2026 Vienna Philharmonic Concert Recap - Seong-Jin Cho, Tugan Sokhiev

The first half of the concert. It opens with five bars from the piano alone, and the orchestra answers in distant B major. On a second hearing, follow the passages that sit best alongside your memory of that night — the first hush, the dialogue of the second movement, the cadenza at the end of the first movement.

• The opening — five bars the piano plays alone, the moment the hall held its breath that night
• Second movement — the strings' rough unison subdued and quieted by the piano's song
• Third movement — following without a break, trumpets·timpani enter for the first time

The second half of the concert. The orchestra that premiered this symphony in 1877 was the Vienna Philharmonic itself. Three notes in the cellos·basses (D–C♯–D) run through all four movements, and at the end the trombones throw everything open into D major. Heard again in 4K live footage.

• First bar of the first movement — D–C♯–D, taken up at once by the horn
• Third movement — the oboe's pastoral and the drop into two quick variations
• End of the fourth movement — the trombones open the D major close

Seong-Jin Cho's first encore after the concerto. A minor-key melody circles forlornly, brightens for a moment into major, and returns. Right after the concerto, Seong-Jin Cho is said to have settled the hall with Chopin's Waltz in A minor.

• The first melody — a single minor-key line, repeated without ornament
• The major-key middle section — a brief shaft of light
• The end — returning to the opening melody, it closes quietly

The second encore. The 'minute' in its English nickname, 'Minute Waltz', means not 'one minute' but 'small' — in performance it usually runs past a minute and a half. Because of the story that it was inspired by George Sand's little dog chasing its own tail in circles, in Korea·Japan it is called the 'puppy waltz'. Dedicated to Countess Delfina Potocka.

• The right hand's ceaseless spinning — the source of the nickname about a dog chasing its tail
• The middle section — a song that suddenly relaxes, and a long trill
• The final descent — one sweep down to the bottom of the keyboard, and it's over

The Vienna Philharmonic's first encore, after the Brahms in the second half. Josef Strauss, younger brother of Johann Strauss II, wrote it in 1867 for a ball given by Vienna's medical students, and its title is a medical term, 'delirium' (譫妄). The joke of the title is the introduction's hazy wandering before it resolves into a waltz — a staple of the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert.

• Introduction — a 'befuddled' opening that drifts with no clear key
• The first waltz — a melody coming into focus as the fog lifts
• Coda — a headlong finish that summons back the earlier waltzes

The second encore. 'Jocus' is Latin for 'joke'. A fast polka (polka schnell) lasting under two minutes, it was placed to turn the lingering mood of the waltz into laughter in an instant. One outlet listed the piece as the 'In Flight' polka, but we follow the two outlets that give 'Jocus'. As no proper live performance video exists, none is included.

• A duple meter that never rests from first beat to last — less a dance than a sprint
• Playful ornaments in the woodwinds — where you hear the title's 'joke'
• The sudden ending — it snaps off like a laugh

The last encore. A fast polka premiered in 1869 in Pest (today's Budapest) for a Hungarian audience. The strain of Hungary's 'Rákóczi March' woven into its closing bars is the piece's way of saying hello, and it was the final stroke that drew the applause from the hall that night.

• Introduction — rhythms twisted in the Hungarian manner
• The closing bars — listen for the quotation of the 'Rákóczi March'
• The final chord — some performances end with a shout