In this concert, we invite you to explore both sides of Mozart’s mercurial nature, and to marvel that a device designed to frighten wolves creates such mellifluous and glowing music.

Mozart loved the horn, and the finest player of the day, Ignaz Leutgeb, was an old friend of the family. Mozart wrote what would become one of the most enduringly popular horn concertos of all time for his friend. Characterised as a “little love duet” between horn and violin, this work is a joyous expression of their friendship.

AHE balances this bright period instrument cornucopia with perhaps the most emotionally troubled work that Mozart ever wrote: the magnificent String Quintet in G minor, a rare dark utterance from a steadfastly undepressed artist.