Each New Year’s Day the Vienna Philharmonic presents a concert of waltzes, polkas, and other light fare in the Musikverein that is televised to over a hundred countries around the world. 

This year for the first time the conductor was Canadian born Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), the Metropolitan Opera (New York City), and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

I thought I’d offer a few selections from the program.

Here is the tail end of the first part of the concert; it has something familiar and something unfamiliar, but each piece is a delight.

The first number is Brausteufelchen which freely translates as “Wild Little Devil”.

Notice all the flowers in the Musikverein. I wonder how many people and how long it took to arrange all of them?