Early New Years morning (5:30 am!), I and my girlfriend were driving to Mt Baker for a day of skiing.  Near the US / Canadian border, I found one of the Vancouver classical radio stations and we listened to the festive New Years program.  According to the DJ, one of the selections was Bruno Walter conducting Vienna State Orchestra (I believe) playing Strauss (Die Fledermaus - I believe).  I should have written down the information immediately (but hey, I was driving in the mountains!).  I have been searching for this recording and have no success locating it thus far.

Is anyone familiar with this particular performance?  If so, I would be grateful for your reply and information.

I have a version (2002 New Years concert, Ozawa conducting Wiener Philharmoniker).  It is nothing special and absolutely no comparison to the  version by Walter.

Scott,

Unfortunately Bruno Walter is not my guy, and particularly on Richard Strauss and therefore I would not help you. However, I would suggest you to find a different, more productive venue to research performances after those “just heard” experiences.

Bruno Walter has a large community of fanatic followers and they publish very detail lists of Bruno’s performances and his official and unofficial discography. There is a Bruno Walter Society that pressed many of his “left” performances, and some of them were quite good. When you hit the Bruno Walter communities with thier listings I would suggest to pay attention to the Japanese based sites: they sometimes published some performances that were not available on West.

Also, Scott, be advised that sometime classical radio stations can broadcast the recordings that never were publicly available - they have own archives and have access to the recourse that you do not!  Here is where you have to hit the collectors who record those live broadcasts of the broadcasts retranslations.  BTW, some radio stations still keep the tapes of the Live Broadcast recordings and sometime run them directly to air. The quality of sound in there is wonderful (if you have a good FM section and a good antenna) and here is where you have to have your Nack ready… :-)

Anyhow, welcome to the world of the Real Audio.
The Cat