MOZART & STRAUSS

Mozart Adagio & Fugue in C minor K. 546
Mozart Serenade in C minor for Winds K. 388 Nachtmusik
Strauss Metamorphosen

The ICO emerge from darkness into light with Mozart’s C Fugue. The healing Adagio reminiscent of a French overture is filled with bold, expressive progressions whilst the Fugue, rolls on relentlessly to its close. Mozart’s powerful Wind Serenade oozes a new optimism, a celebration, as we as a nation looks to the future, to new beginnings with music that brims with colour, sophistication, and dramatic intensity. Finally, Richard Strauss’s post-war masterpiece Metamorphosen is seen as an impassioned heart cry for the death of German culture. Goethe’s essay On the Metamorphosis of Plants, inspired the title as this ravishing music evokes themes of rebirth, growth, and transformation. There are strong parallels as we emerge from the trauma of Covid with a huge sense of renewal and hope.