And so to autumn, a season of maturing blackberries, blushing leaves and Tyne Consort recitals. There is a real sense of progression to this year‘s programme, from the finery of the European imperial court, to the wild undiscovered spaces of the New World. The contrast could scarcely be greater; yet it is more a happy accident than a grand design. The journey begins with early Mozart, which by definition means young Mozart, very much child as well as prodigy. Fittingly, the E Flat quartet throbs with carefree youthful enthusiasm. Even its A Flat slow movement, positioned between confident, pulsating outer movements full of melodies the composer liked so much he happily re-used later in life, is calm and reassuring, lacking in cynicism. The whole quartet is the Mozart of the popular imagination: enormously likeable and with everything sounding exactly as it should.
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