Vienna Philharmonic – Celebrating New Year’s In Vienna

Vienna Philharmonic is one of the finest orchestras of the world, and they belong to Austria. Their home base is said to be the Musikverein in Vienna, which is where they’ll be spending New Year’s Eve, and so can you, along with them.

The members of the orchestra are chosen from the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Each of these members would have to prove their mettle by playing for almost three years for the Opera and Ballet. Once this minimum requirement has been achieved, the musician can try and apply to the Board of Wiener Philharmoniker (German for Vienna Philharmonic) requesting them to consider the application for a position in the Vienna Philharmonic.

Musikverein:

Wiener Musikverein is very commonly shortened to the Musikverein. This name has a twofold meaning to it. For one it is the name of the famous concert hall in Vienna, and for the second, it is the shortened name for the Society of Music Lovers called Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. They own the building.

This building, where the Vienna Philharmonic is going to ring in New Year’s Eve, is located on the Dumbastrabe behind the Imperial Hotel. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde first built the building on a piece of land that they’d been given by the Emperor, Franz Joseph. The building was opened in the year 1870 (January 6th). The Musikverein continues to run its course as being in the top five concert houses in the world; and continues to be extremely well known for its acoustics. Interestingly, these halls were built before the science of acoustics had been born; and this would mean that they didn’t have the required technology, as we know it today; but they understood their music.

The Golden Hall of the Musikverein is about 48 meters long and nineteen meters in width. It can house about 1744 people, and a further 300, who’d have to stand. This Golden Hall has always been the venue for the New Year’s Concert of Vienna.

The New Year Concert here is a concert that brings to you some spectacular classical music churned out by the Vienna Philharmonic. The concert gets broadcast all around the world; and has a television audience of approximately 50 million people across 72 countries.

The first New Year Concert was held in the year 1939. During selected pieces of the program, the orchestra is joined by pairs of ballet dancers; and this adds to the visual aesthetics of the program. The dancers are chosen from the Vienna State Opera Ballet and are dancers who have performed across all the important places of Austria.