Search - Willi Boskovsky: New Year's Concerts 1963-1979 on DVD

Charm, wit and grace characterize this DVD!

Alan Majeska | Bad Axe, MI, USA | 01/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Charm, wit and grace and adjectives I can think of the characterize this 2 DVD set of New Years's Concerts from Vienna, conducted by Willi Boskovksy. Boskovsky (born 1909 in Vienna) was educated as a violist and violinist, and played in the Vienna Philharmonic for many years before becoming a conductor. He played chamber music in a string quartet, and with larger chamber music groups, and was the violinist in the famous recording of the Brahms Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, with the Vienna Philharmonic/Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954), conductor. Boskovsky began conducting in the early 1950s, and from 1955 to 1979, conducted the January 1 New Years' Concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic in their hall, the Musikverein, performed to a sold out audience every year. Boskovsky conducted the New Years' Concerts more than any other single conductor so far.

Disc 1 contains the complete January 1, 1974 New Years' Concert. The sound is MONO and rather low level, but is acceptable - you'll have to crank up the volume on your amplifier if you have a stereo system hooked up to your TV/DVD, and the picture quality (4:3, color) very good.

Disc 2 is all excerpts from a variety of New Years' Concerts, 1963-1979. Complete selections are provided, but these are not in chronological order: in other words, the first chapter is from 1971, then an earlier date, then a later one, and so on...In every case these are most enjoyable, and the sound level is higher than in the 1974 concert. Mono sound, but very good. Some tracks are color, others black and white, but the picture quality is very clear in all cases. There is humor galore in "Feuerfest" and "Hunting", two of my favorite selections on this disc. In both cases, a percussionist does some comic acting as he performs his part with the Vienna Philharmonic. There is a bandit (comic actor) in the "Bandits' Galop", and a squealing pig carried under the arm of a soldier (in 19th century style uniform) in the March from "The Gypsy Baron" which opens Disc 2. This is evidence to what I've heard: the Viennese have a great sense of humor!

No matter what other New Years' Concerts you have: Karajan (1987), Carlos Kleiber (1989, 1992); Ozawa (2002), Harnoncourt (2003), Muti (2004), or Maazel (2005), you should have this, too. The sound is very good (and I have modest equipment) and don't let the MONO sound indication discourage you."