2006 is the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth.  As a prelude to the celebrations we bring together two of his late masterpieces, the Symphony no. 40 in G minor K550 (1788) and the Clarinet Concerto in A major K622 (1791).  They are contrasted with earlier and less familiar works, including the beautiful Concertante for two flutes, two oboes and two bassoons that Mozart extracted from his Posthorn Serenade K320 (1779), the remarkable Adagio and Fugue in C minor K546 (1788), and the light-hearted Divertimento in Eb major K252 (1776) for a sextet of wind instruments.

Colin Lawson is one of the most distinguished exponents of period clarinets in the world, and has performed a number of times at the Festival.  He plays the Mozart concerto on the clarinet for which it was originally conceived: a type of instrument with an extended bass range invented by Anton Stadler, Mozart’s favourite clarinettist and the person for whom the concerto was written.