Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K.183

“Dunque sperar poss’io… Il tenero momento” from Lucio Silla, K.135

“Ah se a morir mi chiama” from Lucio Silla, K.135

Paisiello:

“Dileguatevi dal core” from Sismano nel Mogol

Mozart:

Symphony No. 23 in D major, K.181

“Exsultate, jubilate”, K.165

The Mozartists 

Ian Page conductor

MOZART 250 explores the chronological trajectory of the composer’s life, music and influences, presenting across a 27-year span the music that he and his contemporaries were writing and performing 250 years previously.

1773 was a significant year in Mozart’s evolution, and this concert is framed by two works that are often considered to be his earliest masterpieces. The thrusting syncopations that open his darkly dramatic Symphony No. 25 gained popular recognition when they accompanied the opening credits of Milos Forman’s 1984 film of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, and the entire work displays all the tempestuous characteristics of the ‘Sturm und Drang’ movement that was sweeping through Europe at the time.

The Symphony No. 23 in D major, by contrast, is full of Italianate sunshine, and its three short movements unfold continuously without a break. The inclusion of trumpets in the outer movements lends the music a majestic grandeur, while the lilting middle movement features a meltingly lyrical oboe solo.

The rest of the programme features music written for the celebrated castrato Venanzio Rauzzini. He created the role of Cecilio in Mozart’s Lucio Silla, which was premièred at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on 26 December 1772 and ran for a total of 26 performances. It was eventually replaced by Paisiello’s Sismano nel Mogol, which opened on 30 January 1773 with Rauzzini again playing a leading role. Mozart and his father attended the première, and must have enjoyed it, for they attended another performance shortly afterwards. Our concert features outstanding arias from both operas, and the Paisiello will be a UK première (possibly even the first time it has been performed anywhere since the 18^th century).

The concert concludes with the famous “Exsultate, jubilate”, which Mozart composed for Rauzzini within a few days in January 1773. Nowadays this hugely popular work is invariably sung by a soprano (as it was in our Wigmore Hall concert last January), and the top C on the last movement’s final ‘Alleluja’ has become almost compulsory, but Mozart never wrote it. Indeed, nowhere in the piece – nor in the roles written for Rauzzini in Lucio Silla or Sismano nel Mogol – was Rauzzini required to sing that high, and our performance will offer a rare opportunity to hear the work sung (without the top C) by a mezzo-soprano, mirroring Rauzzini’s own range more precisely.

“Dunque sperar poss’io… Il tenero momento” from Lucio Silla, K.135

Ann Hallenberg, Ian Page/The Mozartists

Wigmore Hall
36 Wigmore St
London
W1U 2BP
https://wigmore-hall.org.uk/