The Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day Concert, broadcast live from the fabulous Golden Hall of Vienna's Musikverein, attracts a worldwide radio and television audience of over one billion.

The Orchestra of Opera North's Viennese Whirl' in Leeds Town Hall and Bradford's Halle Viennese concert might not have assumed global dimensions but they are eagerly awaited highlights of the New Year rituals in our region.

Both orchestras could be said to have this sparkling music in their blood and concertgoers of a certain vintage will retain vivid memories of the Halle's legendary Viennese evenings, conducted during the Fifties and Sixties by Sir John Barbirolli.

Barbirolli's expressive phrasing and generous rubato brought out the yearning quality of a Strauss waltz.

His finely judged and sometimes sudden changes in tempo occasionally caused mirth.

I still recall the great conductor's highly idiosyncratic performance of Johann Strauss's Tritsch-Tratsch Polka' at the 1969 Proms. Barbirolli slowed the music down to a virtual standstill - to the delight and amusement of a packed Royal Albert Hall.

Last Friday at St George's Hall John Wilson, a young and prodigiously talented Tyneside-born conductor, orchestrator and arranger of film scores, presided over the proceedings with aplomb and gentle humour. The concert opened with a crisp and rousing account of Franz von Suppe's Overture Morning Noon and Night in Vienna'.

Then followed a quick-fire reading of the aforementioned Tritsch-Tratsch Polka' and another Barbirolli favourite - the Waltz sequence, Roses from the South'.

The other great Strauss waltzes in the programme were Wine, Women and Song'; Vienna Blood' and (of course) The Blue Danube'. Wilson's tempi were, for my taste, a little too brisk to capture that elusive mood of yearning but he did coax an opulent tone from the Halle strings. Wilson seemed more at home with the quick pieces - The Hunt', and Thunder and Lightening Polkas', not to mention Douglas Gamley's flashy arrangement of Lehar's Merry Widow Overture'.

The four vocal items were, for this writer, the highlights of the evening: they were taken from Lehar's operettas The Count of Luxembourg' and Der Zarewitsch', Heuberger's Der Opernball' - the delightful Im Chambre Separee', and the Rudolf Sieczynski song - Vienna, City of My Dreams'.

These numbers were ravishingly played by the Halle and charmingly introduced and sung by soprano Sophie Daneman.

The Bradford audience steadfastly refused to indulge in the customary rhythmic clapping during the Radetzky March'. Perhaps we were more accustomed to Johann Strauss Senior's most famous piece being played at the end of a concert rather than as an opener to the second half.