Jan 03, 2026
3 min read
Samantha Devin delves into the history of the Viennese New Year, exploring the music of Johann Strauss, the cinema of Kubrick and the work of Kant.
There are actions that show that humans are more unconscious and deeper than us.Sometimes we turn the organic into pure mysticism, and what at first glance seems silly or simple, we transform into tradition, mysticism.An excellent example is the Vienna New Year's Concert.At a certain point in history, the concert ceased to be the only entertainment of Viennese society, something local, but became a global event with which we welcome the New Year.
For eighty-five years, the Viennese community has gathered on January 1 in the hall of the Musikverein to ring in the new year with the Strauss family waltz.And although we cannot erase the past, it is not necessary that the concert was used as a propaganda in Nazi Germany.Because we know how many works of art, literature, science and aesthetic creations are looted and appropriated by the mentally ill.We already know that it is nothing about the music itself.Not so, nor the game itself, which only says something about the Nazis.Because after the war, after the terror was defeated, the music was separated from its political origins and became a symbol of hope, joy and renewal.
My Fascination, My Passion, is directly related to Strauss' film 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Stanley Kubrick. This film is one, if not the only, of the few science fiction films in which the future is not ruled by disaster, chaos and hopelessness, but by order and progress. It is one of the few films, even the first, whose core theme is teleology. Kubrick envisions a universe ruled by a higher order that orchestrates the creation of life from the unknown.does. The key word is sequence.
Because behind the visual story, the story of the universe, which at first glance seems to pass without purpose or direction, Kubrick looks at an image of the universe that is rarely seen in cinema or other works of science fiction.An image in which the immeasurable darkness, emptiness and cold that runs through interstellar space has disappeared and is presented to us as a place full of music, order, purpose, peace.Space, the infinite, the always dry, the desolate and the inhuman is, in 2001, a place of peace.Darkness is no longer an abyss and infinite darkness, but simply natural darkness, night.A soft and peaceful night, like the night that comes after sunset.
Kubrick displaces the inaccessible, the impenetrable, and turns it into a home.It puts us in touch with eternity, with the mysteries that surround us.Turn the unknown to a spiritual need.It takes us out of the material world to tell the truth that we have forgotten so much: that we have entered a world where we know almost everything, which has no limits around us and as we pull our heads out of our narrow horizon, it disappears into the unknown that is our home.And what does it do?Add Strauss's music to the image of an airplane hovering in vastness.
According to the dictionary, a waltz is "a dance of German origin performed by couples in circular and translational movements."Isn't that exactly what planets do?To do circular and familiar business?Kubrick's vision, turned into pictures, tells us: "Look! The whole universe dances, infinity is a ritual."Then we discover that what seems empty, inhospitable and incomprehensible to us is another way of looking, because just by adding the Blue Danube to our observation, everything changes.
This almost imperceptible fact emphasizes what Kant clearly formulated when he emphasized the importance of subjectivity: that our experience of the world is neither immediate nor neutral, but depends on how the human subject organizes what we perceive. We do not approach reality itself, but the reality that always appears under the forms and concepts provided by our mind. The world is not given to us once, but is presented to us as a reality constructed by subjectivity. Soeven if nothing changes on the outside, everything changes when you change your perspective. This example eloquently illustrates the central role of the subject in constructing the world as we know it.
There are also some more beautiful and positive images of that cosmic waltz.If he had seen Pascal 2001, he would not have been so afraid of the blackness of space.
The fact that the world, at least a part of it, has instituted the tradition of starting the new year with a waltz concert, undoubtedly has something to do with what that music does for us.Unconsciously or perhaps knowingly, we share the teleology that Kubrick proposed.When on the first day of the year we hear that heavenly, lively and pleasant music, the melody, which spoils us with its fullness and enthusiasm, we aspire, invoke, and become united with that divine order of which Kubrick doubted.At the beginning of the new year, the smallest in the calendar of eternity, but relevant in our present, we give way to the intricate longing of the waltz, renewing the covenant we entered into a year ago, of which we have always forgotten until now.Because it is true that as the year passes, we lose the resonance of those magical notes, and with them the promise of eternal fulfillment.
I suggest listening to Blue Danube or watching the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, any time of the year, and see how the promising result is renewed.This works only if it is done carefully, which allows the side fragrance, the eternal power, to invade us.The experience reminds us that, although time has passed for others, for us, the emotion this music evokes is as fresh as the day we first heard it.That is, he invites us to realize that joy, hope and greatness of spirit never grow old, we are the ones who make them pale, who challenge them with adultery due to old age and despair.Our temporality, however negligent, may cover even the imperishable when it places itself.Or we believe, because as I say, everything depends on the eyes with which we see things.We are the creators of reality and responsible for mutations.
I didn't say anything new because the Greeks already knew that music heals.The “new” that we have forgotten is what Kant discovered: we are the founders of our inner world.We do not create the world, but we create it as it is given to us.
When the world goes dark and the threads that make up the fabric of order seem to dissolve, there is nothing healthier than listening to Strauss waltzes.With or without Kant, these tunes retain all their therapeutic properties over time.They are balm for the soul, they are reminders, they are premonitions.But above all, they are desires, desires for harmony, abundance, hope, brilliance, expansion.They encourage you to remember not only how the world should be, but also yourself.
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