Australian Haydn Ensemble On Tour With Mozart’s Horn
September 24 @ 7:00 pm
The Australian Haydn Ensemble presents Mozart’s Horn featuring Carla Blackwood as soloist under Artistic Director and Leader, Skye McIntosh. The production tours to Orange, Canberra, Berry, the Southern Highlands and Lake Macquarie as well as its concert at the Sydney Opera House.
Recreating the sounds-world that Mozart knew, the AHE performs his ‘Jupiter’ and Horn Quintets on instruments that sound as close as possible to those the composer knew and loved. Mozart loved the horn, and the finest player of the day, Joseph Leutgeb, was an old friend of the family. Mozart wrote what would become one of the most enduringly popular horn concertos of all time for his friend. Characterised as a “little love duet” between horn and violin, this work is a joyous expression of their friendship.
The program contains an even more virtuosic Quintet by Mozart’s Dutch contemporary Wilhelm Hauff, and includes the Romance in A major, an arrangement of one of Mozart’s Concerto movements, most likely by his dear and often penniless friend Michael Haydn brother of the more famous Josef.
AHE balances this bright period instrument cornucopia with perhaps the most emotionally troubled work that Mozart ever wrote: the magnificent String Quintet in G minor, a rare dark utterance from a steadfastly undepressed artist. There’s a happy end, of course, with the exuberant energy of the ‘Jupiter’ symphony, here in an historical chamber arrangement by Peter Lichtenthal.
The program: HAUFF Horn Quintet in E flat major/ MOZART Allegro from String Quintet in G minor K. 516/ MOZART Horn Quintet in E flat major K. 407/ MICHAEL HAYDN Romance in A flat major for Horn and String Quartet MH806 (arr. from Mozart’s Horn Concerto)/ MOZART Symphony No. 41 K. 551 ‘Jupiter’ arr. Peter Lichtenthal
Artists
Carla Blackwood – Natural horn/ Skye McIntosh – Artistic Director and violin/ Matthew Greco, violin/Karina Schmitz, viola/
Nicole Divall, viola/Daniel Yeadon, cello
Tour dates: ORANGE Saturday 21 September, 7pm Orange Civic Theatre /CANBERRA Thursday 26 September, 7pm Wesley Uniting Church / BERRY Friday 27 September, 7pm Berry Uniting Church Hall /SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS Sunday 28 September, 4pm Bowral Memorial Hall /LAKE MACQUARIE Sunday 29 September,2pm Rathmines Theatre.
Read our review of The AHE’s recent performance, Beethoven’s Fifth.
Image: Carla Blackwood by Helen White.