Concert Academy: KonsAcademie

A classical program par excellence. Beethoven’s dramatic Coriolan Overture is followed by one of Mozart’s great piano concertos, the Concerto in C minor, K. 491—the 14th of the 17 works in this genre that Mozart composed in Vienna between 1781 and 1791, mostly for his own use—and among them one of the most astonishing and forward-looking. The orchestra’s instrumentation, featuring clarinets, trumpets, and timpani, is the largest Mozart ever used for an instrumental concerto. Beethoven was particularly fond of the piece, performed it often, and drew inspiration from it for his symphonic concertos. After the intermission, the program begins with Beethoven, showcasing his early Romantic style in a melodious violin romance, before Joseph Haydn’s so-called Oxford Symphony—composed in 1789 for Paris and later used as a musical dissertation for his honorary doctorate at Oxford—provides another highlight. “The Art of Contrasts” could be the title of the work; contrasts, of course, that are always woven into a perfect whole with keenly alert mastery.