Mozart Birthday Concert
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Zheng Jiang, Alexander Semple
Cadogan Hall. 27 Januarys 2026
Mozart: Entr’acte from Incidental Music to Thamos, König in Ägypten, K.345
Mozart Concert Aria, “Ombra felice… Io ti lascio”, K.255
Haydn: Symphony No. 69 in C major, ‘Laudon’
Mozart: Two Entr’actes from Incidental Music to Thamos, König in Ägypten, K.345
Haydn: Three arias from Die Feuersbrunst
Mozart: Symphony from Serenade in D major, K.250, ‘Haffner’
The Mozartists‘ continued their ambitious MOZART 250 project, now entering its 12th year, with a 270th birthday concert featuring music composed during 1776. On his 20th birthday, Mozart was in Salzburg, as he would be for the whole of 1776, for the first time since he was five. By his standards, it was to prove a relatively quiet year, although it is worth remembering that he had by then already composed more than thirty symphonies, around half of his operas and all of his violin concertos! It does seem as though 1776 represented a valuable stage in his artistic development, with one writer commenting (in reference to the Haffner serenade that concluded this concert), “1776 sees the full blossoming of his rarest gifts of music and poetry.”
for Aspasia to walk through without turning sideways. She later appeared as though sitting behind a large bedecked dinner table, as pictured. Indeed the striking costume design was one of the main features of this production, which included a number of impressively choreograph set-piece dances, at one stage complete with a lot of foot-stomping, stick-banging and skirt-twirling, the whole more in Japanese than Anatolian (or 18th century European) style.
I didn’t see the 2010 production of Don Giovanni, or this summer’s Festival revival, so for me this was a new show. Set in a post-Mussolini Italy, the broody set, designed by Paul Brown, is focused on a massive central cube that presents all four of its sides, plus different incarnations of the central space, to the audience. It is a powerful image, but not without potential issues. Its overpowering presence centre stage pushes most of the action to the front or the side of the stage: no bad thing in itself, but giving a rather cramped feeling 
Mozart: Sonata in D, K381; Sonata in C, K521; Sonata in B-flat, K358, JC Bach: Sonata in A.
centred on the fascinating character Joseph de Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George (b1745), the son of a wealthy French plantation owner in Guadeloupe, and his African slave. Educated back in France from the age of 7, he first became known as a fencer, graduating from the Academy of fencing and horsemanship aged 21 and somehow collecting the title of chevalier (knight) on the way. Quite how he achieved his skills in music is not known, but the composers Lolli and Gossec had already dedicated works to him before he was 21. He quickly became one of the leading Parisian violinists and orchestra leaders. He briefly lived in the same house as Mozart (the mansion of his mentor, the Duke of Orléans in Paris), and was leader of the enormous Masonic Loge Olympique orchestra, for which Haydn wrote his Paris Symphonies.
A CD launch concert in Handel’s own parish church of St George, Hanover Square featured the programme from the CD ‘Mozart: Stolen Beauties’. Ironwood is an Australian period instrument ensemble formed in 2006. They were joined by the distinguished horn player Anneke Scott, here playing both natural (or ‘hand’) and piston horn.
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 