Musica Viva celebrates when winds of change blew through Vienna

Mozart and Beethoven host a delightful night in Vienna for Musica Viva enthusiasts.

Nicola Boud, Erin Helyard and Simon Cobcroft performing in Musica Viva's concert. Picture: Alex Jamieson

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The two decades in which Mozart’s and Beethoven’s lives overlapped in the late 18th century saw dramatic technological developments that expanded their musical universe.

The delicate sound of the harpsichord, suitable for a small salon, gradually gave way to the new fortepiano which could reach a larger audience and be heard over an orchestra, and the simple baroque clarinet with its two keys which had evolved into the five-key modern version, was further expanded in the bass register by the development of the basset horn.

Mozart got his friend and instrument maker Theodor Lotz to build the beast – so long that it was bent at an angle so the lower notes could be easily played – and he used it in several works including his Requiem and the opera The Magic Flute.

The expanded sound world of these “new” instruments was beautifully demonstrated in the closing concert of the latest Musica Viva tour featuring three Australian artists – Belgium-based clarinetist Nicola Boud, cellist Simon Cobcroft and keyboardist Erin Helyard.

Boud introduced the basset horn for the first piece of the night, Beethoven’s Sonata for Fortepiano and Horn Op 17, a three-movement work of great charm and nuance with plenty of lithe and athletic runs for both musicians. Helyard, who is artistic director of Pinchgut Opera and a frequent early music collaborator, was playing a fortepiano made in the Czech Republic and based on a 1796 original instrument by Viennese maker Anton Walter.

Cobcroft, recently appointed as Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s assistant principal cellist, joined Helyard for Beethoven’s set of variations on the aria A Girl of a Little Wife from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a nine-minute workout in which the cello’s many moods and singing qualities are exploited to the full.

The first half closed with Mozart’s Kegelstatt Trio, supposedly named after the skittle game that the composer often played, featuring Boud on historic clarinet, the instrument’s sweet and rounded sound almost gentle but still carrying through the auditorium. Cobcroft’s rich vibrato and light touch on the rapid runs, alongside Helyard’s exquisite pianism, made for an intoxicating performance.

Boud and Cobcroft opened the second half with an Aria and Variations that Beethoven composed as a 20-year-old around the time that Mozart died. Boud carried off the acrobatic passages with great breath control in question and answer form to Cobcroft’s sensitive and nuanced bowing.

Helyard demonstrated the fortepiano’s “transparent” qualities – bassoon-like bass and silvery treble – in one of Mozart’s best-loved piano sonatas, the No 11, famous for its Turkish march rondo finale. He wrote it for his pupils when Austria’s war with the Ottomans put an end to public concerts but it’s far from simple, requiring great dexterity in its outer movements.

The instrument’s more meaty flavours were on the table for the final work of the night, Beethoven’s Gassenhauer Piano Trio, with its famous last movement of variations on a street song which was popular in Vienna near the turn of the century.

Here was a performance with precise ensemble work from three musicians at the top of their game working in perfect synchronicity. And that catchy tune at the end left the audience whistling into the winter night.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Mozart’s Clarinet: Musica Viva

• WHERE City Recital Hall

• WHEN July 28, 2025