Karajan conducts the Vienna New Year's Concert 1987

On New Year's Day every year, the eyes and ears of the world turn to the golden hall of Vienna's Musikverein, and the Wiener Philharmoniker's annual concert of music by the Strauss family and their contemporaries. By any standards, it's a glittering occasion, but there's never been one to match the extraordinary morning in January 1987 when the orchestra extended this honour to Herbert von Karajan. The atmosphere is electric, as Karajan lavishes all his supreme mastery of line, style and orchestral colour on a sequence of dances that includes familiar favourites (The Blue Danube, Emperor Waltz), as well as neglected jewels (Sphärenklänge, Delirien), and accompanies a sparkling Kathleen Battle in Voices of Spring. Champagne for the ears.