Barefoot Chamber Concerts (“an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality” – San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events.
We are delighted to kick off Barefoot’s 2023-2024 season with local legends The New Esterházy Quartet (Lisa Weiss and Kati Kyme, violins; Anthony Martin, viola; and William Skeen, violoncello) playing“Other Mozarts”: String Quartets by L Mozart & FX Mozart, Mysliveček, Bologne, Kraus, Arriaga, (and WA Mozart).
The career of Mozart, unlike that of so many other child prodigies, did not fizzle out. Perhaps some credit is due to his father Leopold, who although overbearing, gave his son a solid foundation in the theory and practice of music. Wolfgang's own son Franz Xavier, born just months before his father's death, was tutored in turn by some of the most distinguished musicians the end of the 18th century had to offer, including Dušek, Hummel, Salieri, and Albrechtsberger. The Czech Josef Mysliveček was a close friend of the Mozart family who is mentioned many times in their voluminous correspondence. The multi-talented Caribbean Joseph Bologne, the adopted Swede Joseph Martin Kraus, and the Basque Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga each have been hailed as a reborn Mozart, earning that honorific not only by their compositions but their early deaths.
With the addition of a little-heard early quartet by Wolfgang, we hope that this selection of "Other Mozarts" will intrigue and please our Barefooted audience. The wooden acoustic of the El Cerrito Swedenborgian Church Community Center will provide the perfect setting for this fabulous concert.