The NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra will be led this evening by Joseph Swensen – the orchestra’s former artistic director and a figure well-known to Wrocław audiences. The concert programme features compositions by Luigi Boccherini, Joseph Haydn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, linked by the year when they all were written: 1788.

Although Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca, he spent almost his entire professional life in Spain. He was known not only as a composer but also as a superb virtuoso, considered one of those who significantly elevated the status of the cello. In his chamber works, modelled on Haydn’s works, he empowered this instrument, which until then had traditionally played a very modest role, limited to accompaniment. Boccherini left us twelve cello concertos, as well as violin and flute concertos, some thirty symphonies, sacred works, and a vast trove of chamber music. Among these compositions are also works for guitar – the national instrument of his adopted homeland. Boccherini’s music is characterised by lightness, charm, elegance, and cheerful optimism.

The next piece is Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in E flat major Hob. I:91. It was commissioned by Count d’Ogny for concerts organised by the Concert de la Loge Olympique, considered one of the finest ensembles of its era. For the same circles, the composer had written six “Paris” symphonies. The piece contains one of the most famous musical jokes in history: after a triumphant tutti, it seems the symphony has come to an end, four bars of silence follow, after which the music unexpectedly returns. The light oboe solo then sounds like a mocking comment by the composer, who has deliberately misled the audience. The concert will conclude with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s monumental Symphony No. 41 in C major KV 551 “Jupiter” – his last symphonic work. The symphony’s subtitle was likely given by impresario Johann Peter Salomon. This aptly captures the composition’s radiant and expansive character, which also showcases Mozart’s mastery of counterpoint. In the finale, the composer intertwines five themes simultaneously. Significantly, the idea opening this movement – foreshadowed in the middle section of the minuet – had previously appeared in many other Mozart works. It was first heard in Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, written by the then eight-year-old composer in 1764.