Mozart and Haydn (22nd November 2026)
Mozart — Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201 (1774)
Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 is one of the jewels of his Salzburg years: youthful, concise, and astonishingly sophisticated for a composer not yet twenty. Written for the small court orchestra he knew intimately, it shows Mozart refining a personal symphonic voice — elegant, transparent, and full of rhythmic vitality.
The scoring is notably lean: oboes, horns, and strings only, with no bassoons or flutes. This gives the symphony its distinctive chamber‑like clarity. The opening Allegro moderato is immediately striking: a poised, quietly confident theme built from upward leaps and crisp, lightly articulated string writing. Mozart’s contrapuntal skill is already fully formed, and the movement’s development section is a miniature masterclass in motivic transformation.
The Andante in D major offers a lyrical contrast, with muted strings creating a warm, veiled sonority while the horns switch to their D crooks. The music unfolds with serene grace, almost like an operatic aria without words. The Menuetto brings the symphony back to earth with rustic charm and rhythmic bite, its Trio offering a more intimate, conversational texture.
The finale is one of Mozart’s most exhilarating early creations: a fleet, sparkling Allegro con spirito driven by rapid string figuration and witty dynamic contrasts. It is music that seems to smile — youthful but never immature, refined yet bursting with energy.
Mozart — Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216 (1775)
Composed just a year after Symphony No. 29, Mozart’s G‑major Violin Concerto is the most frequently performed of his five concertos — and with good reason. It combines elegance, lyricism, and a delightful sense of play, all within a perfectly balanced classical form.
The opening Allegro begins with a graceful orchestral ritornello before the soloist enters with a theme of almost vocal expressiveness. Mozart understood the violin as a singing instrument, and much of the concerto feels operatic: phrases breathe naturally, cadences feel conversational, and the interplay between soloist and orchestra resembles characters exchanging lines on stage.
The Adagio is one of Mozart’s most sublime slow movements. Set in D major, it unfolds as a long, serene cantilena for the solo violin, supported by the gentlest orchestral accompaniment. The writing is intimate, almost introspective — a moment of stillness at the heart of the concerto.
The finale is a spirited Rondeau, full of humour and rhythmic sparkle. Its famous “Strasbourg” episode — a rustic dance motif Mozart may have borrowed from folk sources — adds a touch of earthy charm to the otherwise courtly elegance. The movement’s quicksilver shifts of character give the soloist ample opportunity for wit, agility, and expressive nuance.
Haydn — Symphony No. 45 in F‑sharp minor, “Farewell” (1772)
Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony is one of the most imaginative and humanly expressive works of the entire classical era. Written during Haydn’s tenure at the Esterházy court, it was part of a campaign — gently diplomatic, musically ingenious — to persuade Prince Nikolaus Esterházy to allow his musicians to return home after an extended stay at the remote Esterháza palace.
The symphony’s key, F‑sharp minor, was highly unusual at the time and immediately signals emotional intensity. The opening Allegro assai is restless and dramatic, full of syncopations and sudden dynamic contrasts. The music seems to push against its own boundaries, embodying the “Sturm und Drang” aesthetic that Haydn explored in the early 1770s.
The Adagio offers a moment of lyrical relief, though its beauty is tinged with melancholy. The Menuetto returns to the symphony’s darker world, its angular lines and minor‑key harmonies creating a sense of unresolved tension.
The finale is where Haydn’s theatrical imagination takes centre stage. After a vigorous opening section, the music unexpectedly shifts into a slow, contemplative Adagio. One by one, players extinguish their candles, pack away their instruments, and leave the stage. By the final bars, only two muted violins remain, fading into silence. The message to the Prince was unmistakable — and it worked. The musicians were allowed to go home.
Beyond its famous ending, the “Farewell” Symphony is a profound and emotionally complex work: dramatic, inventive, and deeply humane.
A unifying thread
Although written within just a few years of one another, these three works show Mozart and Haydn exploring very different facets of the emerging classical style. Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 and Violin Concerto K. 216 radiate youthful elegance and effortless melodic invention, while Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony probes darker emotional territory and uses musical form as a vehicle for real‑world communication. Together, they offer a portrait of the 1770s as a period of extraordinary creativity — a moment when the symphony and concerto were being shaped into the forms we recognise today.
Children’s Concert (6th December 2026)
Howard Blake — The Snowman (1982)
The Snowman first appeared in 1978 as a picture book, without words, by Raymond Briggs. It tells the story of a boy who builds a snowman which comes to life that night at the stroke of twelve. Howard Blake’s musical setting of this story is a modern classic, cherished for its warmth, simplicity, and imagination. He traces the boy’s magical journey with the Snowman, moving from playful, lightly dancing motifs to the serene beauty of Walking in the Air, beautifully sung in this performance by three pupils of Orchard House School.
We’re walking in the air
We’re floating in the moonlit sky;
The people far below
Are sleeping as we fly.
I’m holding very tight,
I’m riding in the midnight blue,
I’m finding I can fly
So high above with you.
On across the world
The villages go by like dreams
The rivers and the hills,
The forests and the streams.
Children gaze open mouthed, taken by surprise;
Nobody down below believes their eyes.
We’re surfing in the air,
We’re swimming in the frozen sky,
We’re drifting over icy
Mountains floating by
Suddenly swooping low on an ocean deep,
Rousing up a mighty monster from his sleep;
We’re walking in the air,
We’re dancing in the midnight sky
And everyone who sees us
Greets as we fly.
Howard Blake
Daniel Whibley — The Bear and the Piano (2015)
Based on David Litchfield’s award‑winning picture book, The Bear and the Piano tells the story of a bear who discovers a piano in the forest and becomes an unexpected musical star. Daniel Whibley’s score captures the tale’s emotional arc — curiosity, discovery, fame, and the pull of home — with vivid orchestral colour and cinematic sweep. The music moves effortlessly between gentle woodland textures and bold, expansive themes, creating a narrative sound‑world that is both touching and uplifting. It is a celebration of creativity, friendship, and the joy of making music.
Past Concerts
An afternoon of Mozart Magic (1st February 2026)
Find full concert programme here.
Vivaldi and Vaughan Williams Concert (23rd November 2025)
Find full concert programme here.
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Antonio Vivaldi’s masterpiece The Four Seasons contains such familiar and well-loved music, it’s easy to overlook just how extraordinary and how radical these four violin concertos are. Vivaldi didn’t invent the Baroque concerto, but he made the three-movement form his own, composing hundreds of them, each one with the stamp of his virtuosity and imagination.
The Four Seasons are special in the way they tell stories with music. In the score, each season is described by a sonnet and the music paints pictures around the words, from birdsong and barking dogs in Spring, sultry heat and thunderstorms in Summer, drunken songs at Autumn harvest time, to shivering cold and cracking ice in Winter. All brought to vivid life through the sounds of a virtuoso violin and a small baroque orchestra.
We are thrilled to have one of West London’s finest musicians, violinist Iwona Boesche, as our soloist and director for The Four Seasons. And lending Italianate authenticity, Father Fabrizio Pesce will be reading from Vivaldi’s sonneti to steer our way through the musical year.
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is a journey in musical time of a quite different kind. Written in 1910 for a multi-layered string orchestra, Vaughan Williams weaves tapestries of sound with variations on a haunting hymn tune by Tudor composer Thomas Tallis. The music exists in a world that is simultaneously ancient and modern, and has become one of Vaughan William’s best loved masterpieces.
Bach Brandenburg Concertos (2nd and 16th February 2025)
by Sandy Burnett
As far as I know, this is the greatest piece of music ever to have been inspired by bumping into someone in a music shop! Sent to Berlin on an errand for his employer in 1719, Johann Sebastian Bach met Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg, who as the youngest son of the Great Elector Frederick William was a fairly big cheese. Bach followed up their encounter by sending the Margrave a musical gift, in the form of these great Brandenburg Concertos, two years later.
Concerto No. 1
Two horns are placed at the top of the score of the first concerto in F major; they enrich the opening music with raucous fanfares, even trampling on the harmonies of the other instruments at times! A violino piccolo provides another scoring twist; it’s a violin tuned a minor third higher than the normal instrument, with a tone that’s a little more piquant. Rounding off the concerto’s first three movements in fast-slow-fast style is a sequence of dances, including a French-style minuet and a Poloinesse or Polish dance.
Concerto No. 2
Bach brings us another surprising front line of instruments in his second concerto. Standing out from the ranks of the ripienists, or ensemble players, are four quite different concertists: trumpet, recorder, oboe and violin. Although the trumpet remains silent in the exquisite central movement, it’s there as a first among equals on either side, the opening movement bouncing along with pulsing quavers and a firm rhythmic grip, and the closer a spectacular fugue that splits its main theme between all four of the protagonists.
Concerto No. 3
This one is very much a string thing, and a chance for Bach to have a lot of fun with numbers. Concerto number three is laid out for three violins, three violas, three cellos and the continuo section, and in three movements; the first of those – the most famous Brandenburg moment of all – grows out of a tiny melodic fragment made up of three (that’s right, three) notes. Striking is the way that Bach invites each of the individual string players to step into the limelight one by one, much as the young Felix Mendelssohn was to do in his great string Octet a century later.
Concerto No. 4
The concerto form was an Italian invention, and the work of Bach’s that stays close to that Italian model is the fourth in the set. Essentially it’s a solo violin concerto, spectacularly agile at times, with added interest from a pair of recorders. Oddly, in the score they are referred to as “fiauti d’echo,” probably so called because Bach asks them to come up with a beautiful echo effect in the reflective middle movement.
Concerto No. 5
Usually the harpsichord played second fiddle (so to speak) to the other instruments in ensemble settings, but in this fifth concerto Bach emancipates the instrument and writes what is in effect the first harpsichord concerto in history, complete with virtuoso moments that are breathtakingly audacious. Nonetheless, it’s just one of three solo instruments in the fifth concerto, the second being the violin, which you might expect in this context, and the third one which you might not. In German ensembles of the 1720s, the transverse flute – elegant, fashionable, and imported from France – was still very much the new kid on the block.
Concerto No. 6
This concerto being number six, the number-loving Bach lays out the music on six lines. Offering his violins the rare chance of a breather, he gives the top lines to two violas, places a pair of old-fashioned viola da gambas in the middle, and writes a semi-independent cello part to go alongside the continuo on the bottom. The central, gamba-free, movement hints at a private world of music being played at home for domestic pleasure. And the closing Allegro begins with the distinctive sound of two violas playing in unison quite high up in their range, a solo opportunity for violas that in the music of this era comes along all too rarely.