“Father, you can’t imagine the beauty of the sound of the clarinet”, Mozart wrote to his father, Leopold, in 1778 after attending a concert by the Mannheim orchestra. At the time, the ensemble was one of the first to include this relatively new and little-known instrument in its woodwind section. Seduced by the sound and expressive potential of the clarinet, Mozart dedicated some of his finest works to it, including the poignant Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major K. 622, which he composed a few weeks before his death in 1791.

Performed by the brilliant Italian clarinettist Kevin Spagnolo, first prize winner of the Geneva Competition in 2018, with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, conducted by young Swiss conductor Marc Leroy-Calatayud, this concerto will also feature two of Mozart’s other landmark works: the famous Little Night Music and the tragic and tempestuous 25th Symphony, which he composed shortly before he turned 18. A programme just like Mozart: poetic, brilliant, and dramatic.