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Somehow, I do not feel the new year properly started until I have heard the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day Concert. I usually listen to it live, waking up at 4.00 in the morning in order to do so. But this year, the first day being Sunday, I didn’t.

So has the new year truly begun for me?

I sit here listening to the familiar strains of ‘An der schonen, blauen Donau’, one of the Vienna Philharmonic’s encores, and know without a doubt: the New Year has arrived.

I suppose a concert of waltzes, polkas and the like is not necessary for the commencement of a new year. But for me, a new year without it would be like a Christmas without the display of chocolate covered pretzels, hot yeasty cinnamon buns, spicy gingerbread, chocolate cakes and cookies and truffles. A holiday without its sweets? Such a thing is impossible.

And so it is with the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual concert. A concert of sweets, lollipops, sugar coated orange slices.

What else can a waltz be but a moment of pleasure, a square of tender cake perfectly layered with a light mocha filling and generously sprinkled with cocoa! Take the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’. It starts off quietly but swells into a cloud that dances up into the sky. By magic, you are on that cloud with it. You sway, a faint smile on your lips, perhaps even a tear in your half-closed eye. It lulls you into a dream, whispers that the new year can’t be that dreadful. After all, music is still a part of the world.

It thunders and pauses. Well, maybe bad things will happen, sad things, things you would rather not have happen. Like the pipes bursting or rain on a holiday or a failed quiz. But, the waltz laughs, music is still here! It still comforts; it still excites. It still enjoys life; it still makes the sad and bad not so sad and bad.

New Year's Day Concert, Vienna Philharmonic

The waltz continues swirling, swaying. It really does sound like a river. And like a river that is forever changing, the music tells us, so will our lives be changed. The music pulls us into the new year with a smile on our faces and happiness in our hearts.

With one last shower of gumdrops and sugarplums the waltz ends. But its end seems more like a beginning. After all, the sweets have yet to be eaten.