Talk:Vienna New Year's Concert

Members of the WP:EAR team have commented on this article and/or the pattern of editing of its contributors. Please see: Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#Vienna New Year's Concert and the Anschluss and consider following any advice that has been offered. --Kudpung (talk) 14:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For the record: that discussion has now been archived to Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 95#Vienna New Year's Concert and the Anschluss. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just posted at Editor Assistance Requests and am following the thread back here. I think an event which apparently began in the Nazi era and was first conducted by a Hitler friend deserves a sentence placing it in context. A sentence or two in this article would not offend

WP:WEIGHT and is relevant and encyclopedic. The only reason I can see to delete it is it is inconvenient and disturbing--but protecting the event by deleting mention of its origins or implications IMHO violates NPOV. I am in favor of restoring the mention, maybe in a slightly shorter form. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:43, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply

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I've responded to your comments on EAR. I am against restoring the material unless some real connection between the Third Reich and the concert can be established. Simply reporting on the timing and the conductor's sympathies creates unsupported implications.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest we carry on here rather than EAR and see what we can work out. A quick glance at the Vienna Philharmonic's own web site found this:

At first glance the inception of what is probably the most popular concert in the world seems paradoxical considering the dark phase of the orchestra's history in which it was established. It was, however, at this most precarious time in regard to the orchestra's future autonomy that the members dared to set a precedent with political as well as musical significance. In performing a concert consisting entirely of works of the Strauss dynasty, the orchestra subtly underscored Austrian nationality at a time when the country had disappeared from the world map through its annexation by Nazi Germany.

The page also mentions that Kraus, as a Nazi sympathizer, was apparently banned by the allies from conducting for two years after the war. This is mentioned in passing so I will further verify and source that. However, if even the orchestra itself states that there is an important historical context to the origins of the concert, I think we should find some mutually agreed form of words to mention it here. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At least, the quote from the Vienna Philharmonic website establishes a connection. However, bear in mind that it is an Austrian orchestra with some understandable bias. (I keep remembering some of the scenes from Sound of Music.) A more objective third-party source would be better.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:26, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just spent some more time with this. I had misapprehended Jawohl's original edit. I had thought Kleiber et al resigned from the Vienna Philharmonic, not the Berlin State Orchestra. You are therefore correct that the reference was an attempt to import Kraus' experiences in Berlin prior to 1939 and not relevant to this article. I think you were correct in reverting jawohl's edit.

What we are left with: 1. Kraus, as his own article attests, was both friendly to the Nazi party and thought to have helped Jews escape from Germany. He was banned by the Allies for two years after the war, then permitted to work again. 2. The concerts started after the Anschluss and specialized in the music of Johann Strauss, a Nazi favorite. 3. The Vienna Philharmonic website rather dubiously claims that the choice to focus the concerts on an Austrian composer was somehow an act of protest, even though Strauss was a Nazi favorite.

Under these circumstances, it occurs to me that anything I try to formulate on this would be

See http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/vienna2002/multimedia/7.html
Is it every year, or only sometimes? --Jerome Potts (talk) 00:33, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Any views from other editors are welcome.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The changes by Tullio65 didn't feel right, but I didn't have the time to research them fully; there were one or two items which contradicted other Wikipedia articles, and one, I think, about Boskovksky which agreed with the German Wikipedia. On balance, reverting them seems safer than having dubious unsourced statements by an uncommunicative editor remain. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The topic of whether or not the New Year's Concert should be seen as unconnected with the Viennese post-Anschluss situation really HAS to be revisited in the light of the Orchestra's own publications from its own archives early in 2013, indicating among other things, that no fewer than five respected Jewish members of the orchestra, dismissed with many others within weeks of the Anschluss, later perished in the Holocaust, one at least after the refusal of the Nazi head in Austria, von Schirach, (who received awards from the Orchestra) to intervene, and also that the orchestra's finances suffered badly in the autumn of 1939 from - among other things - the loss of support from the substantial Viennese Jewish community. A Guardian article (available on Google) by Tom Service suggests that the first New Year's Concert was in fact a conscious propaganda event. The Third Reich's anti-Semitic legislation, which applied in Vienna from the Anschluss onwards, banned Jews from attending the Orchestra's concerts - including the New Year one. Krauss's own record in stepping into jobs vacated after 1933 by Nazi targets or opponents of Nazism is pretty impressive in all conscience, however self-centred his motives may have been. It may be inconvenient, but music happens in the real world. (And the eighteenth century French Encyclopedists had no problem with that, or with taking account of evidence.)Delahays (talk) 12:54, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article Vienna Philharmonic has been greatly expanded in recent months to take account of the period under National Socialism, and I think your concerns have been addressed there. If there's reliable evidence that the New Year's Concert was intended as a deliberate propaganda event, there is no reason to assume that today's editors would be any less committed to present it than Diderot or any of the other encyclopédistes would be. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:20, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Then I suggest you read the Wikipedia article you refer to, which indicates inter alia that the New Year's Concert was the result of a suggestion by Krauss which was enthusiastically received by Goebbels, who saw its propaganda value. I do notsee how that can be ignored in any honest article on the concerts themselves. Delahays (talk) 13:29, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

a) The sources for those passages have disappeared; new ones need to be found. b) You, like everybody else, is welcome to improved this article. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:01, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Try the articles by Dr Rothkaub and others on the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras own website - incidentally commissioned by the orchestra and published in March this year. Interesting that Wikipedia sources 'disappear', not least in the choice of word. No one is suggesting that the 2014 New Year's Concerts will be in any way a celebration of Nazism. But even Dr Rothkaub begins by accepting that the origin of the concerts cannot be separated from the Nazi era in Austria, and that the emphasis placed on them by the Propagandaministerium was as celebrations of German not Austrian culture. As is well known, part of that included suppression of any suggestion that the Strauss family may have had Jewish ancestry.Delahays (talk) 14:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Further to the above. Rothkaub et al seem to indicate that issues around the first Silvesterabend concert may be twofold, though both would have brought it within the purview of the Propagandaministerium. The first would seem to be the proposal to have it at all - even as a local Viennese event. That would have been subject to local oversight at least - programme items, possibility of public demonstrations, and so forth. But the significant issue was the proposal for it to be broadcast nationally - i.e. throughout the Reich. That would have meant some sort of contact between Krauss and Goebbels - it's inconceivable that the decision to broadcast nationally would have been taken without Goebbels's knowledge and at least tacit approval. Inescapably, whether Krauss intended it or not, and he probably knew exactly what he was doing, that would have brought the event into the area of propaganda. Essentially, we know the event through its media profile, conferred and maintained for its first six years by Goebbels, and the Nazi propaganda organisation he created. That's as close as I can get to a politically neutral account of its birth. In my view, no honest article on this event can ignore its origin, whatever else might disappear.Delahays (talk) 15:13, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Both of the sources which no longer can be found at their former addresses, in short "disappeared", were on the Vienna Philharmonic web site; are you blaming them or Wikipedia?

You are still welcome to improve this article, but if the paragraph above is the best you can do as a summary of reliable sources, I'm afraid its use of "may be", "would be", "seem", "inconceivable", "probably", doesn't bode well. And who is "Dr Rothkaub"? Or do you mean Oliver Rathkolb? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And a good New Year to you too. If you cannot distinguish between 'talk' and evidence-based writing, I can try to enlighten you, but it may be a thankless task. I don't think Wikipedia categories were designed to be weapons of controversy, though. As for the VPO website, it doesn't seem just now to want to co-operate with either of us, since the material now available has been blandly and evasively written by a Dr Clemens Hellsberg (apologies if I've got his name wrong but I'm working on an only occasionally co-operative laptop). Perhaps I might eventually find what I consulted (after you informed me the evidence had disappeared, incidentally), but I admit I can't now. If the orchestra has taken it down, and I hope it hasn't, it has acted with monumental stupidity.

I still think the critical issue is the decision to broadcast the first and subsequent concerts to the Reich as a whole. You will agree that there would have been a decision to do so. The question must be, therefore, whether that brought the event within the ambit of propaganda. Now it may be that either you or I might be able to find a document in which Goebbels or one of his staff denies this. If we did, would either of us be able to accept it as reliable evidence on the point? An at least equally thorny problem would be how to place the enormously popular wartime 'Wunschkonzerten'. I would suggest that they were seen to contribute to a sense of national agreement (probably 'unity' is too loaded a word), and broadcast because they did. Even dictatorships are in the grip of national sentiment. The best they can do is steer it their way. But only months after the outbreak of war and so soon after the Anschluss (I am going to confess an edit here - I have 'disappeared' a mistake) a Viennese concert broadcast nationally was a gift. The fact that it was popular doesn't alter that. I am old enough to remember broadcasts of the concert - not to mention record sleeve notes - in which it was presented as originating in an entirely Viennese occasion designed by Krauss to cheer up the citizens of Austria in dark times. Fine, but if it was, it didn't demand a relay to Schleswig-Holstein, and the Generalgouvernement, which is what it got.Delahays (talk) 20:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional note about disapearances. The orchestra hasn't taken it down, so we had better check that we are talking about the same material. the section I consulted is www.wienerphilhamoniker.at/orchestra/history/national-sozialism. If this isn't what you were referring to, could you point me towards where it may have been? If it is, perhaps we should sleep on it before considering whther it is evidence or not.Delahays (talk) 21:57, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On third thoughts I may have misunderstood you and for that matter Hellsberg too. Could it be that the section you think has disappeared was Hellsberg's? He does make the point that the proceeds of the first concert on 31 Dec 1939 were donated by the Orchestra to the Winter Relief fund. If that wasn't an act of propaganda it was a very near miss. The second concert, on the other hand, he says was 'misappropriated' by the Grossdeutsche Rundfunk - i.e. as a source of propaganda. It could be that what divides us is the word 'misappropriated'. I would suggest he offers no evidence to support his use of the word. But he does stress the importance of radio broadcasting, which the current text of the article itself associates with TV onlyDelahays (talk) 22:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand most of the above. As for disappearing citations: I'm referring to references number 24 & 91 in this version of Vienna Philharmonic:

• 24: "New Year´s Concert: History | Vienna Philharmonic". Wienerphilharmoniker.at. Retrieved 2013-04-29.
• 91: Oliver Rathkolb, "Vom Johann-Strauß-Konzert 1939 zum Neujahrskonzert 1946"

I'm confident they can be found elsewhere on the VPO's site. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:58, 3 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You are certainly correct about the links you offer - neither of them works. if you are better at navigating the VPO site that I am, perhaps you could update matters if you find then again before I do. Meenawhile I think this has to lie on the table.Delahays (talk) 15:10, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I might have found the section in question by interrogating ww.wienerphilharmoniker, and getting a response (in English) at winerphilharmoniker,gr - not where I would have expected. It contains a section by Fritz Trümpi which appears to cover the issue of the VPO's wartime relations with Nazism. I haven't had time to read it yet, but is it the section you had in mind? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Delahays (talk • contribs) 14:51, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A pity the translation provided by the VPO has to be rendered into meaningful English before one can decide what Trumpi means. You will have the advantage of me there.Delahays (talk) 19:46, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can get with it, Trumpi's contribution, which can be downloaded in pdf format covers what might loosely be called the integration of the VPO and other Austrian cultural organisations into the structure of the cultural policy of the state Austria had entered as a consequence of the Anschluss - confirmed as you will recall by a resounding plebiscitary endorsement. By December 1939 it was already an Independent Organistaion based on National socialist principles (i.e. the Aryan anf Fuhrer principles and under the direct supervision of the ministry for Propaganda in personnel matters. Not much is actually spelt out about the Strauss concerts themselves, but it would seem that Trumpi has evidence that it was Krauss who informed the orchestra that they were to take place. I was surprised at the formality of the process Trumpi describes.

I think the article on the concerts should make it clear that their origin was not spontaneous and personal or any simple conscious attempt to recreate a mythical OLd Vienna, but was seen from the start as part of a positioning of Vienna, and the orchestra in the culture of Greater Germany as part of Goebbels's scheme for the cultural image of the new state. After all, that is what was going on in 1939 and 1940. The history is as much part of their identity as what they have now become, because from the first they were seen as a media event of national importance, and they are stillknown as a media event. To ignore the precise nature of their origin is simply dishonest. It shouldn't overshadow the rest of the article, but it should not be suppressed.Delahays (talk) 23:50, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The broadcast often contains performances clearly not taking place within the Großer Saal of the Musikverein, e.g. chamber music or ballet. For the 2020 broadcast there were a couple of pieces to start off from within the hall, then a long pre-recorded sequence filmed evidently during the summer at various outdoor locations, then we went back to the hall. During these, what is going on in the hall? Performances to the live audience that are not included in the broadcast, or some kind of interval? Beorhtwulf (talk) 13:10, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I guess just the usual moshing and breakdancing. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:14, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was picturing something quite sedate involving coffee and pastries, but a Wiener Philharmoniker mosh pit is a compelling image. On a serious note, if it was an interval, it seems pretty early in the performance. I suppose the audience in the hall could also be shown the outdoor or ballet parts on a projector screen or something, but it would be good to have a sourced explanation of how the programme actually works. This concert is clearly an elaborate composite TV production rather than straightfoward live relay of what's happening in a concert hall. Beorhtwulf (talk) 13:23, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please forgive my imagination. I agree, and I thought the same thing last year when we had the ballet episodes. I think I assumed then that the music was still live, but that the dancing was pre-recorded. Of course, the dancing might also have been live? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:30, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I had the impression from this year's that the indoor ballet episodes at least are visual accompaniment to music being heard live from the hall. At the end of this bit the orchestra was applauded in the hall as if it had just been playing. But the earlier non-hall visuals had chamber orchestras playing in other rooms, and musicians playing outside on warmer days, so was a bit different. Whether or not the ballet is performed live is another question then. At least part of it wasn't: again some outdoor dancing that looked to have been filmed in the autumn, but again seemingly accompanied by live music from the hall. Quite a mixture. Beorhtwulf (talk) 13:48, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. And some very welcome de-Nazification, this year? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In Vienna New Year's Concert § Commercial recordings, I have no idea what this is trying to say, apart from they released their first digital recording.

Decca Records made the first of the live commercial recordings, with the 1 January 1979 digital recording (their first digital LP releases) of the 25th time (and 24 years = 1979–1955) of the New Year's Concert with Willi Boskovsky conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

Can someone have a look at this and fix it? Also probably needs a citation. KaraLG84 (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]