Every hour on the hour, you can enjoy high-quality video and audio recordings of the latest New Year’s Concert (2024). This year was conducted by CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN, who participated for the second time this year. The Summer Night’s Concert (2023) screening starts 20 minutes prior– conducted this time by YANNICK NÉZET-SÈGUIN.

You can find the detailed concert programme on the Concert Hall’s black entrance door. 

The first New Year’s Concert was held on 31 December 1939 under Clemens Krauss. It was only after the third concert that it started taking place on New Year’s Day. Please also take note of the cabinet in front of the cinema on the topic. Then and now, the concert was held in the “Golden Hall” of the Musikverein building, which is just a five minute walk away from “Haus der Musik”. 

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Orchestral sound and Viennese musical style 

The Vienna Philharmonic’s musical style is the result of its traditions and their ensuing unique concepts of sound. The Viennese woodwind instruments sometimes have a different fingering system and a different form of mouthpiece or special reed. This is particularly noticeable with the Viennese oboe. The Viennese brass instruments, such as the trumpet, for example, have a rotary valve system and a somewhat narrower bore. Similar equipment also enables the trombone and Viennese tuba in F to produce improved tone colour and dynamics. However, it’s the Viennese horn in F that has the most significant differences from international instruments. Its sound quality is not as sharply defined, allowing smoother slurring. However, the Viennese timpani also have some special features. 

All the skin percussion instruments are covered with natural skins, in fact with goat skin heads, which produce richer overtones than plastic heads. And last but not least, we must mention the famous Viennese string sound. This is not so much based on the particular quality of the individual instruments, but rather on the specific Philharmonic playing style. 

Did you know that …

the traditional “male” Vienna Philharmonic association didn’t welcome its first female member until 1997, so 155 years after the orchestra was founded? It was Anna Lelkes, who filled the harpist position.