Happy New Year
January 1, 2018
EVERY YEAR, the Vienna Philharmonic celebrates the New Year with a special concert featuring the waltzes of Johann Strauss II. Here is one of the standards, “The Blue Danube,” from last year. The extremely popular waltz was composed in 1866 and the words were later added by the Vienna Men’s Choral Association:
Danube so blue,
so bright and blue,
through vale and field
you flow so calm,
our Vienna greets you,
your silver stream
through all the lands
you merry the heart
with your beautiful shores.
Far from the Black Forest
you hurry to the sea
giving your blessing
to everything.
Eastward you flow,
welcoming your brothers,
A picture of peace
for all time!
Old castles looking
down from high,
greet you smiling
from their steep
and craggy hilltops,
and the mountains’ vistas
mirror in your dancing waves.
See my 2012 post on the Vienna Philharmonic, which was all-male longer than most orchestras.
Happy New Year!
