Welcome to Mozart’s Jupiter by Heart at the Southbank Centre, and into the heart of the orchestra. Today we continue to explore the question: what can we do with an orchestra playing from memory?
Sunday 28 June 2026, Royal Festival Hall
Once you have a group of 40 musicians with music in their heads there are so many possibilities for how you can then share this music with different people. It has always struck me that Aurora’s memorised projects create incredibly flexible musicians and today’s performances of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony are all about taking the potential that holds and seeing what we can do. We hope you feel more connected to Mozart’s brilliant music as a result.”
Jane Mitchell, Artistic Director
What are you listening to?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Symphony No. 41, ‘Jupiter’
I. Allegro Vivace
II. Andante cantabile
III. Menuetto. Allegretto. Trio.
IV. Molto allegro
With introductions to the music by Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon and Aurora’s players.
The context of Mozart’s writing
It’s very likely Mozart never heard his final symphony. Certainly he never learnt of its popular nickname, ‘Jupiter’, which is thought to have been bestowed on the work in the nineteenth century by London impresario Johann Peter Salomon. The title is apt enough, though, for a piece of music as spirited and triumphant as the Roman god himself. The circumstances in which Mozart composed the work were however far from joyful. The composer completed his last three symphonies in just nine weeks over the summer of 1788 amid a period of terrible strife in his personal life: Mozart found himself contending with the death of his six-month-old daughter, caring for his sick wife while struggling with his own ill health, and beset with financial difficulties. Yet the symphony he produced rings with jest, pathos, technical complexity and an unabashed exuberance; it is an astonishing conclusion to his symphonic output.
How do Aurora’s performers memorise?
Alexandra Wood, co-leader of Aurora Orchestra, first gave a memorised performance of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony with the orchestra some ten years ago. She describes the experience then as ‘monumental and somewhat terrifying’ but having since memorised ‘bigger pieces like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, it is now less daunting. I love the energy and the buzz of performing from memory. It certainly adds another layer of excitement and I think that comes across to the audience. I also enjoy the physical freedom it allows us – to really move as we play and interact with the other players.’
Asked how she goes about memorising such a work, Wood reflects that for her the key is ‘to approach the piece in a number of different ways and from many angles. Lots of listening is important, so that the music feels lived in, and I then repeat small sections, looking for patterns or indeed pivotal moments when a pattern suddenly changes. Once I can manage big chunks, I try to piece the sections together and at a certain point that becomes a full play-through, karaoke-style, with a recording.’
What to listen out for
The symphony’s opening movement combines a strident first statement from the orchestra with a more lyrical theme in just the strings. With mercurial wit, Mozart also quotes his opera buffa aria ‘Un bacio di mano’ (‘A kiss on the hand’), composed earlier that year and slotted neatly into the end of the movement’s opening section. This ‘cheeky tune’ is a special moment in the symphony for Wood: ‘it is operatic, and funny and unlike the other material we have heard so far.’
The second movement ‘Andante Cantabile’ sees Mozart venture away from the jubilant C major of the opening, through a series of yearning passages for muted strings, whose harmonies grow ever darker and more distant. The third movement presents a more conventional Minuet and Trio, before the symphony arrives at its dazzling finale. This closing movement opens to a four-note motif derived from the Gregorian hymn ‘Lucis creator’ (‘The Creator of Light’) also found in a number of Mozart’s earlier works, including his Symphony No. 1, composed when he was just eight years old. A further four motifs are introduced and subjected to intricate contrapuntal invention, before Mozart gathers all five themes together in a dizzying fugue, concluding his final symphony with a coda of remarkable splendour.
The symphony’s finale is also the high point of the work for Wood: ‘My favourite moment of the whole piece has to be when the timpani enters for the last time in the last movement. Everyone is playing by that point (having entered, it feels, almost one-by-one) and it is grand and utterly joyful. I challenge you not to smile.’
Programme notes © Kate Wakeling
Terms explained
An opera buffa aria is a vocal solo from an Italian comic opera.
A fugue is a theme which is introduced in one part and subsequently imitated by other parts. Mozart combines all five of his main themes at the same time! Listen out for this at the very end of the work.
Performers
Nicholas Collon Conductor
Violin I
Alexandra Wood (leader)
Doriane Gable
Ellie Fagg
Bridget O’Donnell
Tom Aldren
Ian Watson
Gillon Cameron
Peter Liang
Violin II
Jasmine Campbell
Will Newell
Elvira van Groningen
Elise Scheurer
Hannah Bell
Alicia Berendse
Viola
Alinka Rowe
Christine Anderson
Kasia Ziminska
Anna Barsegjana
Cello
Sébastien van Kuijk
Reinoud Ford
Adi Tal
Hugh Mackay
Double Bass
Ben Griffiths
Marianne Schofield
Flute
Jane Mitchell
Oboe
Kyeong Ham
Katie Bennington
Clarinet
Lucia Porcedda
Massimo Di Trolio
Bassoon
Emily Hultmark
Dominic Tyler
Horn
Benjamin Hartnell-Booth
Hugh Sisley
Trumpet
Russell Gilmour
Sam Kinrade
Timpani
Tom Lee
Supported by
Aurora is deeply grateful to everyone who generously supports our work. Today’s performance is kindly supported by The Karlsson Játiva Charitable Foundation’s Signatur Programme, The Royal Opera House Benevolent Fund and the Garrick Charitable Trust.
We would also like to thank the following individuals, organisations and trusts & foundations without whom our 2026 season would not be possible:
Arts Council England
The estate of Nicholas Snowman OBE
The Neville Abraham Foundation
Russ & Linda CarrThe Church Family TrustPaul Diamond
Dame Liz Forgan
The Golden Bottle Trust
Andrew Hochhauser, in memory of Graham Marchant OBE
Louise Kaye
Michael & Rita Laven
James & Jan Lawrie
The estate of Paul Morgan
The Nathan-Karet Charitable Trust
Vincent WattsWilliam & Alex de Winton
The estate of Michael Gwinnell
The Marchus Trust
The Sanghera Foundation
Helen and Richard Sheldon
Three anonymous supporters