New Year’s Concert 2009

As I’m sure many of you know already, each year the Vienna Philharmonic presents a concert from the Musikverein showcasing primarily the music of Johann Strauss Jr. This tradition started in 1939, just after the Anschluss which made Austria a province of Germany — as you can probably imagine, there is a whole story to this, and I will elaborate on it further at another time and in another format. Since the 1950s, the concert has been broadcast around the world. There are several traditions associated with this event, including a minimum of two encores (Strauss Jr.’s Blue Danube Waltz followed by Strauss Sr.’s Radetzky March), and this year’s concert followed in the typical vein. Daniel Barenboim was the conductor.