Wiener Philharmoniker

With its televised New Year’s concerts broadcast to ninety countries around the world, the Vienna Philharmonic has assured itself a place as one of the most recognisable orchestras in the history of classical music. While its name may be linked above all to the festive rhythms of the ever popular waltzes of the Strauss family, the orchestra’s main mission, ever since 1842, has been to ensure the finest possible interpretations of the greatest works in the classical repertoire. It achieves this above all through a rigorous yet democratic method of selecting new members of the orchestra, which is exclusively comprised of musicians employed at the Vienna State Opera. Over the past two decades, Franz Welser-Möst has become one of the orchestra's closest collaborators, the Honorary Membership of the Vienna Philharmonic has been bestowed upon him in 2024. As Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra he is also best known to the general public as the reformer of concert life in Cleveland, Ohio, where his innovative approach has significantly rejuvenated the audience of the Cleveland Orchestra.
One of the ways in which Welser-Möst has popularised canonical works is through thoughtfully devised concert programmes: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s »Prague Symphony« is one of the jewels of the Classical period, while the Pathétique is a symbol of the high Russian musical Romanticism of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The programme thus presents a rarely seen contrast between two popular symphonic works: while Mozart’s creation brims with joy and hope for the future, Tchaikovsky’s could almost be described as the composer’s farewell to life.