The Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert traditionally includes Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube” (An der schönen blauen Donau). Although the concert is performed on January 1, the waltz is strongly associated with the New Year season and is broadcast worldwide from Vienna’s Musikverein.
The piece premiered in 1867 and became one of Strauss’s best-known Viennese waltzes. During the concert, audience applause traditionally interrupts the performance after the opening bars, and the orchestra offers a spoken New Year greeting before continuing. The program also ends with Strauss’s “Radetzky March,” which is another famous audience-participation moment.
A common confusion is naming the Radetzky March as the New Year’s Concert’s signature waltz. It is the encore, while “The Blue Danube” is the recurring waltz associated with the broadcast.