Popular New Year Event in Europe: the Vienna New Year's Concert

Hello everyone, this is Seven from Beijing New Oriental School. I know maybe some of you guys are going to watch the Spring Festival Gala, which is 春晚 in Chinese. It is certainly a popular show in China. But do you know some popular New Year events in Europe? Well, I am here today to introduce one of the most popular event in Europe, the Vienna New Year’s Concert.也就是维也纳新年音乐会. The music you are listening to right now is the Blue Danube Waltz 蓝色多瑙河， It is played every year in the Vienna New Year’s concert. The New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic is a concert of classical music that takes place each year since 1939 in the morning of New Year's Day in Vienna, Austria. And Austria is the hometown of many excellent musicians including Mozart. This concert is broadcast live around the world to an estimated audience of 50 million in 90 countries. The concert is held in Wiener Musikverein, which is a beautifal gloden concert hall in Vienna. My mother and I have always dreamed of visiting there once and listening to the New year’s concert. But the tickets are actually difficult to get. This concert is very popular throughout Europe, and more recently around the world. The demand for tickets is so high that people have to pre-register one year in advance in order to participate in the drawing of tickets for the following year. Can you imagine that? Some seats are pre-registered by certain Austrian families and are passed down from generation to generation. The music that are performed always includes pieces from the Strauss family. The Strauss family produced so many extraordinary pieces of music that although each year, different pieces of their music will be performed, there are still pieces that have not been played even once. Today, the Blue Danube and the Radetzky March are to two encores that must be played at the end of this concert. Encore is a short performance given after the main performance, because the audience asks for more. 也就是说，蓝色多瑙河和拉德斯基进行曲是新年音乐会两首必备的加演曲目。 Since 1958， these last two pieces were often given as encores and Their position as twin encores has been inviolable tradition. However, there was an exception in 2005 Lorin Maazel concluded the concert with the Blue Danube, omitting the Radetzky March as a mark of respect to the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. I will leave it here and let you guys enjoy the rest of the Blue Danube Waltz. Thank you for listening and I wish you a prosperous new year.