LETTERS AND MOZART

Letters and Mozart is the companion playlist to Resident Artist Concert 6 of PGMF2026: Mozart and Beyond. As the closing concert of the Resident Artist arc, it embodies the encounter “Mozart as Shared Culture.” If earlier concerts in the festival re-hear Mozart through new sound, question Mozart through critique, reactivate Mozart through improvisation, dramatize Mozart through transformation, or hand Mozart to the next generation, this final concert returns Mozart to a world of letters, sociability, chamber music, and lived cultural context.

The concert takes as its centre Divertimento in B-flat major, K.287, also known as the Lodronische Nachtmusik, composed in Salzburg in 1777 for the name day of Countess Maria Antonia Lodron. Around this work stand Mozart’s letters: letters to his father and sister that reveal a composer at once brilliant, dutiful, proud, affectionate, and increasingly restless. In one letter, Mozart speaks of writing a new serenade for Countess Lodron and wanting…