The Hallé in Bradford: February 2020

British conductor, Jonathan Nott is Music Director of the Suisse Romande and Tokyo Symphony orchestras, having established a widespread European reputation for exciting music-making. He conducts Mozart’s Symphony No.39, the first and sunniest of the magnificent final symphonic trilogy conceived in a white heat of inspiration during summer 1788. Schubert, while composing his Fifth Symphony, was in thrall of Mozart’s genius, referring to him as ‘O Mozart! Immortal Mozart!’ Like his hero’s music, Schubert’s symphony is imbued with profuse melodic invention. The Hallé’s own Principal Oboe, Stéphane Rancourt, plays Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto, replete with autumnal colours of the great Romantic composer’s so-called Indian summer years.