Mozart 250
“Ronald Brautigam plays Mozart“
The Mozartists, Ian Page, Ronald Brautigam
Cadogan Hall, 30 June 2026
Serenata notturna, K.239
Piano Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, K.238
Piano Concerto No. 8 in C major, ‘Lützow’, K.246
Divertimento in D major, K.251
The Mozartists’ innovative MOZART 250 project travels 250 years back in time to follow the chronological trajectory of Mozart’s life, works and influences. Starting on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London in January 2015, the project is now following Mozart’s musical life, year by year, up to 2041, the 250th anniversary of his death. Ronald Brautigam is one of the world’s leading fortepianists, with an award-winning discography of the complete concertos and sonatas of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. For this, his twice Covid delayed début with Ian Page and The Mozartists, he performed two concertos that Mozart wrote in Salzburg during the first half of 1776, bookended by two other pieces from 1776: the Serenata notturna K.239 and the Divertimento in D major, K.251. Playing a reproduction of an 18th-century Viennese Walter fortepiano (by Paul McNulty), this was a rare opportunity to experience the sound-world of the 20-year-old Mozart.
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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.
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.
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 