Mozart’s World: A Little Night Music
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Kati Debretzeni, director, Katherine Spencer, clarinet
The Anvil, Basingstoke. 20 January 2026
Kati Debretzeni
Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga: Overture in F minor Op. 1 (1817)
Mozart: Clarinet concerto
Michael Haydn: Divertimento in G (1780)
Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is opening its 40th anniversary year with a short tour of a fascinating programme that, in inevitable OAE style, merges well-known pieces with little-known gems. They started their tour in the excellent acoustic of Basingstoke’s Anvil concert hall, a space that, although large, coped with the modest chamber-sized band with an appropriate intimacy. The three composers were linked by time, birthdays and friendship. Two of Mozart’s best-known pieces were balanced by music from his friend Michael Haydn and the extensively monikered Basque composer, Juan Crisóstomo Jacobo Antonio de Arriaga y Balzola, born in Bilbao 50 years to the day after Mozart. He was known as the ‘Spanish Mozart’ in honour of his prodigious talent, the birthdate link, and his tragically early death, just before his 20th birthday. Another link, which the concert organisers may not have noticed, is that both Arriaga and Mozart shared the same first two baptismal names (based on their birthdays being the feast of St. John Chrysostom, although Mozart’s first names of Joannes Chrysostomus didn’t last much beyond baptism.
Edward Armitage: The Remorse of Judas, 1866. Tate Britain
In sharp contrast to the situation in, of all places, the Musicians’ Church, Heath Street Baptist Church in Hamstead is one of many London churches that have actively embraced music and musicians, running a regular series of lunchtime concerts as well as occasional musical festivals, the latter recently under the title of Baroquestock in food-related weekend festivals. Their latest Baroquestock weekend includes concerts by Spiritato and Istante Classical, the latter including Haydn’s La Poule Symphony to the accompaniment of BBQ chicken. Their opening event was a performance of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, to the culinary accompaniment of, you’ve guessed – Schoenbergers! 
the sons of his brother Egitto, King of Egypt. As it happened, Danao had 50 daughters, so married them all off to his nephews with the instruction that they must all murder their husbands on their wedding night. With one exception, Danao’s plan worked, the exception being his daughter Hipermestra and her new husband Linceo, who had fallen for each other. The subsequent plot of Cavalli’s 1658 opera is based on the complex series of events that occurred after the 50 potential murderous nephews were now reduced to a more manageable one. 
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 