Since 1941 the first great event in the classical calendar has been the New Year's Strauss concert by the Vienna Philharmonic. The first of January, 2000 marked the end of "Strauss year", 1999 being the centenary of the death of "Waltz King" Johann Strauss and the 150th anniversary of the passing of his father, Johann Strauss. The previous May the Vienna Philharmonic gave an outdoor Johann Strauss Gala, though only The Blue Danube waltz and Radetzky March overlap with this New Year's Concert. Here the orchestra give an infectiously warm and confident performance, from the opening Lagunen waltz to the utterly exuberant Eljen a Magjar! polka. Mixing well-loved gems with such rarities as the Albion and Hellenen polkas, this music-making is a real delight, the lavishly garlanded hall as ravishing to the eye as the music to the ear. In homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Blue Danube is wittily shot as a series of graceful aerial pans across the outside of the Musikverein concert hall and over Vienna itself. Riccardo Muti, conducting his third Vienna New Year's concert thoroughly enjoys himself, and it is clear everyone else does too.

On the DVD: Presented at approximately 1.7-1, the non-anamorphic picture is very good in the close-ups, but looses far too much detail in long shots. In compensation, the Dolby Digital 5.1 live sound is excellent, creating a convincing sound-stage and capturing the excitement of the performance. There are five sets of brief notes, but more impressively, two pieces, Johann Strauss' Csardas aus "Ritter Pasman" and Josef Strauss' Marien-Klange waltz can be viewed with individual ballets specially filmed in the salons of the Musikverein, performed by the Ballett der Wiener Staatsoper. The disc is not region-encoded, and will work on any PAL compatible DVD player. --Gary S. Dalkin

The 2001 Vienna New Year's Day Concert was always bound to strike sparks. Having built his reputation in Baroque and early music, Nikolaus Harnoncourt has recently brought his re-creative insights to the standard Classical repertoire. How typical then that he should open proceedings with the original version of the Radetzky March--urbane compared to the familiar version, whose hearty militarism closes the concert in style. In between there's an enterprising selection of Strauss waltzes and polkas from Johanns I and II, the subtle and underrated Josef, and three numbers by Josef Lanner, whose restrained lilt provides the link between Schubert and the Strauss Family. Harnoncourt brings out the rhythmic vigour of this music, the astringent sound of woodwind and brass often heard over the strings, though there's no doubting the expressive sweep of the inevitable Blue Danube waltz.

On the DVD: Directed for video by Brian Large, the atmosphere of the occasion comes over in full, aided by the tangibility of 16:9 picture format and 5.1 surround sound--though PCM Linear Stereo is also an option. Three ballet sequences, including a hilarious steam train race to Johann II's Excursion Train polka, are sensibly included as an appendix. Each of the 17 concert tracks is separately indexed, but still-frame histories of the event and of the Musikverein venue, edited from Clemens Hellsberg's booklet article, make for a poor special feature. Why no documentary film? However, this remains the best concert of its kind for almost a decade, and can safely be invested in as such. --Richard Whitehouse

The annual New Year's Day Concert is the traditional Strauss gala with the Vienna Philharmonic marking the turn of the calendar in the spectacularly beautiful Musikverein. For the first time in 2002 the concert was conducted by Seiji Ozawa and the light-hearted nature of the event finds this always engaging conductor at his most impishly playful. The works of Joseph and Johann Strauss more-or-less alternate, opening with Johann's Zivio! march and closing, 108 minutes later, with the traditional clap-along to the Radetzky-March. Among the polkas and waltzes, including a ravishing encore of the Blue Danube waltz, other highlights include the overture to Die Fledermaus, which gets the second half of the concert off to a rousing start.

Johann's little known Perpetuum mobile controversially brings politics to the occasion, being used to mark the introduction of the Euro. Perhaps this is why it is immediately followed by a Danse Diabolique by Joseph Hellmesberger jnr, the one none-Strauss work in the programme? However, sly satire is soon forgotten as the delightful Elisen-Polka sweeps devilish thoughts away with its delightful melody. A wonderful time is had by all and while watching on TV can never recreate the atmosphere of being there it is all still hugely enjoyable.

On the DVD: The New Year's Day Concert 2002 has possibly the first classical music DVD "director's cut", as prepared by the ever dependable veteran of classical music videos, Brian Large. What this means is that the four filmed inserts which were included in the broadcast version of the concert appear here as extras, the concert playing complete without ever leaving the hall. These and the concert itself are presented in an excellent 16:9 anamorphic picture. Sound defaults to good PCM stereo but there are options for a superior Dolby Digital 5.0 mix, and a wonderfully rich and atmospheric 5.0 DTS track. There are four trailers for further TDK music DVDs, a picture gallery of Seiji Ozawa, and a tourism promotional video for Vienna with noticeably poorer picture quality than everything else on the disc.--Gary S. Dalkin