After this sensational, rousing concert, the most popular event of the year
for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the entire Austrian media were
unanimous: this was a one-of-a-kind sensation. Broadcast in 25 countries
and reaching a potential viewership of a billion viewers and listeners, the
concert carried the spirit of Vienna and its most popular son, Johann
Strauss Jr., across the entire world. While the waltzes of Johann and
Joseph Strauss (as well as an overture by Otto Nicolai) were certainly one
reason for the concert's enormous success, it could not have reached this
level of peerlessness without Carlos Kleiber. Known rather as an
introspective musician, Kleiber proved in the 1989 New Year's Concert that
he was a master of the light and bubbly as well. All of the works - from
the Pizzicato Polka and the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka to the Blue Danube waltz
and the Radetzky March - were played with such brilliance, virtuosity and
overflowing good spirits that one Vienna daily titled the event "a miracle
in 3/4 time."
