Christian Thielemann has conducted a New Year's concert with the Dresden Staatskapelle in the past, for the German television network ZDF, but this is his first time at the helm of the Vienna Philharmonic's annual Neujahrskonzert, a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. This one veritably drips with Viennese tradition; its conductorship rotates among top names worldwide, and some conductors have tried to push the envelope, albeit slightly, and usually on their second or third appearances. None of that here. There is some ...
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Christian Thielemann has conducted a New Year's concert with the Dresden Staatskapelle in the past, for the German television network ZDF, but this is his first time at the helm of the Vienna Philharmonic's annual Neujahrskonzert, a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. This one veritably drips with Viennese tradition; its conductorship rotates among top names worldwide, and some conductors have tried to push the envelope, albeit slightly, and usually on their second or third appearances. None of that here. There is some controversy in Germany about the degree of Thielemann's political conservatism, but there can be no debating the conservative nature of the program: this is as Strauss-heavy a program as the New Year's Concert has seen for some years. True, the program opens with Carl Michael Ziehrer's Schönfeld-Marsch, Op. 422, and Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr., one of the Waltz King's occasional competitors, is represented. Other than that, it's all Strauss, all the time. True, several members of the...
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