Souvenirs of the Vienna Phil New Year’s Concert don’t
come much more consistently enjoyable than this. Collating performances
at the 1996 and 1999 Concerts RCA Victor have filleted the very best
of the two CDs that originally appeared on 09026 68421-2 and 74321 61687-2.
The resultant disc appears in the company’s new reissue livery of colour
photograph and lower case type. Preconceptions of a jutting and scowling
Maazel have long since evaporated, at least in this congenial company,
and he brings great delicacy and refinement to the repertoire. Seldom
has the Kaiser-waltz sounded so delightfully nuanced, so carefully
clarified and with Ein Herz, Ein Sinn his teasing little gestures
are pleasurably idiomatic (it is a polka-mazurka after all). The Polka
Française Bitte Schön has a delicious curve to it
and takes on fresh life whilst Tales from the Vienna Woods opens
in verdant and luxurious delicacy, the zither making its presence felt
with stealth and charm. This is the kind of performance with which Maazel
stamped his authority over the proceedings. The orchestral players as
ever enjoy themselves - the trombones are splendid in Spleen,
another Polka-Mazurka and collectively they give real rhythmic lift
to the celebratory favourite, the Tritsch-Tratsch polka. Maazel
picks up his violin for a piece of Paganini worship, the Walzer à
la Paganini (arranged I think by Michael Rot).
I suppose it’s a shame that some of the other rarities
that are seldom heard don’t appear alongside the good old good ones
– so no room for the Keystone Cops paraphernalia of Banditen-Galopp
(which was played in 1999) or something like Lagunen-Walzer or
Künstlerleben amongst many others. Still what remains is
as ever enormously enjoyable and graced by lashings of sheer charm.
Jonathan Woolf
Recorded in Vienna
at the Grosser Saal of the Musikverein at the New Year’s Concerts of 1996
and 1999