Arriving from Philips in double-quick time this is one of the most infectiously enjoyable of ail the recordings of New Year Concerts from Vienna. The television relay of the second half on BBC2 brought it home how much Riccardo Muti—not the conductor whom one would have expected to have a taste for musical whipped cream enjoyed himself conducting the programme. It is one of the delights of this traditional event that it brings out the characters of conductors unpredictably like that The history of the concerts contained in the booklet with the CD adds more illumination. It was not until 1921 that the Vienna Philharmonic played a Strauss waltz at all—The Blue Danube conducted by Artur Nikisch at the unveiling of the Strauss memorial in Vienna—and though the centenary of Johann Strauss II in 1925 brought jubilee concerts, it was not until 1939 that a ''First Extraordinary Strauss Concert'' was given on the morning of New Year's Eve, and not until January 1st, 1941, that Clemens Krauss conducted the first New Year Concert as we know it. He was the regular conductor until his death in 1954, followed by the orchestra's sometime leader, Willi Boskovsky until 1979, and by Lorin Maazel from 1980 until 1986. Only with Karajan in 1987, who conducted one of the most moving of all the concerts, did the idea develop of ringing the changes.
The selection here begins with five rarities from this year's first half. There is no rival version listed of the Publicisten Waltz and only one each (non-Viennese) of the Diplomaten and Veilchen polkas. They may not be vintage Strauss, but Muti in sparkling performances brings out the charm, demonstrating that his control of rubato and the authentic Viennese lilt is natural, not at all self-conscious. With their Landler rhythms Lanner's Steyrische-Tanze make a refreshing change, with one of them evidently the piece on which Stravinsky based his barrel-organ waltz in Petrushka. With its toy-soldier theme a la Rossini the Sperl-Galopp of Johann Strauss the Elder makes an effective close to the first half, but as on television the overture to Johann Strauss II's first opera, Indigo, seems instantly to establish an even higher voltage in the second half.
The rest is outstanding. Special delights include Lanner's Hans-Jorgel Polka—one of the first ever written—the endearingly rough dervish-like singing of the players in the corny Egyptian March (written when the newly built Suez Canal was top news), the delicious rising portamento as the waltz proper starts in Transaktionen (about love not business) and Muti's exquisite control of rubato in the Pizzicato Polka. His timing is less good when at the end of Perpetuum mobile he has to say ''und so weiter …'' (and so on), but with the anticipatory applause for The Blue Danube he wishes everyone a Happy New Year with total confidence, establishing this as one of the most idiomatic-sounding of the concerts since Boskovsky. I am only sorry that items had to be omitted. The one I specially miss from the television relay is the waltz, Wo die Zitronen Bluh'n, if only because it brought a nice link between Vienna and Muti's Italy. Applause has been deftly edited to avoid delay, but the feel of the event is still vividly caught. The booklet includes not just the history of the concerts but portraits of the conductors involved.'