• Home
• Concerts
• Concerts 2025

The performers of the concert, with Tatu Ahola substituting for Louna Hosia

Thu 7.8.2025 klo 18
The German Church, Helsinki

Fri 8.8.2025 klo 18
Annala Villa, Helsinki

Tue 12.8.2025 klo 20
Järvenpää Church, Järvenpää

Mozart and the Friends of the Baltic Sea

Crusell–Kraus–Mozart

FiBO Players:
  Pauliina Fred, traverso
  Minna Kangas, violin
  Juha-Pekka Koivisto, violin
  Laura Kajander, viola
  Tatu Ahola, cello

The Baltic Sea, which today is an important conservation area, has for hundreds of years been an interesting geo-political area. Besides vikings, Hansa ships, trade and warfare the area can also be associated with music. Bernhard Henrik Crusell, born in Uusikaupunki (1775-1838), and German Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792) worked for the court of Gustav III in Stockholm. At the time both of them were already famous composers. Among Kraus’ ten string quartets, six of them were published in Berlin in 1784. During a trip to Vienna, Kraus met Haydn, but he didn’t have time to get acquainted with the composition styles Mozart and Haydn used in their quartets, but with the contemporary (for that time) Sturm und Drang style. 

At the age of 17, the mostly self-learned Crusell got permanent employment as a clarinetist at the royal court chapel of Stockholm. To compose he learned in Paris. The Divertimento for oboe or traverso and the string quartet Crusell composed in 1823 at the end of this career when he was the highest paid musician at the court chapel.

”The instrument I cannot stand” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote to his father and meant the flute. However, he admired the fantastic flutist of the court orchestra of Mannheim, J.B. Wendling, which potentially had a positive impact on the birth and quality of Mozart’s flute quartets. Mozart didn’t finish all his promised commissioned flute pieces (two concertos and three quartets) in time and was sanctioned with only half the salary. His father rebuked through mail, and the son answered once again: ” […] you know how powerless I become when I am forced to compose for an instrument which I cannot stand.”

The chamber music arrangements of operas were very popular during the turn of the 18th and 19th century. The trio arrangement of the opera The Magic Flute is Mozart’s own work, but he didn’t do it out of free will: ”I have received an unpleasant assignment to arrange my opera for wind instruments by next Sunday. If I don’t do it, someone else will do it for me and collect the profit for themselves”, Mozart wrote to his father on July 20, 1782. 

Duration: 1 h (no intermission)