Thanks for that, Douglas. My timing is obviously out.
Another, completely different set of recordings of Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies that I love were recorded by Lovro von Matacic with the Czech Philharmonic on Supraphon. They flit in and out of the catalogues, but it’s very well worth trying to find them.
Do remember to tune in to Radio 3 shortly (10:15) for this year’s festivities from the Golden Hall in Vienna.
It’s also being shown on BBC2 TV but, be warned, you will have to watch Mr Frankly-Worse-Than-Most trying to conduct the Wieners. I wonder if he has picked up any tips since he tried last time. (This will be - amazingly - his third attempt, so perhaps he’ll be red-carded for persistent fouling.)
I’d sell my soul (I think) to be there!
If you watch the TV pictures, you can play the annual game of counting how many ‘wimmin’ have smuggled themselves onto an orchestral seat. The Wieners are probably still the most misogynistic orchestra around.
A clever trick to have a quintet with three ‘wimmin’ in the interval - they’re cunning b*ggers, these õsterreichers!
Nonononno Graham, you miss the point. It’s so that dirty minds like yours and mine are not distracted from the music.
Anyhow, time for lunch. It’s not my kind of music at all. Give me some Bruckner instead.
According to the VPO NYD Concert website, tickets can be applied for in February for next year, at a price ranging from 35 Euros to 1200! As you say though @Douglas, I’m sure it’s an absolute lottery to actually get one, plus of course the airfare and accommodation (if not already living thereabouts).
You must be mistaking me for my evil twin, who knows my password and comes onto this Forum and says naughty things.
I tried very hard, for about six or seven years, entering my name on the ballot on the first available date (usually the week after the concert itself), but nothing came of it. Now I content myself with just watching - and, anyway, Carlos Kleiber won’t be back to conduct (as he did so memorably in 1989 and 1992).
On a different (and parochial) point, I wonder if there will ever be a British conductor in charge. Simon Rattle and John Eliot Gardiner have both conducted the Vienna Philharmonic on records. It would be fun. (I’m sure that John Barbirolli would have been perfect, as he used to put on Viennese nights in his days in charge of The Hallė, and he conducted the VPO on records - a Brahms Symphony cycle, I think.)
And, at some point, they must surely invite a woman. Mirga Grazintye-Tyla is the only person high-profile enough, and it would be great to see her bring all those men to order.
Oh dear, compared with the conductor chosen for 1 Jan 2024, M G-T would be an inspired choice. I doubt it would ever happen though.
You’re right, Chris. I bought a Deutsche Grannophon CD many years ago of Christian Thielemann conducting The Philharmonia in Beethoven’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, as he was said to be the next big thing. How wrong that was. Pure stodge, and ponderously slow. It was cruel, but very instructive, to put on the CD of Carlos Kleiber’s recordings of the same two works immediately afterwards.
People sometimes ask if there’s really any difference between different recordings of a particular piece of music - that CD alone would be enough to show that the difference can be vast.
Ah well, at least I don’t need need to keep NewYear’s Day morning clear this time next year.
Presumably Thielemann sells well in the German market, so I expect that is an important factor in them choosing to work with him again. He is in the midst of a Bruckner symphony complete cycle with the VPO which has only been moderately well reviewed. His complete set of the Beethoven symphonies, also with the VPO, was mannered and old fashioned in his interpretations.
I suspect, but I have never seen this written, that Thielemann is looking to recreate the ‘weight’ of sound of an older generation of conductors - exemplified by Karajan - from 50 years or so ago. I think the sound that he produces tends to be dull and ponderous in the extreme. (But I have not heard his complete Beethoven cycle, and I have no inclination to buy a copy.)
If he has found a niche in the German-speaking market, good for him. But there are many better choices available. For example, Bernstein’s DGG set of Beethoven with the same Vienna orchestra from 30-odd years ago is lithe, and very well caught in Bernstein’s preferred ‘patched live’ performances.
Interesing comments about todays VPO New Year broadcast this morning. As usual very well presented, the ballet inserts keeping time with the VPO. I always feel this orchestra could play this event without a condoctor and there are a few ladies in the band, a fairly recent trend and a good one.
Still the musical event of the day for me.
I love reading stories like this how you guys can jump on a plane and be in all those wonderful places in Europe in a few hours. For us, it’s a 24 hour flight and a time shift that generally takes another 24 hours to recover from. 
…but you have the Sydney Opera House. Don’t you get some really great performances there?
True and a ballistic missile will take longer to get here.
But seriously I sometimes think it’s taken for granted that you can be sitting in caffe in Paris in an hour. I can’t even get out of NSW in an hour.
It is indeed something many of us take for granted. When I worked in a place which took on young antipodean ‘gappies’ for a year at a time, I was initially surprised that they had no plans to go home in their holidays during their year with us. They patiently explained that the opportunity to see Europe whilst it was on their doorstep was one that only an idiot would turn down.
Mark
The VPO certainly has this music “in its blood”, but it’s noticeable how much difference a quality conductor makes to the playing. Also, when we hear and see the concert on New Year’s Day, the orchestra has rehearsed, then given two complete performances of the programme over the two preceding days, so they should be good on 1 Jan - which they invariably are. I thought the playing this year was exceptionally good, credit to all concerned. This concert is, for me, a highlight of the Christmas/New Year period.
The Vienna New Year’s Day concert and Raymond Briggs’ lovely cartoon ‘The Snowman’ are the two things that I try to watch every year.
Funny how we differ. I can take one or two Strauss waltzes and polkas, but listening to a whole programme of them is like gorging on a whole box of sweet chocolates and feeling sick for the rest of the day. I feel much the same about the Snowman film, especially when the big spoonful of syrup that is Walking on Air comes on. The book is much better.
Give me the fourth part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio any (New Year’s) day.
Roger