Oslo Philharmonic's New Year's Concert
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider
Behzod Abduraimov Zoltán Kodály
Franz Liszt
Johann Strauss II

The season's New Year's concert takes you from the Hungarian plains to the ballrooms of Vienna. Zoltán Kodály's Dances of Galánta shows how childhood memories can be transformed into artistic greatness, while Franz Liszt's first piano concerto stands as a monument to the virtuosity of the Romantic era and the modern concerto form. The Viennese waltz took shape in the hands of Johann Strauss the Elder, but it was his son, Johann Strauss the Younger, who turned it into an international phenomenon. With waltzes and other dance music such as the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, he gave Vienna a musical legacy that is still very much alive today.

Zoltán Kodály (1882−1967) composed the orchestral work Dances of Galánta in 1933 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic. At the time, he was a leading figure in Hungarian musical life as a composer, musicologist, and educator. In the work, the composer reminisces about his childhood in the small town of Galánta, which today lies in Slovakia.

Franz Liszt (1811−1886) was a legendary concert pianist who could conjure the most extraordinary improvisations at the keyboard. Even so, it took him nearly 25 years to complete his Piano Concerto No. 1. He played the piano himself at the premiere in 1855.

The Viennese waltz took shape in the hands of Johann Strauss the Elder, but it was his son Johann Strauss II (1825–1899) who turned it into an international phenomenon. With waltzes and other dance music such as the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka (1858), he gave Vienna a musical legacy that remains very much alive.