![]() More than 50 years later, Krips’s New York Times obituary rightly emphasised the significance of his origins. By the same time, he had conducted his first symphony concert in the city. His early professional development was centred on the Volksoper where he became concertmaster at the age of just 15 (!) and had, within just four more years, been appointed chorusmaster and made his debut as a conductor of opera. He was educated at the city’s Academy of Music. Moreover, he grew up in a musical milieu still dominated by the waltz. Like Krauss and Boskovsky, he was a native-born Viennese. We may also surmise with some confidence that Krips’s empathetic skill owed much to his personal background. Not only did he emerge as a strong candidate for re-election to the post after Krauss’s death in 1954, but this newly released compilation definitively confirms his expertise and genuine flair in this repertoire. We may, indeed, infer that Krips’s two concerts must have gone rather well. Rather simply, their established conductor Krauss had been temporarily barred from the podium during his post-war de-Nazification proceedings. Josef Krips only led two of those 1 st January concerts, but that was no reflection on his ability. Native-born Austrians have, in fact, only occupied the coveted podium on seven occasions in that period, in the form of Herbert von Karajan (1987), Carlos Kleiber (19), Nikolaus Harnoncourt (20) and Franz Welser-Möst (20).īefore 1980, on the other hand, the annual conductorship had been an entirely home-grown affair, held successively by Clemens Krauss (1939, 54), Josef Krips (19) and, most famously, the VPO’s long-time concertmaster Willi Boskovsky (1955-1979). It may therefore be fitting that during the past 40 years the Vienna New Year’s Day conductors have hailed from countries as diverse as France, Italy, Germany, India, Japan, Latvia, Argentina and Venezuela. Music has, in fact, a strong claim to be the world’s most international language. ![]() For many of them, no doubt, it is their only regular exposure to such music. The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s annual New Year’s Day concert may actually have had its modern origins as a Nazi wartime propaganda stunt, but these days tens of millions of TV viewers watch it in almost a hundred countries around the world. If Christmas is closely associated with Tchaikovsky, then the Strauss dynasty of Vienna has established a good claim to ownership of any celebrations associated with the arrival of a new year. You can also generally expect any recordings on Blu-ray, DVD or CD to be released in November or December so as to catch the market for seasonal gifts. Ballet companies regard a Christmas production of Tchaikovsky’s ballet as a well-nigh guaranteed financial hit that helps subsidise the rest of the year’s activities. ![]() Even so, you will also be in all probability obliged to hear them in somewhat more mundane circumstances as they blare out mercilessly from the public address system while you buy your supermarket mince pies.Īgain, I need not remind MusicWeb readers that we are also right in the midst of Nutcracker time. ![]() The most obvious examples are Christmas carols, which you may prefer to hear at the sophisticated level of King’s College Cambridge’s Nine lessons and carols (see here and, for an interesting historical perspective, here). London Symphony Orchestra, New Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker/Josef KripsĬertain pieces of music are indelibly associated with this time of the year. Support us financially by purchasing this from
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