Chamber Music Matinee 6

In their last but one chamber music matinee, the musicians of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra return to Vienna, or to be precise, to Viennese classical music and two exquisite gems of chamber music. They are exquisite not least because both Mozart and Beethoven composed only one work for this instrumentation of piano, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Mozart held his quintet, composed in 1784, in especially high regard and he himself took part in a performance for his fellow composer, the Italian Giovanni Paisiello. Beethoven must also have admired this work, as his own quintet of 1796 not only adopts Mozart’s instrumentation, but also follows this grand example in every detail of its formal structure, beginning with the slow introduction to the first movement. In addition, he smuggles echoes of one of the most popular melodies from Mozart’s «Don Giovanni»into his quintet, namely Zerlina’s aria «Batti, batti, o bel Masetto» ‒ in the slow movement, as if he wanted to show the Viennese music world that he had seriously accepted Mozart’s artistic legacy. Lucky Vienna!