Neujahrskonzert 2025 / New Year's Concert 2025 (DVD)

The world's most famous classical music event, featuring the work of a female composer for the first time and marking the opening of Johann Strauss' anniversary year, is being released by Sony Classical digitally, as a double album, on DVD and Blu-ray. Berlin, December 6, 2024: On January 1, 2025, maestro Riccardo Muti will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert for the seventh time in the world-famous Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. There are few concerts in the world that are as eagerly awaited as the New Year's Concert in Vienna. This year, it will be broadcast in over 90 countries and reach an audience of millions. 2025 is also a jubilee year for Johann Strauss - his 200th birthday will be celebrated in October. The program of the New Year's Concert includes works by the Strauss family and their contemporaries with a unique addition: for the first time, a work by a female composer and friend of Johann Strauss will be performed: the "Ferdinandus" Waltz, composed by twelve-year-old Constanze Geiger in 1848. The live recording of the New Year's Concert 2025 will be available on CD from January 17 and on vinyl, DVD and Blu-ray from January 24. Riccardo Muti has been associated with the orchestra for around 50 years, has conducted it over 500 times and has also been one of its honorary conductors since 2011. Daniel Froschauer, Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, emphasizes the conductor's special significance for the orchestra: "Riccardo Muti has held an outstanding position in the history of the Vienna Philharmonic for over fifty years. An honorary member of the orchestra since 2011, Muti has shaped the repertoire and the specific sound of the ensemble in a unique way." The history of the Vienna Philharmonic can be traced back to 1842, when Otto Nicolai conducted a "grand concert" with "all members of the orchestra of the Imperial and Royal Court Opera Theater". This event is generally regarded as the birth of the orchestra. Since its foundation, the orchestra has been managed by a democratically elected committee and is artistically, organizationally and financially independent. The tradition of New Year's concerts began in 1941, but the first New Year's concert took place on December 31, 1939. The first conductor was Clemens Krauss, while Willi Boskovsky conducted no fewer than 25 New Year's Concerts from 1955 until 1979. The list of conductors of these concerts reads like a "Who's Who" of leading maestros. The New Year's Concert was first broadcast live on television in 1959. Today, the Vienna Philharmonic sees this traditional event as a musical greeting of hope, friendship and peace to the world to wish everyone a Happy New Year.