Mozart Day 1 - Opening concert

All musicians are, without exaggeration, eternally beholden to Mozart, bassoonists in particular, since they owe a debt of thanks to him for the most popular concerto composed for their woodwind instrument. Bálint Mohai, principal instrumentalist of Concerto Budapest and an artist with a whole series of concert wins and festival appearances on his CV, is soloist for the Bassoon Concerto in B-flat major written by the 18-year-old genius in early summer 1774. There is no doubt that the second movement of the concerto anticipates one of the melodies of The Marriage of Figaro, which was written a decade later: the aria beginning “Porgi, Amor” introducing the countess. The programme of the opening concert continues with an excerpt from The Marriage of Figaro, only this time with the gem of Cherubino’s aria performed on stage to the Countess and Susanna, that is, with the “Voi che sapete” almost like an attraction within the plot of the opera. Then, after the stormy adolescent confession of the count’s page (breeches role), Andrea Rost, Kossuth and Prima Primissima Prize-winner, prepares to sing an aria projecting a different tone: the agitated song of Donna Anna from the first act of Don Giovanni, so that as the third aria of the night, the melancholy entree of the countess, the afore-mentioned “Porgi, Amor”, may also feature on stage. In the closing stage of the concert, Gábor Takács-Nagy – who was awarded the Prima Primissima Prize just a few months ago – conducts the Symphony in G minor, number 25, which bears the sobriquet ‘little' to facilitate differentiation of Mozart's No. 40 symphony in the same key: after all, both compositions enjoy considerable popularity and a near-cult following. In the case of the ‘little’ Symphony in G minor composed in October 1773 when the genius was just 17, this fact is fully on show in that an excerpt of the work’s first movement can be heard in the opening moments of Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus.