Concert Favourites

Katie Derham introduces the 2017 open-air concert from the magnificent gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, given by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Fairy tale and myth influence all of the evening's music, with highlights from classical favourites such as Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, John Williams's Hedwig's Theme from the Harry Potter films and the Prologue to Humperdink's opera Hansel and Gretel. They are joined by American soprano Renee Fleming performing some of her favourite songs and arias, including Russalka's Song to the Moon.

Jack Johnson's live album recorded "En Concert" on his 2008 world tour. Johnson released a companion live concert film of the same name, En Concert the album isn't exactly the soundtrack to that film. It's a compilation of some of the special moments on the tour, including a version of Constellations with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder from the Bonnaroo Festival.

Petroc Trelawny hosts live from Vienna for this hugely popular concert of polkas, marches and waltzes composed by the Strauss family and their contemporaries. The Vienna Philharmonic are under the baton of Riccardo Muti, whose close ties with the orchestra extend over several decades, and who is conducting this glittering event for the fifth time. To mark 100 years since the death of the great Austrian architect Otto Wagner, soloists from the Vienna State Ballet perform at two of his most celebrated buildings, the Eckartsau Castle and the Court Pavillion at Hietzing Station.

It has been a long time, and probably stretching all the way back to the now-distant, legendary concerts led by Carlos Kleiber in 1989 and 1992, since we have enjoyed a New Year's Concert of such quality. With the Latvian Andris Nelsons (known and liked by the Philharmoniker) conducting, this first concert of 2020 had a fluent elegance, a rhythmical verve which was both light and implacable, and a kind of song that allowed the Viennese strings to show off their incredibly silky texture and profound depth.

The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra (in Swedish: Norrköpings Symfonieorchester) is one of the leaders among Sweden's crop of regional orchestras. It has spawned the careers of several conductors who went on to international renown. Located in the old industrial city of Norrköping in southwestern Sweden, the orchestra was founded in 1912 and offered well-advertised concerts from the start. As of 2018, with 86 musicians, the orchestra plays a major role in the city's musical life with its 50 indoor concerts a year at the Louis de Geer Concert Hall in Norrköping, plus a schedule of summer concerts outdoors (including one performance on a barge). They collaborate regularly with musicians in the jazz, folk, and rock fields, and their tours take them not only to nearby Linköping and to Stockholm, but to Austria, Eastern Europe, Japan, and China. The Norrköping Symphony's roster of former music directors includes Herbert Blomstedt (1954-1962, later conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra), Finland's Okko Kamu (1972-1979, later conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and other groups), and future Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst (1986-1991). Michael Francis' tenure concluded in 2016, and in the late 2010s the orchestra invited top international figures as guest conductors. Christian Lindberg, a frequent conductor during this period, has led the orchestra in the latest installments of an ongoing cycle of the symphonies of Swedish composer Allan Pettersson; the cycle began in 1992 and has appeared on the BIS label. The orchestra's large catalog of other recordings, mostly on BIS, has focused on Swedish music but has also encompassed works by Beethoven, Max Reger, and (on the CPO label in 2017) the Austrian composer Siegmund von Hausegger. Another innovative Norrköping Symphony Orchestra project during this period was Chelsea Hotel, featuring orchestral arrangements of compositions by the folk and folk-rock songwriters who stayed in New York's Chelsea Hotel in the '60s including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen.

Death or Glory is the fifth studio album by German heavy metal band Running Wild, released 8 November 1989 through Noise Records. It is their last album with both guitarist Majk Moti and drummer Ian Finlay. Being one of their most successful releases, it contains the concert favourites "Riding the Storm" and "Bad to the Bone". If the album weren't great enough alone, the new remastered version also contains the entire Wild Animal [EP] (1990) as bonus tracks.