胡乱贴点

德语课要做的小报告，贴上来供读者扔西红柿。

Neujahrskonzerte in Wien

As a Musikliebhaber (music lover), I have been collecting CDs for many years up to total number of about 400 discs. Among my collection is one of my favorite parts: die Neujahrskonzerte in Wien (Vienna New Year’s Concert). I have collected the original CDs from the concerts took place in the years of 1979, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006. I wish I could finally find them all in the future.

These concerts take place in der Großen Saal of der Musikverein, Wien every year on 1st January featuring die Wiener Philharmoniker (the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra) and a orchestra-selected conductor of the year, performing works mostly composed by members of the Strauß family and several pieces written by other composers of the Waltz era including Josef Lanner and Franz von Suppé. There are also some exceptions: on the concert of 1991 director Claudio Abbado performed Mozart’s marches from the opera Le Nozze di Figaro and even Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra overture. This concert soon became the most criticized one in the history of Neujahrskonzert. On 2003’s concert Nikolaus Harnoncourt put Brahms’ Hungarian Dances on it and was criticized also. One positive example is that on 2006’s concert Maris Jansons performed Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro overture featuring the composer’s 250^th anniversary.

The very beginning of die Neujahrskonzerte is in 1939, also known as the “Außerordentliches Konzert” (extraordinary concert) because it was not performed on the New Year’s Day of the year of 1940, instead the Silvestre day of 1939. Besides, there were no encores (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 2007). These concerts soon became a rejoice of the Austrian people under control of the Nazi and the well-known An der Schöne Blau Donau Waltz became the “second national anthem” of the country.

Nowadays these concerts have become very popular all around the world. In my country, China, the Neujahrskonzert is broadcasted by Channel 2 of the national TV station, China Central Television (also known as CCTV) since 1987. Many Chinese families, no matter if they ever know something about classical music or not, will be watching and listening to it for couple of hours. I really think that the concerts helped spreading classical music in China.

To me, this concert means my once a year musical delight. I will forget every unpleasant thing that moment and put myself completely into the musical world. I think this is all the Neujahrskonzert about: to make every listener enjoy.

Work Cited

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (2007, February 4). Vienna New Year's Concert. Retrieved March 8, 2007, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_New_Year's_Concert