It's probably a safe guess that many of you watch the Times Square crystal ball drop on TV on New Year's Eve, along with millions of other folks. For PBS-inclined types, the rough equivalent is this TV program, which doesn't take place live, though. Although self has used this subject several times in past SNLC's, I'm in the mood (i.e. lazy enough) to draw from this well again, for reasons to be explained in the tip jar. More below das Flippe......
For the US telecast, PBS doesn't air the entire concert, which they've never done in the 31 times they've produced this event. To hear the whole event, you would have to listen on your local NPR station, usually at the equivalent of 11 AM or so Eastern time. Or:
(1) If you want to brush up your German, you can also go to the Austrian Radio page on the concert here and try to click to listen here.
(2) There's also access via the BBC Radio 3 website here.
(3) Or there's rather underhanded access for Part I and Part II.
In the PBS telecast, hosted by Julie Andrews, it turned out that most of the musical selections came from the 2nd half of the concert, although "half" is a bit of a misnomer, since the second part is invariably much longer than the 1st part. It's also interspersed with JA as guide in some touristy videos of sights and sounds of Vienna and environs, so that the broadcast is partly a tourist advertisement for Vienna and Austria. But I actually don't mind that, because Vienna is a terrific city to visit, with marvelous sights, great public transportation, terrific food, and some decent music to boot. Besides, there are a lot worse things to promote in the world.
Some pet peeves about the telecast is the perpetual pet peeve of the announcer plugging the CD set and video of the concert at the end, as the "Radetzky March" of Johann Strauss I (dad of the Waltz King). People have written about it in past comments sections on the concert (self included), but PBS obviously isn't listening. What was more of a jolt, at least to 3CM, was that the producer started two short pieces before JA had finished her material. This is totally a flub on the producer, not JA, since the editing takes place in the short period after the actual concert in Vienna, in order to get the material to the USA electronically in time.
The one musical mistiming that I noted was that conductor Zubin Mehta, in the "Explosions" polka, hit his cue at the end of the work too early, since, there's supposed to be a quiet final bar before the work's title makes a final gesture. Otherwise, regarding a long-standing issue with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the "house band" for this concert, 6 women musicians were on stage, one each in the 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, and cello sections, one of the flute players (doubling on piccolo), and the harpist.
Overall, this is one of those annual rituals, at least for some, that mark the start of the New Year. It's not a bad way to start the year. With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week......