DIVE IN: Mozart, Haydn & More

Mozart loved dancing, and it is claimed by historians that “his taste lay in that art rather than music”. As such, Mozart composed a considerable amount of dance music throughout his career. The Six Contredances (country dances) seem to have been composed for domestic use, so it is likely that Mozart himself danced to them!

Haydn’s Symphony No.47 takes its nickname from its third movement, titled “Menuetto al Roverso e Trio al Roverso”. In this Minuet and Trio, the second half of each melody is the same as the first, only backwards. The Symphony was a particular favourite of Mozart’s, a notorious jokester himself, who would have appreciated Haydn’s ingenuity in the aforementioned movement. This Symphony is the basis for the palindromic design of this program, whose second half is a mirror of its first.