Mozart & The Joker — Program Notes Snapshot

I compare Mozart’s compositions to a gold snuffbox, manufactured in Paris, and Haydn’s to one finished off in London

– Emperor Joseph II, Vienna, Spring 1786

This program is a celebration of the originality, wit and good humour of one of the Classical Era’s most sentinel figures, Franz Joseph Haydn, and 2009 marks two hundred years since his death at the end of May 1809, in the Viennese suburb of Gumpendorf, with the advancing guns of Napoleon booming in the background.

Like a mischievous clown flouting stagecraft, peeping out between the curtains at the audience – even giving a silly wave – before the house lights are dimmed and the show officially begins, Haydn needs only to 'peep out' waving a musical theme in order to give the listener a feeling that tends towards the comical. Take for instance the theme in the last movement of our Symphony. In gigue rhythm, its tempo is so quick that to even attempt to dance, however, would guarantee a complete tangle of legs and bodies falling in an hilarious heap on the floor – while the oboes give a silly wave with a twee “Cuc-koo”!

Full Program Notes will available be at the venue, complimentary to all ticket holders.