal. From

me, Petroc Trelawny, and all of us here in Vienna, good afternoon to

you and a very happy New Year.