New Years Eve concerts. There is hardly a better way to let 2025 float past in Vienna than with music. If you are not up to a violinist fiddling into your ear at an Austrian dinner show, you will find my list of the top six 'Silvester' classical concerts useful.
'Silvesterkonzert' by Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
New Years Eve Concerts. Each year on 31 December, the Vienna Philharmonic offers a quietly significant musical moment that often sits in the shadow of its world-famous New Year’s Day Concert: the New Year’s Eve performance at the Musikverein. Though far less publicized than the televised gala on 1 January, this concert enables audiences to hear the orchestra in a slightly more relaxed, reflective atmosphere before the global spotlight turns to them the next morning. The New Year’s Eve program typically mirrors the spirit of the upcoming New Year’s Concert. Mostly, it features works from the rich repertoire of the Strauss dynasty and their contemporaries. Polkas, waltzes, and overtures unfold with the Philharmonic’s unmistakable elegance. Hearing these pieces without the intense production demands and ceremonial expectations of 1 January allows listeners to focus more closely on the orchestra’s trademark warmth, phrasing, and stylistic finesse.
With its shimmering acoustics and traditional year-end atmosphere the Musikverein’s Golden Hall adds to the occasion. While the New Year’s Day Concert is a global broadcast event, the New Year’s Eve performance feels more like a gathering of insiders: music lovers, locals, and visitors. It is also the first opportunity to hear the conductor who will lead the prestigious concert the next day, offering insight into their interpretation and chemistry with the orchestra.
Concert tickets are allocated through an online drawing between January and March of the same year. Find out how to get tickets for the New Year's Eve Concert if you haven't won the drawing.
New Years Eve Concert: Beethoven's 9th
New Years Eve Concerts. Each year on December 31, the Wiener Konzerthaus closes the old year with one of Vienna’s most cherished traditions: a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It is a ritual that feels both grand and intimate. In fact, a good part of the local audience returns year after year. This year, conductor Dima Slobodeniouk, known for his dynamic interpretations and leadership of major European orchestras, will lead the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra and the Vienna Singing Academy. The concert begins quietly. The symphony’s searching opening gesture seems to rise out of silence. Over the next movements, Beethoven’s music shifts between tension, tenderness and sweeping orchestral power. Imagine an emotional arc that mirrors the turning of the year. By the time Friedrich Schiller's famous “Ode to Joy” theme emerges in the final movement, its simplicity carries remarkable weight. Sung by soloists and chorus, the message of universal brotherhood resonates as more than poetry. Actually, since Beethoven finalised the Ninth in Vienna (1824) the European Hymn was born in Wien.
What makes this New Year’s Eve concert special is not spectacle, but continuity. For many Viennese, hearing the Ninth at the Konzerthaus is a moment of reflection. The audience’s silence during the slow movement, the collective breath before the choral finale, and the sense of unity in the hall contribute as much to the experience as the performance on stage.
Closing the year with Beethoven’s call for peace and shared humanity feels particularly meaningful. It’s a reminder that, even amid uncertainty, certain traditions offer grounding and clarity. At the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Ninth Symphony stands not only as a masterpiece, but as a gentle invitation to step into the new year with openness and resolve.
As for the orchestra, the 'Vienna Symphony' is renown across the world and is the innovative force of classical music in Vienna.
Date and Time: 30th and 31st December 2025; 1 January 2026; 7.00 pm
Location: Wiener Konzerthaus, Lothringer Strasse, 1030;
Tickets: check available tickets
For an overview of what is on stage at the Vienna State Opera, Wiener Konzerthaus, Wiener Volksoper, and Mozarthaus find out more in New Year's Eve in Vienna 2025.
New Year's Eve Gala
New Years Eve Concerts. In the late afternoon of the 31 December 2025, the Minorite Church in Vienna opens its doors for a New Year’s Eve Gala. Unlike at formal concert venues this concert feels more like a warm, festive gathering inside one of the city’s most atmospheric sanctuaries. Les Orpheistes Orchestra will take the stage under the direction of violinist-conductor Mario Hossen. While the New Year's Eve path outside buzzes, the church offers a calm, resonant space where music becomes a gentle way to transition into the new year.
This year’s program is woven around two anniversaries: 150 years since the birth of Fritz Kreisler and 200 years since Johann Strauss II. Kreisler’s pieces, with their elegance and nostalgic Viennese charm, feel almost tailor-made for the intimate acoustics of the Minorite Church. Their lyrical lines, especially when shaped by Hossen’s violin, seem to hover in the air a little longer than expected. Whereas the Strauss works, arranged by Arnold Berg and Anton Webern, reveal surprising colours: familiar waltz themes filtered through early-20th-century clarity and texture. They offer a fresh perspective on melodies that have accompanied countless turn-of-the-year celebrations in Vienna.
Adding a contemporary pulse, the program also includes works by Astor Piazzolla. His tango-infused rhythms bring a different sort of warmth—darker, more urban, yet undeniably festive. The contrast between Viennese nostalgia and Argentine modernity creates a musical arc that feels both celebratory and reflective, perfectly suited to the moment between years.
More than at any other church music venue, there is lots of eye candy in the splendid baroque interiors. On top, the concert will finish early enough for you to go and see the fireworks in town.
Date and Time: 31st December 2025
Location: Minoritenkirche, Minoritenplatz 1, 1010 Vienna
Bookings: get tickets - Vienna Unwrapped readers receive an exclusive 10% discount with the code UNWRAPPED.
Masters Of Viennese Classicism
New Years Eve Concerts. Hosted at the renowned Haus der Musik the String Quartet Concert – The Masters of Viennese Classicism rings in the New Year in a tranquil setting. Tucked inside this interactive sound museum, the intimate concert hall provides an atmosphere that feels both refined and welcoming: an ideal setting to experience the music that shaped Vienna’s Golden Age. As the year comes to a close, the Wiener Klassikensemble brings to life some of the most iconic works ever written for string quartet, weaving a program that blends brilliance, emotion, and historical depth. The evening opens with the familiar sparkle of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, a piece whose lively Allegro sets an uplifting tone. Following that, Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet reminds listeners of his daring harmonic imagination. Haydn, the father of the string quartet, brings warmth and wit through the noble Emperor Quartet and the light-hearted charm of The Joke. Beethoven’s early string writing offers a glimpse of his emerging intensity, with the String Quartet No. 4 providing contrast and drive.
The second half moves into more lyrical territory: Schubert’s serene Ave Maria and the dramatic sweep of Death and the Maiden showcase the ensemble’s expressive range. To close the evening, the timeless melodies of the Strauss family—The Blue Danube and the Radetzky March—add a celebratory Viennese flourish.
Date and Time: 31st December 2025; 8 pm
Location: Haus der Musik, Seilerstätte 30, 1010 Vienna
Bookings: get tickets
Gala: Federspiel & Gäste
New Years Eve Concerts. As the clock winds down on 31 December 2025, the Federspiel & Guests take the stage at the Wiener Konzerthaus for a special New Year’s Eve gala that promises to send the old year off with flair and call in the new one with rhythm. From around 22:30 until well into the first hours of 2026, the Konzerthaus’s Great Hall will be filled with bold brass, vibrant percussion, and an eclectic mix of musical voices. Federspiel’s trademark brass instrumentation — trumpets, trombones, tuba, and clarinet — anchors the ensemble, but the program broadens far beyond classical brass repertoire. Their “Guests” include performers from jazz, pop, Viennese song and experimental music: the acoustic duo Die Strottern, percussionist Vivi Vassileva, the voice-driven energy of rapper-poet Yasmo, guitarists and rhythm-section musicians bringing bass, drums, and more.
The result is a melting pot of global and local sound — brass fireworks meeting acoustic intimacy, tradition mingling with improvisation, rhythm infused with Austrian soul. In this setting, the New Year isn’t just welcomed with fanfare — it’s celebrated as a musical gathering, louder and looser perhaps than the typical concert hall experience, yet no less heartfelt.
At midnight there will be a pause — a chance to reflect, raise a toast, and soak in the communal buzz before the music begins again. For anyone in Vienna on New Year’s Eve, this gala feels like a joyful, inclusive alternative to the expected classical-only concerts. It’s less about ceremony and more about connection: a shared moment of sound, energy and gathering to carry the old year into the new.
Date and Time:30th and 31st December 2025; 1 January 2026; 10.30 pm to 1.30 am
Location:Wiener Konzerthaus, Lothringer Strasse, 1030 Vienna
Tickets: get tickets
For more ideas what to do on the last day of the year, visit New Years Eve in Vienna.
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