Koopman

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The Comunale’s new 2026 symphonic season opens to the sound of a march of chivalric flavour. It is the beginning of the Serenata notturna K. 239, written 250 years ago by a Mozart of twenty, already in complete command of that language at once elevated and delightful, able to reconcile the playful and the serious, the brilliant and the composed. And in this joyful concession to Salzburg society — from which the composer would later flee to seek his fortune in Vienna — there are still echoes of the Baroque concerto grosso: a string quartet (two violins, viola, double bass) set against the «ripieno» of strings and timpani. A game of angles full of humour, with surprising effects of colour.

For Mozart 1778 was a watershed year, marked by the disastrous trip to Paris in which professional failure was compounded by the death of his mother. The return to Salzburg, back on Archbishop Colloredo’s payroll, tasted of defeat. But the artistic reaction was prodigious: in a few months came the Sinfonia concertante K. 364, the Concerto for two pianos K. 365 and the Coronation Mass, destined not for a sovereign but for the feast of an image of the Virgin venerated at Maria Plain, near Salzburg. In this sacred work of 1779 one already senses Mozart’s fatal attraction to the theatre, sealed soon afterwards by Idomeneo. And for anyone who enjoys following the strange journey of certain musical ideas, listen to the opening theme of the Agnus Dei, direct parent of «Dove sono i bei momenti», one of the most beautiful arias of the future Nozze di Figaro.
Franz Joseph Haydn

«Without Haydn the world would be poorer», the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler once said. He was not exaggerating. Certainly without the London symphonies it would be hard to imagine Beethoven and the later development of the symphony. The «Military», so named for the martial tone that breaks the regular gait of the second movement, is a masterpiece of serene and masterly writing, a necessary point of comparison for every composer who came after — symphonist, opera composer or writer of pure entertainment. One need only think of certain passages already unmistakably typical of the future marches of Johann Strauss I, where the military tone is shot through with irresistible veins of irony.
Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Comunale di Bologna