Advent at the Symphony

There is nothing that better highlights the anticipation of Advent than the graceful and warm music of the classical period. From Mozart's opera about Queen Idomeneo comes graceful ballet music that is popular on its own in concert halls around the world, outside the context of the opera. Geirþrúður Anna Guðmundsdóttir performs a solo in the light-hearted D-major cello concerto by another master of the classical era, Joseph Haydn, whose concertos for the instrument are the absolute core works of cello literature and always manage to captivate audiences. 

Rarely performed, however, is a symphony by Marianna Martines, who is generally considered to have been the first woman to compose a symphony. She managed to cultivate her musical talents despite living in the male-dominated world of the eighteenth-century Austrian music scene. Finally, Conductor Matthew Halls conducts Mozart's so-called Linz Symphony, named after the Austrian city, where the composer lived briefly in 1783 and put the city firmly on the world map of music history with this sun-drenched symphony.