Bath Mozartfest

As always, the music of Mozart lies at its heart and we open with the Schumann Quartet, making their Bath debut, playing Mozart’s String Quartet No 15.

There is a wealth of new talent this year as we also have the Consone Quartet, with Kristian Bezuidenhout, and the Carducci String Quartet and Castalian String Quartet for their inaugural Mozartfest performances.

We are delighted to see old friends making return visits, too: Henning Kraggerud (violin), Adrian Brendel (cello) and Imogen Cooper (piano) are all well-known and respected independently, but come together here to play Schubert’s Piano Trios. The Leonore Piano Trio will also make a welcome re-appearance, in a concert including Dvořák’s Piano Trio No 3.

Cédric Tiberghien, also familiar to regular audience members, will be playing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. And Beethoven, as well as Mozart of course, will feature in Jennifer Pike’s concert in the form of his Violin Sonata No 5, Spring.

The Nash Ensemble, the group I founded sixty years ago, will also appear, their programme this year including Ralph Vaughan Williams’ beloved work The Lark Ascending, alongside two Mozart pieces and Mendelssohn’s Octet.

The outstanding German-Romanian baritone Konstantin Krimmel will sing Schubert’s Winterreise, accompanied by Simon Crawford-Phillips, and the latter will appear again with Philip Moore, the acclaimed piano duo including Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in their programme.

Bath Mozartfest has long championed youthful talent setting out on international careers, and we are delighted to include a Saturday morning concert featuring BBC Radio 3 New Generation artists and alumni.

Tenebrae bring to Bath a divine programme of English music from the sixteenth century, and I’m delighted that Sir Mark Elder will be making another visit to Bath, now as the Hallé Orchestra’s Conductor Emeritus. The Hallé’s performance will see Dame Imogen Cooper making the first of two Mozartfest appearances of the week, here playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 27, his final, beautifully poetic work.

The festival will draw to a close with La Nuova Musica and Mozart’s Mass in C minor, known as the Great for good reason.

The end of this Mozartfest will have a special poignancy for me – it will be my last one. It has been a tremendous privilege to be the artistic director of this wonderful festival for more than thirty years, and I am delighted to leave it thriving and in excellent hands. I wish you all a wonderful Mozartfest 2025.

With fondest wishes,
Amelia Freedman CBE, FRAM, Artistic Director