C2 The Mozarts, the Haydns & the Bear

  • Friday, 28 Apr 2023

  • Fitters' Workshop

    Printers Way, Kingston, ACT 2604

  • In Association with

Families, friends and the musical ties that bind.

The Festival’s Opening Gala presents a classic symphonic feast focussed on three of the 18th century’s most prominent musical families, the Bachs, the Haydns and the Mozarts.

Our musical journey begins in London 1764 and finishes in Paris 1787.

Haydn’s Symphony nr 82, is nicknamed The Bear because of the string effects that commence the last movement and later accompanied the popular entertainment of the Bear Dance. The work is arguably one of his most consistently inventive and punchy orchestral statements, a crowning end to his six Parisian symphonies.

In London 20 years earlier, J.C Bach’s infectiously elegant G Minor Symphony had made its mark. Memories of Handel and the elder Bach were fading among the public and musical tastes had changed, but the Bach family’s rich musical inheritance retained its power.

J.C. Bach, the youngest of J.S. Bach’s 18 children, taught eight-year-old Mozart for a period of five months in London. This influence, and the music of the Haydn brothers, influenced him for the rest of his life.

Both Franz Joseph and Michael had put their stamp on music making across pre-revolutionary Europe and a more personal relationship between Mozart and the Haydns then evolved in Vienna, around the circles of the Masonic Lodge.

Mozart’s own father Leopold was also a teacher of renown, but the relationship became increasingly complicated and often fractious.

Bookended by two great symphonies, showcasing the Australian Haydn Ensemble in full orchestral swing, the concert features some forgotten and even contested works by Michael Haydn and Leopold Mozart.

A selection of glorious Mozart concert arias traces his dramatic aspirations from childhood through to the major operatic statements of his adulthood.

 

Program

J.C. Bach, Symphony Op. 6 No. 6 in G Minor

W.A. Mozart, Concert Arias

  • Aria ‘Va dal furor portata’ K 21
  • Aria buffa “Clarice cara mia sposa”  K. 256
  • Aria Voi avete un cor fedele K 217
  • Aria Misero o sogno – Aura che intorno spiri K431
  • Aria L’ameròsarò costante K 208 from Il Re Pastore

-interval-

Michael Haydn, Overture to Die Hochzeit auf der Alm

Leopold Mozart attr. – Toy Symphony

Joseph Haydn, Symphony nr 82, L’Ours (The Bear)

 

Artists

Australian Haydn Ensemble directed by Skye McIntosh

Andrew Goodwin, tenor

Jacqueline Porter, soprano

Conducted by Roland Peelman

 

This concert is supported by Dianne Anderson AM and Brian Anderson AC

ARTIST Learn more about the artist

Artist Andrew Goodwin

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Andrew Goodwin has appeared with opera companies and orchestras in Europe, Asia and Australia including the Bolshoi Opera, Gran Theatre Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, La Scala Milan, Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, New Zealand, Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Moscow and Melbourne Chamber Orchestras, and in recital with pianist Daniel de Borah at Wigmore Hall, the Oxford Lieder, Port Fairy and Canberra International Music Festivals.

In 2022, Andrew returned to the Canberra International Music Festival and Australian Haydn Ensemble in Haydn’s The Creation, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra for Mozart’s Requiem, and the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for Messiah. Still to come this year, Andrew will perform Messiah with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Mozart’s Requiem with Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, feature at the Tyalgum, Albury Chamber Music and Sanguine Estate festivals, and tour with the new vocal ensemble, AVÉ.

Recent engagements include Lysander, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Adelaide Festival); Jacquino, Fidelio (West Australian Symphony Orchestra); Nadir, The Pearlfishers (State Opera South Australia); Diary of one who disappeared and Rape of Lucretia (Sydney Chamber Opera); Artaxerxes title role (Pinchgut Opera); Mozart Requiem (MSO); Brett Dean’s The Last Days of Socrates (SSO); Messiah (NZSO, QSO and MSO); and performances at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Townsville.

 

Andrew Goodwin is supported by Peronelle and Jim Windeyer

Artist Australian Haydn Ensemble

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Under the direction of Artistic Director Skye McIntosh, the Australian Haydn Ensemble  are one of Australia’s leading historically informed orchestras and chamber music groups. The ensemble brings together world-class musicians who excel in both modern and period instrument performance and who are committed to both historical research and performance. 

The ensemble’s name pays tribute to the great Joseph Haydn, known as ‘Papa Haydn’, who was a central figure of the late 18th century.

The Australian Haydn Ensemble plays on period instruments, meaning instruments that are from the time the music was composed by Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart. Or it can also mean an instrument that is made by a master instrument maker of more modern times, based on older instruments (perhaps now unplayable) as well as scholarship and research. 

Formed in 2012, the group burst onto the Australian music scene with passion, ideas and energy and in 2022 they reached the significant milestone of their ten year anniversary. They bring that same unflagging spirit to everything they undertake as they step forward into their second decade in 2023.