Beyond great playing and great conducting, there are two things the
Wiener Philharmoniker's annual New Year's Concerts need to succeed: tradition and variation, the tradition of programming only works by the Strauss family, plus a handful of other acceptable 19th century Viennese dance composers and the variation of programming familiar as well as unfamiliar works in new and interesting configurations. The 2008 New Year's Concert commemorated in this two-disc set certainly fulfills those two requirements. Along with Strauss favorites like the Tritsch-Trasch Polka, the Radetzky Marsch, and An der schönen, blauen Donau are six works that have never before been programmed for a New Year's Concert, among them the Napoleon Marsch, the Versailles Galop, and a lively little dance simply called the Pariserin.