Haydn–Mozart with Gérard Korsten

We are pleased to announce that the series presenting the music of the two Viennese masters continues, with Gérard Korsten returning to the BFO after 2024, once again to conduct pieces by Haydn and Mozart. Korsten, who is known for his dynamic temperament and uncompromising attitude towards sound quality, will focus this time on the horns. Depths and heights, lyricism and virtuosity, singing and fireworks, hunting and a serenade, all conveyed by the horns. It seems that Viennese classicism was full of horn virtuosos, as will be captivatingly illustrated not only by the horn concertos listed on the program but also by the two other pieces, in which Haydn and Mozart each included four horns. The soloist for the concertos will be Alessio Allegrini, who has been the principal horn of several ensembles, from La Scala Orchestra to the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic.

When two new horn players were added to the court orchestra of Miklós Esterházy, suddenly, the ensemble had four horns. This made it somewhat unique, so Haydn seized the opportunity and composed a symphony in which these instruments were given a leading role. In Haydn’s humorous first movement, the quartet performs a concerto-style conversation with the orchestra. In the intimate slow movement, which is built on a dialogue between the solo violin and the flute, the horns are silent. However, the four players return in the minuet to echo one another. In the variations of the finale, which has a moderate tempo, several instruments get the spotlight before the symphony concludes with a surprisingly wild, fast coda.

“Wolfgang Amadé Mozart takes pity on Leutgeb, ass, ox, and simpleton.” So reads the mock dedication of Mozart’s horn concerto. The famous horn player of the era, Joseph Leutgeb, first met the young Mozart in Salzburg. Later, Mozart dedicated several of his horn concertos to him. The one composed first but numbered as the second pays tribute in several of its parts to Leutgeb’s legendary ability to make the instrument seem to sing. These sections include the opening movement, with its inexhaustible melodic wealth and sudden shift into a minor key, the slow movement, with its song-like or even aria-like lyricism, as well as the joyous and playful finale, which conjures the atmosphere of the hunt.

While some scholars argue that Haydn’s horn concerto was composed for Joseph Leutgeb, others contend that it was dedicated to Thaddäus Steinmüller. The latter was hired by Haydn himself for the orchestra of the Esterházy court. Steinmüller played beautifully in the instrument’s middle and upper registers, and indeed, aside from a few sustained, coloristic low notes, the piece is filled with melodies that shimmer in the high range. The first movement is permeated by an ascending motif, while the middle movement is a solemn, measured dialogue between the soloist and the strings. In the bright, free-spirited finale, short musical gestures, ornaments, and rapid harmonic turns take center stage.

Between the ages of thirteen and twenty-three, Mozart composed twenty divertimentos. Some of them were meant for concert halls, while others follow the tradition of serenades and were written for outdoor performance. Divertimento No. 2, which rather unusually has four horn parts, belongs to the latter group. After the dramatic beginning, the opening movement turns more playful, giving way to a pastoral section for strings, which is in turn followed by a minuet with three trios. The fourth movement, which focuses on the flute and violin, has a moderate tempo that is unusual for Mozart, and then, after another minuet, the divertimento concludes with a fast finale with a slow introduction by the horns.