MOZART'S SINFONIA CONCERTANTE

Britten Sinfonia’s principal players take the lead in a programme that is framed by two works with something of the night about them. The last part of Haydn’s baroque- around-the-clock triptych of symphonies – morning, midday, evening - melds the collective virtuosity of a Corelli concerto grosso with the wit and panache of his later symphonies and features a storm that echoes Vivaldi at his most pictorial. Schoenberg was eventually to take music into the modern age, but his early works belong to the Romantic century – the nineteenth. This poetry-inspired masterpiece is fuelled by passion, tenderness and is soaked in gorgeous string textures and harmonies. The subject matter sounds Wagnerian, and so does much of the music – a sumptuous instrumental mini-drama.