Australian Haydn Ensemble On Tour With Mozart’s Horn

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.