![]() ![]() ![]() When it is given a nod, it is all too often based on the grotesquely mistaken notion that it can simply be sight-read. Nowadays a typical concert program is built with the "big piece" at the end there must always be a soloist in a concerto or similar showcase the only ballet music deemed worthy of subscription concerts is Ravel’s or Stravinsky’s, and, since the nature of the pop concert has changed utterly since the glory days of Arthur Fiedler, the entire genre of "light music" has all but disappeared. It was not unusual for the greatest conductors to begin a concert with a Beethoven, Brahms or Bruckner symphony, and in the second half give the audience some elegant bonbons by Chabrier, descriptive suites by Massenet, ballet music by Delibes or Glazunov, overtures to Offenbach operettes - or the magnificent waltz poems of Johann Strauss. Until the second half of the last century, in fact, "light music" of all sorts was part of that repertory. ![]() It goes without saying that the Vienna Philharmonic has a unique authority in, and abiding affection for, this music, which until about 50 years ago had a firm place in the general orchestral repertory. By now the entire world is familiar with the Vienna Philharmonic New Year concerts, which are televised live and are made up mostly of waltzes, overtures, polkas and marches by the Strauss family: Johann II (the Waltz King, 1825-1899), his brothers Josef and Eduard, and their father Johann I. ![]()
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