A double helping of Haydn today, as we hear two of his mature works either side of a Mozart piano concerto.
We’re delighted to welcome back to the Â鶹ԼÅÄ Philharmonic the cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière and pianist Martin Roscoe as soloists in our concert, along with conductor Ben Gernon.
Joseph Haydn wrote his D major Cello Concerto in 1783 during his highly productive 30-year tenure as music director to the Esterházy family. It then lay forgotten for over a century, and interest was only reignited in the Concerto in 1951 when Haydn’s manuscript reappeared.
Haydn has often been dubbed the ‘father of the symphony’ and his joyous Symphony No. 62, which we hear today, was written a couple of years prior to the Cello Concerto. Its genius is infectious and it was a work that his friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart loved.
While Haydn was extremely prolific, Mozart astonished and astounded listeners from a very young age. In 1784, just after Haydn had finished the Symphony that ends our programme, the 28-year-old Mozart composed no fewer than six piano concertos, amongst them No. 18 in B flat (K 456), music of great brilliance but also deeply touching too.