In 2009, music by Joseph Haydn was played for the first time, where the 4th movement of his "Farewell" Symphony marked the 200th anniversary of his death.

Other European composers such as Hans Christian Lumbye, Jacques Offenbach, Émile Waldteufel, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky have been featured in recent programmes.

The second is Johann Strauss II's waltz "The Blue Danube", whose introduction is interrupted by light applause of recognition and a New Year's greeting in German (originally added by Willi Boskovsky) from the conductor and orchestra to the audience.

The origin of this tradition stems from the New Year's Concert of 1954, when the audience interrupted three pieces by enthusiastically applauding and cheering.

The final encore is Johann Strauss I's Radetzky March, during which the audience claps along under the conductor's direction.

In this last piece, tradition also calls for the conductor to start the orchestra as soon as they step onto the stage, before reaching the podium.

[3] In 1939, Clemens Krauss, with the support of Vienna Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach, devised a New Year's concert which the orchestra dedicated to Kriegswinterhilfswerk ('Winter War Relief'), to improve morale at the front lines.

[4] After World War II, this concert survived, as the Nazi origins were largely forgotten, until more recently.

[17][18][19] Past radio presenters have included Ernst Grissemann, Paul Angerer, and Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz.

[20] Outside Europe, the concert is also shown on PBS in the United States (beginning in 1985, as part of the performing arts anthology Great Performances, in abridged form), CCTV in China since 1987 (being telecast live since 1989, except in 1990)[21] while also being broadcast live by CNR in China since 2013,[22] NHK in Japan since 1973,[23] MetroTV in Indonesia, KBS in South Korea, and SBS in Australia (until 2018, on delay).

Since 2006, the concert has also been broadcast to viewers in several African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe).

In Latin America the concert is shown in Chile by La Red, and in Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia.

[25] The 2022 concert with Daniel Barenboim featured a live audience limited to 1,000 patrons,[26] and the ORF radio transmission on Ö1 featured Eva Teimel [de] as presenter, the first female radio presenter for ORF in the history of the concert.

The program features waltz and operetta melodies by Johann Strauss, Emmerich Kálmán, Franz Lehár and opera arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The all-female chamber ensemble La Philharmonica gave its inaugural concert on 1 January 2025, with selections by Leopoldine Blahetka, Gisela Frankl, Constanze Geiger, Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Mathilde Kralik, Johann Strauss II, Maria Anna Stubenberg, and Josephine Amann-Weinlich.