Before the New Years Concert

The Musikverein in Vienna, Austria was opened on January 6, 1870, and is famous for its acoustics. It is considered to be one of the three finest concert halls in the world, along with Boston's Symphony Hall and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, and is home to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The concert hall was built by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music) which had been given the land by Emperor Franz Joseph. The building soon came to be known simply as the Musikverein ("music club").

The building is forty-eight metres long, nineteen metres wide, and eighteen metres high. It has 1,744 seats, and standing room for 300. Every year on January 1 the Vienna New Year's Concert is held here.

Since 2001 the building has been undergoing renovation, and several new rehearsal and concert halls have been installed.

The New Year Concert (in German: Das Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker) of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is a concert that takes place each year in the morning of January 1 in Vienna, Austria. It is broadcast around the world to an estimated audience of one billion in 44 countries.

The music is mostly that of the Strauss family (Johann Strauss I, Johann Strauss II, Josef Strauss and Eduard Strauss). The flowers that decorate the Wiener Musikverein concert hall are a gift each year from the city of San Remo, Liguria, Italy.

The concert always ends with several encores after the main programme. The musicians then collectively wish the audience a happy new year, and close with Johann Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz followed by the Radetzky March. During this last piece, the audience claps along in time and the conductor turns to conduct them instead of the orchestra.

The concert was first performed in 1939 (on 31 December of that year) conducted by Clemens Krauss. In 2006, for the first time in the history of the "Neujahrskonzert", there was a contribution of Mozart: the ouverture to The Marriage of Figaro.

Special thanks to Mr. Thomas MITTERMAYER and Mr. Klaus KRENN, for making this panorama possible

more panoramaic images on my website by clicking here

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Europe / Austria

Lat: 48° 12' 1" N
Long: 16° 22' 20" E

Elevation: 607 ft

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

Nikon E4500, Stitcher