A Vienna New Year's Concert for the perplexed

The Johann Strauss skeptic should try a few conductors before any other that bring things to the music nobody else does. The usual recommendations are great in this music but let's face it, they're not going to convince anybody who doesn't like Strauss. Kleiber and Krauss bring brilliance and wit, but the surface brilliance is exactly what a lot of people can't stand. Strauss is not Brahms or Dvorak, you don't go to him expecting great depth, but there is a subterranean substance. It honestly helps to hear it hear it played by second-class orchestras like you get from Barbirolli and Maag, because you hear the folk music so much more clearly. There is no way Strauss expected to hear his music played with the brilliantine glitter of the modern Wiener Philharmoniker. To a certain extent, crudeness can do the music a favor. When you hear Harnoncourt do it, he forces the Wiener Philharmoniker to play with the character of a cafe tanzband, and that only gives the music more personality and depth than its chattering surface. As for Pretre, he is, as usual, not satisfied with the usual way of doing things, and the surfeit of rubato puts Strauss in touch with the real romanticism of Brahms and Dvorak. Consider this an alternative New Year's Concert for the perplexed.

Try... Harnoncourt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU6FDebq6IM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN7lCqElEH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcucHRmEzgk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1s66OWnHQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZTu_7TYysQ Pretre https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9QiyQbeemQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zaovrEv28c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ld5G8biygY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVbgsow43Q8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUB0GL2xpnU Barbirolli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni08z-GBops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_QpoCVKSFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5A-QQCSink and PETER MAAG!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqwRFpDkrPU&list=OLAK5uy_n8-Ep7HTzHgBBSUpikLmw9_616r5tmLNI&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa2CAumlLe4&list=OLAK5uy_n8-Ep7HTzHgBBSUpikLmw9_616r5tmLNI&index=11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa2CAumlLe4&list=OLAK5uy_n8-Ep7HTzHgBBSUpikLmw9_616r5tmLNI&index=11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGk2bzl3EUY&list=OLAK5uy_n8-Ep7HTzHgBBSUpikLmw9_616r5tmLNI&index=7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uDcs3qDpDY&list=OLAK5uy_n8-Ep7HTzHgBBSUpikLmw9_616r5tmLNI&index=8