New-Year's Concert 2003 - Bonn

When the Birds Sing for Joy

The theme of the evening was "The most beautiful waltzes and polkas". Helge Dorsch and his orchestra presented a rousing program dedicated entirely to the Strauss Dynasty. The entrance-march from the "Gipsy Baron", briskly conducted, was followed by a lively quick-polka. Wonderfully light and bouncing was the graceful interplay between flute and bassoon, while xylophone and double bass created the musical joke "Perpetuum mobile". In the "Jockey-Polka" we heard the trumpet whinny like a horse, and the birds sing their songs in the polka "Im Krapfenwaldl". Naturally, the evening could not be complete without the great waltzes "Wiener Blut" etc. which were conducted by Hlege Dorsch very vivaciously and without superfluous "schmalz".

The program was concluded by the autobiographical waltz "Künstlerleben" and as an encore, the "Radetzky-March" which swept the audience away.