Dreaming under the spell of three-four time, listening to cheerful baroque sounds, contemplating yourself by candlelight and church music – the musical homage to the turn of the year takes place again this year in the field of tension between melancholy and happiness, the desire to dance and contemplation. After the pandemic-related restrictions and cancellations of the past two years, the social and cultural events around New Year’s Eve are again taking place on a larger scale: on the stage, the dance floor or in the church rooms.
If you are looking for the bliss of a waltz or the variety of symphonic tones, you will find what you are looking for in Unterschleißheim these days: On Friday, December 30, the Freies Landestheater Bayern will be showing Johann Strauss’ famous operetta “Die Fledermaus” in the community center, starting at 7 p.m. On Friday, January 6, the Munich Symphony Orchestra will present a varied potpourri in their New Year’s concert – the ensemble has mastered a repertoire that ranges from the baroque to the 21st century. Start is at 8 p.m. On December 31st, as a major event in the district of Munich, there is the New Year’s Eve concert by the Haar ensemble in the society building of the Haarer Isar-Amper-Klinikum and in Unterhaching the operetta “Der Wildschütz” by Albert Lortzing comes to the stage in the Kubiz – but there is only for the latter remaining tickets.
A few days later, on January 6, the French Chamber Philharmonic presented entertaining music by French composers and the Strauss dynasty at their New Year’s Concert in the Pullach community centre. Even if a number of these pieces and programs are often labeled “light muse”, it is often more than that that unfolds in them: the cycle of becoming and passing away, the interplay of reality and appearance, melancholy and joie de vivre. “Anyone who finds the waltz funny hasn’t understood it,” conductor Christoph Thielemann once said.
The churches are quieter
It’s been quieter for 40 years at the nightly New Year’s Eve retreat in the Siegertsbunner Leonhardikirche: This year it’s “Contemplative into the New Year” again – songs are sung there by candlelight, the event begins at 11:30 p.m. and ends at midnight blessing followed by a glass of sparkling wine.
Here is a selection of other events in the district: A New Year’s Eve concert will take place in the parish church of St. Elisabeth in Planegg on December 31st. Hans Jürgen Huber with Philipp Lüdeke (trumpet), Fabian Strauss (timpani) and Max Betz (organ) will bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year with the sounds of Bach, Handel and Mozart (beginning at 6.30 p.m.). In Ottobrunn, the evening prayer in the Michaelskirche will be performed by trumpeter Thilo Steinbauer and organist Christoph Demmler (beginning at 10 p.m.). In the Trinitaskirche in Oberschleißheim there will also be “German viola da gamba music of the 18th century” on December 31 (beginning at 7 p.m.). A day later, a select baroque ensemble gave a concert in Neuried’s St. Nicholas Church: flautist Kozue Sato, cellist Felix Stross and Max Hanft on the harpsichord. The New Year’s concert on January 1 starts at 5 p.m., tickets are available at the box office.