Mozart and more - Lammermuir Festival

My colleague James Waters’s passion for the Mozart wind serenades has to be satisfied. One of these days we’ll find a way of doing the famous ‘Gran Partita’ Serenade for 13 winds. If you remember the movie version of ‘Amadeus’ you’ll recall the sublime slow movement that makes Salieri (played by F Murray Abraham) realise that this young hooligan Mozart is a genius he just can’t compete with. This year we’ve got another of Mozart’s marvellous wind serenades – the one in E flat, K375 – played by eight top wind players from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly RSAMD) and led by one of our finest clarinettists, the RSNO’s John Cushing. Dunbar Parish Church is the venue. Perched on a rise overlooking the North Sea, this spacious victorian church has just the right acoustic for wind music, though it must be a windy place to get to in the depths of winter! The Stevenson Winds of the RCS play this wonderful piece plus more Mozart and pieces by Beethoven, Weber and Stravinsky on Wednesday, September 21.

Hugh Macdonald – Director, Lammermuir Festival