After the 25 years during which these Vienna
New Year’s concerts were directed by Willi Boskovsky, the present
policy is to have a different conductor each year. Some have
been an immense success – especially Karajan in 1987 and Carlos
Kleiber in 1989 and 1992, some have made an interesting change,
and some have been little more than indifferent, although the
magical playing of the orchestra has tended to disguise this.
The choice of Nikolaus Harnoncourt in 2003 might have been expected
to result in an interesting change, but what actually emerged
was perhaps not such a change but was one of the great successes
of the series.
Before he became a conductor, Harnoncourt had
been a member of the orchestra. He had played under such eminent
conductors as Clemens Krauss who really knew how to make the
most of this music. Earlier as a boy he had heard his father
playing a wide variety of light music including that of the
Strauss family. It should be no surprise therefore that the
performances here are above all idiomatic. Arguably it would
be hard to make this orchestra play this music any other way,
but he sounds at all times to be encouraging them to bring out
the dance character of each of the pieces without ever losing
sight of the underlying poetry that so many have, especially
for example in Josef Strauss’ “Delirien” and Johann’s “Krönungs-Lieder”
and “Kaiser-Walzer”. The subtlety with which the dance rhythms
are played is a joy throughout, as is the lack of the self-consciousness
and heaviness which has afflicted some more recent conductors
of these concerts.
I have known the CDs of this concert for many
years, and although I vaguely remember the original television
broadcast I had forgotten how enjoyable it was in this case
to be able to see as well as hear what is going on. Admittedly
as usual with these concerts it is best to ignore the audience
for many of whom this seems more a social than a musical occasion
and show a remarkable lack of evident enjoyment, but the sight
of the orchestra - or most of them, anyway - apparently relishing
the music, and of Harnoncourt’s piercing gaze on them more than
makes up for this. The packaging states that this is “The Director’s
Cut by Brian Large”, but no more information is given about
the significance of this. One obvious change between this and
the original broadcast is that most of the usual ballet or other
inserted sequences are now included as part of the Special Features
rather than as part of the concert itself. Thus five items are
included twice, once as seen in the concert hall, and once with
pictures of the Danube, Schönbrunn or Heilbrunn Palace or with
dancing by the Vienna State Opera Ballet soloists or the St
Petersburg Kirov Ballet. Whilst these may not amount to great
ballet they are enjoyable and worth seeing occasionally even
if in general my personal preference is to stick with the concert
as seen by the audience. Apart from these items I am unclear
what changes have been made for this version. The direction
is blessedly unobtrusive and sensible in what is shown, although
personally I do not care for shots of the orchestra from directly
above, but they too are magical if you do not suffer from vertigo.
Whatever re-editing there is has evidently been done with great
sensitivity.
As usual the programme is a mixture of the well-known
and less well-known. Surprisingly this was the first time that
the Weber had been included. It goes with terrific panache in
the middle section and great poetry at the start and finish.
Unusually no one in the audience starts to applaud prematurely,
unless this is one of the benefits of re-editing. Interestingly
the Brahms dances are played in unpublished but very effective
orchestrations by Friedrich Reichart (1838-1889) found in the
archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.
Whilst I admit that this DVD adds nothing musically
to what is heard on the CDs, there is a special pleasure in
being able to see this concert. For what it is worth it also
answers unimportant but interesting questions like how many
women were in the orchestra at the time and whether the violins
were indeed split on either side of the platform. The answers
are two and yes. But the real point of owning this DVD is to
be able to see and hear such wonderful musicians playing such
marvellous music, and it fulfils that purpose admirably.
John Sheppard
Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra/Nikolaus Harnoncourt 
[122:00 +
27:00 special features]
