Mozartists

Mozartists: Mullova plays Mozart

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mullova plays Mozart
Mozart 250: 1775
The Mozartists
Viktoria Mullova, Ian Page
Cadogan Hall. 4 November 2025


Haydn: Symphony No. 68 in B flat major
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.3 in G major, K.216
CPE Bach: Symphony in D major, Wq.183/1
Mozart: Violin Concerto No.4 in D major, K.218

The Mozartists‘ enterprising MOZART 250 project has reached its 10th anniversary, with concerts this season focusing on the year 1775, when Mozart turned 19. The project started in 2015 on the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London and follows Mozart’s musical life and that of his contemporaries year by year until the 250th anniversary of his death in 2041. It has been described as a “journey of a lifetime”, and will probably outlive many members of current classical music concert audiences. Following their Wigmore Hall concert in June (reviewed here), when Rachel Podger played two (2 & 5) of Mozart’s five violin concertos, this concert in the larger Cadogan Hall featured the other two concertos composed during 1775 (3 & 4) performed by Viktoria Mullova, making her debut with The Mozartists.

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The Mozartists: Jommelli – a celebration

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Niccolò Jommelli – a celebration
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Fflur Wyn, Ambroisine Bré, Hugo Brady
Wigmore Hall, 18 September 2024

“Vidi il mar tutto in procella” from Ricimero, re de’ Goti (1740)
“Se il povero ruscello” from Ezio (1741)
“Io già sento nel mio petto” from Merope (1741)
“Crescon le fiamme” from Didone abbandonata (1763)
“De’ miei desiri ormai… Che farò?” from Il Vologeso (1766)
Duetto, “La destra ti chiedo” from Demofoonte (1764)
“ Ombre che tacite qui sede” from Fetonte (1768)
“Hereuse paix tranquille” from La critica (1766)
“Fra l’orror di notte oscura” from Armida abbandonata (1770)
“Prendi l’estremo addio” from Ifigenia in Tauride (1771)
“Sol del Tebro in su la sponda” from Il trionfo di Clelia (1774)
“Misera Armida … Odio, furor, dispetto” from Armida abbandonata (1770)

You would be forgiven for not having heard of Niccolò Jommelli (1714-1774), although he does have a Facebook profile, with the above profile picture – and now wants me to be his ‘Friend’. A prolific Neopolitan composer well-known in his day, he composed around 80 operas. He was described at the time as “the creator of a quite new taste, and certainly one of the foremost musical geniuses who have ever lived“. Selections from 11 of these were featured in this concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of his death, the first in The Mozartists’ 2024/25 season. Their exploration of Mozart and the composers around him in their MOZART 250 project has revealed many little-known delights, and Jommelli is certainly one of them. Of the five times I have reviewed music by Jommelli on this website, most have been courtesy of The Mozartists, including their 2016 concert performance of Jommelli’s opera Il Vologeso.

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The Mozartists. 1774 – A Retrospective

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

MOZART 250
1774 – A Retrospective
The Mozartists, Ian Page
18 January 2014

Zimmermann: Symphony in E minor
Gluck: “Par un père cruel” and “Jupiter, lance la foudre” from Iphigénie en Aulide
Anfossi: “Care pupile belle” from La finta giardiniera (UK première)
Salieri: “Sperar il caro porto” from La calamita de’ cuori (UK première)
Mozart: “Ergo interest… Quaere superna” K. 143
Mysliveček: “Pace e calma in questo segno” from Artaserse (UK première)
Mozart: Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201
Gluck: Scene from Act 3 of Orphée et Euridice

The Mozartists‘ monumental MOZART 250 project has now reached its 10th year with an exploration of the year 1774 and the opening programme of their 2014 season. Continuing the pioneering work of Ian Page’s Classical Opera (which I first reviewed in 1998), the renamed Mozartists started MOZART 250 in 2015, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London. The project will follow his musical journey up to the year 2041, the 250th anniversary of his death.

As usual, the opening programme of the annual series places Mozart’s music in its wider musical context. Their programme “1774 – A Retrospective” gives an overview of the musical world 250 years ago when Mozart turned 18. Alongside two pieces by the young Mozart (“Ergo interest… Quaere superna” K143 and Symphony No. 29 in A, K201) were an extended scene from the Paris version of Gluck’s setting of the Orpheus legend and three UK premieres. The inclusion of premier performances is a subplot of the MOZART 250 series. Ian Page plans to include at least 100 such compositions during the project and after the first ten years, is already approaching 50.

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Mozart in Italy Festival

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart in Italy Festival
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Cadogan Hall, 6-8 March 2020

The Mozartists (and their companions, Classical Opera) continue with their ambitious MOZART 250 project with a weekend exploration of music written by Mozart and others in the year 1770 when he was 14 years old. The project started in 2015 on the anniversary of Mozart’s childhood visit to London and continues with annual explorations of the music that Mozart wrote exactly 250 years earlier, alongside music that Mozart might have heard during the same year. Following their 2015 ‘Mozart in London’ weekend, this weekend focussed on the time Mozart spent in Italy. The Cadogan Hall weekend included three formal concerts together with related talks and performances. There was a focus on different versions of Mitridate, re di Ponto, by Mozart and others, together with extracts from little-known operas by Guglielmi, Piccinni, Mysliveček and Jommelli that Mozart heard in Verona, Milan, Bologna and Naples. Continue reading →

Gluck: Bauci e Filemone & Orfeo

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Christoph Willibald Gluck
Bauci e Filemone & Orfeo (from Le feste d’Apollo)
Classical Opera/The Mozartists. Ian Page
Queen Elizabeth Hall. 29 May 2019

As a continuation of their Mozart 250 project, Classical Opera travelled back 250 years to explore the year 1769 with extracts from Gluck’s Le feste d’Apollo, composed for the wedding celebrations of 15-year-old Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and the 23-year-old Austrian Archduchess Maria Amalia, youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She was against the idea of this dynastic match from the start, not least because she was in love with a Bavarian Prince, who was deemed socially beneath her. Given that background, it must have been a bit of a strain for her to sit through the three short operas that make up Gluck’s Le feste d’Apollo, two of which were performed in this concert. The opening extract Bauci e Filemone is a rather soppy story of the power of love, whilst the well-known story of Orfeo tells a similar, but rather darker tale of love and relationships. Continue reading →

Mozart in London

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart in London
A musical exploration of Mozart’s childhood visit to London, 1764-65
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Signum Classics SIGCD534. 2 CDs. 77’36&67’14

The Classical Opera/Mozartists Mozart 250 project has been underway for four years, with a number of successful recordings and events already under their belt. This (rather delayed) review of a double CD set released in May 2018 takes us back to the beginning of the project: the ‘Mozart in London’ Festival weekend of events at Milton Court in February 2015. The weekend included talks, discussions and concerts over a three-day period. My review of two of those events can be found here. Several other Mozart 250 reviews are here. The ‘250’ of the title refers to the years since Mozart’s childhood visit to London (23 April 1764), during which he composed his first significant works. The plan is to “follow the chronological trajectory of Mozart’s life, works and influences”, culminating in 2041, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s death. These two CDs were recorded live during the various concerts of the 2015 weekend. They are an impressive record (quite literally) of the start of one of the most impressive and ambitious musical projects of our time. Continue reading →

Mozart: Grabmusik & Bastien und Bastienne

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Mozart: Grabmusik & Bastien und Bastienne
Classical Opera, Ian Page
Signum Classics, SIGCD547. 66’24

Mozart:<em>Grabmusik</em> and <em>Bastien und Bastienne</em> K.50; Classical Opera

This recording is almost certainly the first performance of Mozart’s original setting of Bastien und Bastienne since its original (and only) performance at the home of the person who commissioned it 250 years ago in 1768 – Dr Franz Mesmer, of mesmerism fame. The opening Grabmusik is also given in its original 1767 form, lacking a final recitative and chorus added in the 1770s. Both works are examples of Classical Opera and The Mozartists pioneering Mozart 250 project which, between 2015 and 2041, will explore the music that was written by Mozart and his contemporaries exactly 250 years earlier. Grabmusik & Bastien und Bastienne represent the years 1767/8, when Mozart was 11/12 years old. Continue reading →

Haydn: Applausus

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Haydn: Applausus: Jubilaeum Virtutis Palatium
The Mozartists, Ian Page
Cadogan Hall, 15 March 2018

In what was almost certainly the first live UK performance of Haydn’s Applausus Cantata (Jubilaeum Virtutis Palatium, Hob XXIVa:6), the Mozartists (the concert-performing wing of Classical Opera) opened the 2018 season of their ambitious Mozart 250 project. This started in 2015, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s visit to London where, incidentally, he stayed not far from the Cadogan Hall in Ebury Street, and wrote his first symphony, aged 8. The aim is to annually explore the music written by Mozart and his contemporaries exactly 250 years previously.

IMG_20180315_174251159_HDR.jpg

In 1768, this year’s focus, Mozart was 12 years old and Haydn 36 and well settled into the princely Esterházy court where he directed most of the musical life of the court. He received an invitation from the wealthy Abbey of Zwettl, about 120km west-north-west of Vienna to write an ‘applausus‘ cantata to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their abbot Rainer Kollmann, first taking his monastic vows. Although composed in quasi-operatic style, with a series of accompanied recitative leading up to da capo arias, a duet, quartet and a final chorus, there is no plot in any operatic or literal sense. The four Cardinal Virtues of Temperance, Prudence, Justice and Fortitude sing the praises of the Abbot in a convoluted Latin libretto, probably written by one of the monks. A personification of Theology/Wisdom moderates some of their utterances. I am sure the text meant something to the 17th-century monks of Zwettl, but I found its vaguely moralistic meanderings completely incomprehensible. The repeated references to a ‘Palace’ perhaps reflected the wealth of the monks of Zwettl, whose medieval Abbey buildings had been thoroughly reconstructed in the Baroque style a few decades earlier, complete with one of the largest and most expensive organs in Austria (1731, Egedacher) – all still existing. “How blessed I am to be an inhabitant of this building!’ is one of Prudence’s utterings, to which Justice notes that “our Palace is celebrated in the eyes of the highest”. So that’s all right then! Continue reading →

Mozart 250: 1768 – a retrospective

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Mozart 250: 1768 – a retrospective
The Mozartists, Ian Page, Chiara Skerath
Wigmore Hall. 23 January 2018

Classical Opera’s ambitious ‘Mozart 250’ project is now in its fourth year. The project started in 2014, taking its title from the number of years since Mozart’s childhood visit to London (1764) when he composed his first significant works. The project aims to “follow the chronological trajectory of Mozart’s life, works and influences”, by performing annual concerts and operas based on the music composed 250 years earlier, culminating in 2041, the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s death. The Mozartists (the concert-performing wing of Classical Opera) opened the 2018 incarnation of the project with an insight into the music that was composed in 1768, the year that Mozart turned 12. It wasn’t a good year for him. It started with his recovery from smallpox and continued with rejection from the Viennese musical coterie, who prevented the production of Mozart’s first opera, La finta semplice. Classical Opera performed this later this year, as well as his Bastien und Bastienne.  Continue reading →

Classical Opera @ 20

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Classical Opera 20th Birthday Concert
Orchestra and Choir of The Mozartists, Ian Page
The Barbican. 9 October 2017

Classical Opera was founded in 1997 and has carved out an important place in the musical world for its exploration of music of the classical era, in particular, Mozart. He is the inspiration for their ambitious Mozart 250 project, a chronological exploration of Mozart’s life, works and influences that each year will explore the music of Mozart and his contemporaries exactly 250 years previously. Now joined by a companion branding as The Mozartists, their name for increasing concert, rather than opera work, they celebrated their 20th birthday with a spectacular concert in London’s Barbican. The opening sequence of pieces, interspersed with reading, focussed on themes of “birth and rebirth, compassion and forgiveness, human inspiration and . . . what Beethoven and Schiller called brotherhood”.  Continue reading →