Planet Mozart and his Satellites - Lynne Plummer

Our second meeting of the season saw the return of our friend Lynne Plummer from Cardiff. Lynne gave a highly informative talk on 'Planet Mozart and his Satellites', posing the question 'What was happening musically in Vienna in the mid-late 1700s?' The only composer we hear about is Mozart who was a huge talent but also was relentlessly promoted by his father. The conductor Matthias Bamert, in a recorded interview with Lynne, expressed the view that the received wisdom is that in the Classical period there were three composers (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) and they all lived in the same town. Where were the others? The answer is that they all faded into obscurity as a result of the Mozart publicity machine but many of them deserve to be better known. Lynne presented a range of excellent music from, and potted biographies of, some of Mozart's contemporaries who deserve to be much better known including Johann Vanhal, Ditters von Dittersdorf (both of whom performed at least once in a string quartet with Mozart and Haydn), Johann Stamitz, Ignatz Pleyel, Samuel Wesley (son of Charles Wesley) and Johann Christian Bach (son of J S Bach). With this very entertaining talk, mixing history with great music and recorded interviews, Lynne left us with some interesting new musical avenues to explore.