The song that traditionally follows “The Blue Danube” at the end of the Vienna New Year's Concert is the Radetzky March.
Johann Strauss I composed the Radetzky March in 1848 and named it after Austrian field marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. At the Vienna New Year's Concert, it is traditionally played after “The Blue Danube” as the final encore.
The audience commonly claps along with the march's repeated rhythmic figures. Conductors may shape the tempo and invite different levels of participation, but the work's position as the traditional closing piece is a defining feature of the concert ritual.
The march's historical association is separate from the concert's broader repertoire, which often includes waltzes and polkas by Johann Strauss II and other members of the Strauss family.