Vienna Concerts

In Europe's "Classical Music Capitals" (London, Berlin, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague), there's usually a few tiers of performers. On the top are the major professional organizations, like the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and its affiliated chamber ensembles. These generally cost the most, but they tend to perform a very wide repetoir to a very high standard, and they have the budgets to attract world-class soloists. They usually perform a different program every week or so and give 2-3 concerts per week. If you travel during the summer, though, these groups are usually either on hiatus or touring somewhere else. On the bottom, you will find several ensembles in any of the above cities that consist mostly of amateurs and conservatory students, sometimes performing in costume, sometimes not. There's nothing wrong with these, as such. But they all play the same fairly limited repetoire- you can almost guarantee you'll here either Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" or Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" or both. If you've attended one of them, you've been to all them. Prices, though, are very cheap, and there's at least one or more going on just about any day of the year. And in between, there's a slew of professional and semi-professional organizations, some that act as lower-tier orchestras, some that devote themselves to particular periods, composers or styles, etc.