3rd Haydneum Eszterháza Festival / Mihály Berecz, Orfeo Orchestra, Attilio Cremonesi

In the age of well-organised state apparatuses and digital recording systems, it is completely natural that our linguistic and cultural identity is primarily determined by the nationality we are born into. However, before the concept of the nation-state emerged in the 19th century, this was not the case at all. For instance, in the 18th century, cultural identity was more typically influenced by the path in life that one chose or was able to choose.

Accordingly, musicians born in Central Europe at that time typically referred to themselves by German or Italian names. German was used because both the musicians in question and their potential employers almost exclusively spoke German as their mother tongue; Italian, on the other hand, was popular as it served as a symbol of the musician profession. This is almost certainly why the active bass player and composer born in the then-German Litomerice area a few years before Mozart, Anton Rösler, called himself Antonio Rosetti. He was a renowned composer, and in Prague, his Requiem was the one to publicly commemorate Mozart’s passing in 1791. On the other hand, Josef Antonín Štěpán, who belonged to Haydn’s generation, pursued a career in Vienna as the harpsichord tutor of archduchesses Maria Carolina and Maria Antonia under the name Joseph Anton Steffan.

Although at the time, they were unlikely to be listed among the greatest works, Rosetti’s witty Symphony in G minor and Štěpán’s virtuosic concert piece both bring to mind the unsettling genius, Mozart, whose figure is unavoidable in the genres of both keyboard concertos and symphonies, and whose 1788 composition, Symphony No. 40 will close today’s programme.