Classical, OAE/Fischer, The Anvil, Basingstoke

Much about Mozarts final trilogy of symphonies remains shrouded in mystery, but we do know that they were composed in a concentrated, six-week burst of creativity in summer 1788. Although he could not have known these that these sublime masterpieces would be his farewell to symphonic form, the coda to the last of them, the Jupiter, does have a feeling of last words, its counterpoint functioning a little like the fugue in Verdis operatic swansong, Falstaff.

Conducting the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Ivn Fischer had a point, then, when he invited the audience to think of these symphonies not as three works of four movements each, but as one canvas divided into 12 movements. Putting the evenings interval in the middle of the Symphony No. 40 in G minor might almost have worked, but only if Fischer hadnt diluted musical tension by encouraging the audience also to applaud each of the twelve movements separately. How many times in one evening should a conductor turn around to grin at the listeners?

The concert started well with the Symphony No 39 in E flat major, the least often heard of the three. Sharing a warmth with other Mozart works in the same key, and its richness enhanced by prominent clarinets, it swept along spaciously. The OAEs natural horns and trumpets had bite, and in the excellent acoustics of The Anvil in Basingstoke just three double basses underpinned everything with a firmly present bass line.

Read more:
An idiosyncractic approach to Mozart from Ivn Fischer and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - Telegraph.co.uk