Radetzky-Marsch, Op. 228

Program notes

About the Work

The Radetzky-Marsch is the traditional closing encore of the New Year’s Concert and one of the most famous marches ever written. Johann Strauss I composed it in 1848, naming it in honour of the Austrian field marshal Joseph Radetzky after his victory at Custoza. Its trio borrows an old Viennese tune said to have been sung by Radetzky’s returning soldiers. The march quickly became a symbol of the Habsburg empire and remains the elder Strauss’s most enduring work. It has closed the New Year’s Concert since Josef Krips brought it into the programme in 1946, and it has acquired a unique ritual: from the first famous strain, the audience claps along in time, the conductor turning to direct not the orchestra but the hall, modulating the volume of thousands of clapping hands. It is a moment of pure communal joy that sends the audience, and the worldwide television public, into the new year on a wave of high spirits, the perfect, irresistible conclusion to the morning’s festivities.

What to Listen For

You will know the famous main tune at once, and you will be invited to join in, clapping along as the whole hall does by tradition. Listen for the contrast between the brilliant, brassy march strain and the softer, more lyrical central trio, and watch the conductor turn around to lead the audience’s clapping, coaxing it louder and softer. It is less a performance than a shared celebration, and it brings the New Year’s Concert to its jubilant, hand-clapping close.