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Published: Monday, 30 December 2024 at 09:30 AM
Best classical music for New Year’s Eve – 7 wonderful works to celebrate the New Year in style
As we nurse our heads and stomachs after several days of overindulgence, we all need a little help rallying for the next big event – welcoming in the new year. Whether it’s a tune for New Year’s Eve, or merely one that suits the melancholic first few days of the new year, the BBC Music Magazine team have got you covered.
Here, we choose the pieces we feel best suit New Year’s Eve and the first few days of a brand new year….
Best New Year’s Eve music
Symphony No. 9, ‘Choral’ (Beethoven)
Want to start the New Year with a bang? You certainly can’t go wrong with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Composed between 1822 and 1824, the composer’s final symphony is one of the major landmarks in the history of classical music, and was runner up in our list of the greatest symphonies of all time.
Among the work’s many strokes of genius is the placing of the Adagio slow movement third in the sequence of movements, rather than the usual second place. This later placing gives this movement more of the climactic profundity it deserves, and later composers including Mahler would learn from Beethoven’s traiilblazing decision.
If the first three movements already mark the Ninth down as a work of greatness, the final movement, featuring the exultant, utopian Ode to Joy by the contemporary poet Friedrich Schiller, elevates it to one of music’s supreme achievements.
Recommended Recording:
Otto Klemperer A Nordmo-Løvberg, C Ludwig, W Kmentt, H Hotter; Philharmonia (1957) Testament SBT 1177
‘In dir ist Freude’, BWV 615 from Orgelbüchlein (JS Bach)
There’s no more joyous start to the new year than ‘In dir ist Freude’ (In Thee is gladness) from JS Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, a collection of chorale preludes marking various points in the liturgical year.
This ingenious two-and-a-half-minute gem sees the cantus firmus chorale theme shoot back and forth between the hands, over the top of a recurring bass motif. It’s utterly thrilling.
Recommended recording:
Stephen Farr (organ) Resonus Classics RES10259
Winterreise (Schubert)
Once you’ve got over the hangover of 1 January, the New Year means going back to work in the dark, filthy weather and a dwindling post-Christmas bank account as the next pay day takes forever to arrive.
The grey misery of Schubert’s Winterreise matches this vile time of year to perfection.
Recommended recording:
Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Daniel Harding Sony Classical 88725422952
More classical music for New Year’s Eve…
Dream (John Cage)
John Cage’s Dream is a meditative meander of a piece, written for the dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham. A quiet solo piano line wanders from place to place, while the pedal is used to create a gently shimmering halo of resonance.
The effect is otherworldly, hypnotic. It’s the ideal music if, as the old year turns to the new, you want a moment or two to reflect on the past and imagine the future.
Recommended recording:
Alexei Lubimov (piano) ECM 4764933
Radetzky March, Op. 228 (Strauss)
Catching the Vienna Musikverein concert on TV is a great way to start the new year. Johann Strauss’s Radetzky March (1848), one of the most famous regular fixtures, always has a festive touch, with the encore’s snare drum introduction beginning before the conductor has returned to the podium.
It is traditional for the maestro to direct the audience’s clapping and Daniel Barenboim did this (in 2014) while shaking hands with each member of the Vienna Philharmonic.
Recommended recording:
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Nikolaus Harnoncourt Teldec 8573-83563-2
Piano Concerto in G major, I. Allegramente (Ravel)
Any piece that starts with a whip-crack is sure to get any party started. After a lively Spanish-inspired opening, the movement then transitions into a more reflective, melancholic piano solo, but it seems incapable of repressing the merriment, with blues-influenced flourishes continually interrupting.
Ravel admitted outright that he wasn’t trying to do anything profound or complex with this piece, and it is exactly this sentiment we look for on a night like New Year’s Eve. Simple, unbridled fun.
Recommended recording:
Martha Argerich (piano), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Claudio Abbado DG Originals 447 438-2 ADD (1967/75)
Suite Bergamasque – ‘Clair de lune’ (Claude Debussy)
Yes, like Beethoven’s Für Elise, this third movement from Debussy’s four-movement Suite Bergamasque is played a lot… But don’t let that put you off. It’s a truly magical work, and one that can’t but help but induce a state of contemplative calm, as you come down from the celebratory high of New Year’s Eve and instead turn your attention to the brand-new year ahead.
Recommended Recording: Debussy: Suite bergamasque, Decca 4177922