page_title: Willi Boskovsky
section_title: Professional biography
hierarchical_section_title: Willi Boskovsky / Professional biography
caption_attribution_description: English: dedicated photo 1962 of Vienna Octet tour of Southern Africa organised by Hans Adler
context_page_description: Willi Boskovsky was an Austrian violinist and conductor, best known as the long-standing conductor of the Vienna New Year's Concert.
context_section_description: Willi Boskovsky was born in Vienna, and joined the Vienna Academy of music at the age of nine. He was the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic from 1936 to 1979. He was also, from 1955, the conductor of the Vienna New Year's Concert, which is mostly devoted to the music of Johann Strauss II and his contemporaries. Along with the Vienna Philharmonic, he was also the chief conductor of the Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester up until his death.  A forerunner of this ensemble was the 19th-century Strauss Orchestra founded by Johann Strauss I in 1835.  He died in Visp, Switzerland.
  In chamber ensemble he led the Boskovsky Quartet with Philipp Matheis (2nd violin), Gunther Breitenbach (viola) and Nikolaus Hübner (violoncello). The Boskovsky Quartet, together with Johann Krump (double-bass), Alfred Boskovsky (clarinet), Josef Veleba (horn) and Rudolf Hanzl (bassoon) formed the Vienna Octet.
  Boskovsky was also a Mozart performer: he recorded all the sonatas for violin and piano, with pianist Lili Kraus, and the complete trios for violin, piano and cello, with Kraus and Nikolaus Hübner for Les Discophiles Français. He played in Brahms' Double Concerto in A minor, Op.102, with Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.
  A month after his last New Year's Concert, after having already agreed with Alfred Altenburger to conduct again in 1980, on 30.1.1979, he was hit by a stroke, which caused him a slight paralysis on the right side. In October 1979, the convalescence being too slow, he communicated his decision to give up and the orchestra asked Lorin Maazel, designated director of the Wiener Staastoper, to carry on the tradition of these concerts.
caption: Vienna Octet 1962 on tour of Southern Africa. photo dedicated to tour organiser Hans Adler.[1]
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