Following Ian Page’s highly acclaimed ‘Mozart in London’ weekend five years ago, The Mozartists celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s first trip to Italy in 1770 with the first-ever major retrospective of this important and formative year in Mozart’s life. Italy was still widely regarded as the home of opera and, in going there to further his studies, Mozart was following in the footsteps of such esteemed compatriots as Handel, Gluck and Johann Christian Bach. The tour lasted for over a year, culminating in the triumphant premiere of Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan on 26 December 1770.

This concert charts Mozart’s journey from Milan, through Bologna and Florence to Rome. It begins with thrillingly virtuosic arias and a duet from two long-forgotten operas that Mozart heard in Milan in early February 1770, and also includes arguably the best of the symphonies that he wrote in Italy as well as a concert aria now thought to have been composed in Parma for the celebrated soprano Lucrezia Agujari.

During his short stay in Bologna Mozart met Josef Mysliveček, one of very few foreign composers of the time who enjoyed success and popularity in Italy, and the concert includes music from his opera La Nitteti, which evidently had a strong influence on the young Mozart.