1765: Times of Transition
Academy of Ancient Music
Laurence Cummings, Amanda Forsythe
Mozart: Symphony No.1in E-flat major
Philidor: Arias from Tom Jones
Haydn: Symphony No.39 in G minor
Telemann: Ino
One year, four composers, with a 76 year age-gap between them. Laurence Cummings and the Acadmeny of Ancient Music (AAM) opened their new season in Milton Court with Mozart, Haydn, Telemann and Philidor representing the year 1765 during a transitional age in music. It was the era of sturm und drang, the dramatic ‘storm and stress’ movement in German music and literature that emphasised deep emotions, individual freedom and love of nature. Along with the works of literature from the likes of Goethe and Schiller, came the musical reaction to the rational approach of the Enlightenment and Baroque and the start of the Classical period, a prelude to the upcoming early Romantic era. Composers such as Haydn, Gluck, and Mozart included elements of this genre, not least in angular themes, rapidly changing musical moods, and dramatic interventions. In opera, the increased use of fully orchestrated accompagnato recitatives took over from the baroque basso continuo genre.
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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.
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Mozart: Sonata in D, K381; Sonata in C, K521; Sonata in B-flat, K358, JC Bach: Sonata in A.
