Two players, more than any others, sum up the pliant, gemütlich Viennese style of violin playing – an easeful, elastic, floating singing style with a natural, unaffected use of portamento. One is Fritz Kreisler, the other is Willi Boskovsky. The lighter side of Viennese music has always been an essential aspect of the city’s life and Willi Boskovsky’s performances became a byword for the elegant and sophisticated charm which it demands. Wherever he went, a typically Viennese bonhomie went with him, but he flourished best on home turf. His music-making always had an intimate, confiding quality.

The Wiener Oktett, for which Willi Boskovsky was founder and leader, became the first of many Viennese ensembles to record for Decca, initiating a quarter-century of collaboration with the label and ushering a partnership between Decca and the Wiener Philharmoniker itself. Furthermore, the vastly influential Wiener Oktett records and tours led to inspire the establishment of the Philharmonic Octet in Berlin and the Melos Ensemble in London.

Includes 200 Waltzes by Strauss!! Boskovsky directed the Vienna New Year’s Day concert 25 times, doing more to embed this tradition into our consciousness than any other conductor.

Also includes the historic 1975 New Year’s Day concert which was the first time a record label had been invited to record the celebrations ‘live’.

Includes a piece of ‘digital recording’ history: the New Year’s Day Concert 1979 album was Decca’s first ever digital recording – in fact it was the first European commercial digital recording ever made. Decca made their own bespoke mixing desk for the purpose.

First release on CD of Boskovsky and the Wiener Oktett’s recording of Beethoven Septet and Spohr and Schubert Octets; and the first Decca CD release of Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with Walter Panhofer.

Includes THE recording of Also sprach Zarathustra (Karajan conducting – used in Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey).

Dvořák’s E flat “Slavonic” Quartet – the Boskovsky Quartet’s only recording on Decca; Octet (1948) by the Belgian composer Marcel Poot – the Wiener Oktett’s first commission; thrilling violin solos in Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (Krauss).

Classic recordings of Mozart Serenades, Divertimenti and complete Dances and Marches.

Willi Boskovsky’s complete Decca Recordings :
- As conductor and “Konzertmeister” of the Wiener Philharmoniker
- And as leader of the chamber ensembles he founded – the Wiener Oktett and the Boskovsky Quartet

50-CD + 2 DVD limited edition original jacket collection

Brand new remasters from original analogue tapes of all New Year’s Day concerts by Audio Archiving Company Ltd.

124pp booklet (English/German) includes new essay by Tully Potter and a works index

DVD 1: New Year’s Concert 1974
DVD 2: New Year’s Concerts 1963-1979
Bonus documentary: Willi Boskovsky