Description
This 2005 edition in the sequence of Viennese New Year’s Day concerts is, to my mind, particularly successful. It features Maazel conducting his 11th occasion since Boskovsky’s long tenure and, like Boskovsky, he is steeped in the tradition even taking up the violin too to lead the orchestra in the Pizzicato Polka and the following Tales from the Vienna Woods.
The playing throughout is particularly crisp with an enhanced sense of orchestral enjoyment and this close familiarity with the orchestra shows at every point with the orchestra singing away in the Nordseebilder with even greater enthusiasm than usual. As always there is an attempt to mix the new with the traditional and in this concert there are no fewer than 5 works making their debut appearance at these concerts

