Harmoniemusiken

So-called Harmoniemusik was at its most popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Whenever a musical backdrop was required for open-air festivities or a noble banquet, a wind octet was usually recruited, consisting of two oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, perhaps with the addition of double bass or contrabassoon to reinforce the bass. Arrangements of famous works were particularly popular - for example, Haydn's 'The Creation'. Today, however, there is also Haydn-related harmony between Esterházy Palace and the Vienna Konzerthaus, when 300 people come together in Eisenstadt in June 2022 to rehearse for a week with Heinz Ferlesch and the Wiener Singakademie for a large-scale sing-along performance of 'The Creation' in Vienna. This concert evening in the Haydnsaal is the thematic prelude - with Harmoniemusik by Haydn, Georg Druschetzky, and Mozart's great, truly imperial wind serenade KV 388, which the composer himself called 'Night Music': magnificent, solemn wind sounds, most likely written for the ensemble of the Vienna imperial court.