Artistic Director & Conductor Jung-Ho Pak selected these Listening Links for our upcoming January 1, 2023 New Year’s Day Party concert especially for you. Enjoy!
The party begins with “Tritsch-Tratsch Polka” by Johann Strauss Jr. Tritsch-Tratsch means chit-chat in German, and refers to the Viennese love of gossip. Johann Strauss, Jr. wrote this lively, high-spirited polka in 1858. In this video, André Rieu & His Johann Strauss Orchestra perform “Tritsch-Tratsch Polka,“ featuring gossiping Viennese throughout the city.
The aria “Laughing Song” (also known as “Adele’s Laughing Song” or “Mein Herr Marquis”) is from Johann Strauss, Jr.’s operetta Die Fledermaus. Adele is a chambermaid who dresses up in her mistress’s clothes and goes to a party, where she runs into the master. To bluff her way through the situation, she laughs at the idea that someone so glamorous could be a chambermaid. This video features Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann as Adele with the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra.
“Vainement, ma bien aimee (In vain, my beloved)” is from the opera Le Roi D'Ys (The King of Ys). The title, The King of Ys, refers to a legend in the French region of Brittany about a drowned city called Ys. In this aria for tenor, Mylio is waiting outside his bride’s door on their wedding day, but her friends won’t let him see her before the ceremony. This was Édouard Lalo’s most successful work for the stage, although he’s most well known today for his Symphonie espagnole (Spanish Symphony). Brazilian tenor Luciano Botelho sings with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in this video, shot at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, which is held every two years in Cardiff, Wales.
“Les Chemin de l’amour (The pathways of love)” was composed by Francis Poulenc in 1940 for the play Leocadia and dedicated to the comedian and singer Yvonne Printemps, who sang it at the premiere of the play. Printemps was a French singer and actress who achieved stardom on stage and screen in France and internationally. She appeared on Broadway and London’s West End, where she performed in Noel Coward’s Conversation Piece. Coward wrote the part for her, which she had to learn phonetically because she didn’t speak English! In this video, “Les Chemin de l’amour (The pathways of love)” is performed by French coloratura soprano Sabine Devieilhe with Alexandre Tharaud on piano.
The text of “Morgen! (Tomorrow!)” came from a poem by John Henry Mackay, who was born in Scotland and raised in Germany. Richard Strauss met Mackay in Berlin and in 1894, composed the piece as one of four songs he wrote as a wedding present to his wife. Strauss recorded “Morgen!” with a tenor singer twice, once in 1919 and once in 1941. The German words translate to:
Tomorrow again will shine the sun
And on my sunlit path of earth
Unite us again, as it has done,
And give our bliss another birth...
The spacious beach under wave-blue skies
We'll reach by descending soft and slow,
And mutely gaze in each other's eyes,
As over us rapture's great hush will flow.
In this video, American baritone Thomas Hampson sings “Morgen! (Tomorrow!)” with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
Mozart composed this piece of sacred choral music, "Exsultate, Jubilate," in Milan during the production of his opera Lucio Silla. “Alleluja” is the fourth movement of "Exsultate, Jubilate," performed at a fast and lively tempo. The Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, playing period instruments, performs “Alleluja” with soprano Julia Lezhneva in this video.
“On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe has to be one of the most romantic songs in musical theater history. Listen to the beautiful voice of Jordan Donica as he recorded the song for the cast album from the Lincoln Center Theater production in 2018.
One of the many iconic songs from The Sound of Music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II is “My Favorite Things.” We remember that scene from the 1965 movie when the von Trapp children climb onto Julie Andrew’s bed during a thunderstorm as she sings “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…” Enjoy this video of the famous scene.
“I'm Beginning to See the Light,” written by Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, and Harry James with lyrics by Don George was a big hit three times in 1945, performed by Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Harry James and his Orchestra. Michael Bublé put his contemporary spin on the song on his 2010 album Special Delivery. Check out the video.
“Anything You Can Do” was written by Irving Berlin for the 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman. The musical fictionalizes the life of Annie Oakley, a sharpshooter who performs in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Annie has a competitive relationship with Frank Butler, and in this song, she and Frank argue about who is better at various things, including singing high and holding a note. The song has appeared many times in pop culture, including Merman’s duet with Miss Piggy on The Muppet Show in 1976! Listen to Merman and Ray Middleton duet on the original Broadway cast album of Annie Get Your Gun.
Austrian composer Johann Strauss Jr. composed the quintessential Viennese waltz, “On the Beautiful Blue Danube,” in 1866. Originally it was written for a chorale, and then Strauss adapted an orchestral version, which was performed at the 1867 Paris World’s Fair and then premiered in New York later that year. Watch this video of André Rieu & His Johann Strauss Orchestra performing "The Beautiful Blue Danube," recorded live at Empress Sisi's castle, Schönbrunn Palace, in Vienna, Austria with dancers from the famous Austrian Elmayer Dancing School.
One of James Taylor's greatest hits is "Fire and Rain." According to an interview he gave to NPR, each verse of the 1970 hit, which was Taylor's breakthrough, refers to a different adversity in Taylor's life: the first, about finding out that a friend had died while he was in London recording with the Beatles; the second, about the heroin addiction he had when he returned to America; and the third, about his time in a Stockbridge, MA mental hospital. Carole King played piano on the "Fire and Rain" recording and as Taylor told Rolling Stone, she later wrote "You've Got a Friend," which became another huge Taylor hit, in response to his lyric, "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend." "Fire and Rain" is on multiple "best songs of the 20th century" lists and Rolling Stone ranked it #227 on their list of 500 best songs of all time. Enjoy this video of Taylor’s performance live at Boston’s Colonial Theatre in 2007.
Multi-talented Sara Bareilles is a singer, songwriter and actress with Grammy and Tony wins to her name. After starting her career as a recording artist, she wrote the music and lyrics to the Broadway smash Waitress (and later starred in the show on Broadway and the West End), and in 2022 she starred as The Baker’s Wife in the revivial of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Watch the official video for “Gravity,” her two-times certified platinum hit from her 2007 album Little Voice.
You may not recognize the name of the song “Con Te Partiro (Time to Say Goodbye),” but you’ll know it when you hear it! Watch the iconic performance by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman performing live at the Teatro Del Silenzio, Italy.
We always round out the New Year’s Day Party with the celebratory “Radetzky March” by Johann Strauss, Sr., the unofficial Austrian anthem. Austrian officers began the tradition of clapping along with the march, quietly at first and then thunderously! In this video, Zubin Mehta leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra outdoors at Vienna’s Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Square).
Join the Cape Symphony for New Year's Day Party on Sunday, January 1 at 3:00 PM at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center, 744 West Main Street, Hyannis MA 02601.
To purchase tickets for New Year's Day Party, visit capesymphony.org, call the Box Office at 508-362-1111, email
