Lamb & Hayward Curators Series: Mozart Goes to Paris

Darius Milhaud - La Creation du monde
Philip Dadson - Fax to Paris
Philip Glass - Facades
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Symphony No 31 (Paris)

At the age of 22 Mozart had arrived in Paris, eager to impress. His 31st symphony did just that with its radical use of the orchestra, brilliant writing and breathtaking finale. The Parisian audiences clearly loved it and Mozart commented to his father that at the premiere, not only did they applaud between movements to try and encourage encores, but during movements as well.

Philip Dadson, of New Zealand’s groundbreaking percussion ensemble From Scratch, was also hoping to capture the attention of Parisians, but for a very different reason. His miniature Fax to Paris was composed in protest at the continuing French nuclear testing in the Pacific during the 1990s.

Frenchman Darius Milhaud on the other hand left Paris behind to explore the jazz halls of 1920s Harlem, New York, where he found inspiration for what became his ballet score La creation du monde.