Haydn and Mozart were both connoisseurs (in music and life) of human passions: elevated, loving, violent, uncertain, spiritual and secular. "Passione" is a journey through the extremes of human feeling. The overture of Haydn's first oratorio, Il ritorno di Tobia, is a brilliant study in contrasts, from somber foreboding to dizzying virtuosity. It ends with a harmonic ambivalence that will raise many an eyebrow, especially at the time. 

Mozart's tender expressions in his early concert aria "Alcandro, lo confesso" were his first nods to the soprano Aloysia Weber, with whom he soon fell in love. Haydn's Passion Symphony is a secular work with theatrical origins, which later got its name because of a performance at Passion time shortly after the ban on secular music was lifted. It contrasts the serious and the buffo in the finest Haydn style. Two of Mozart's masterpieces complete the program: his stunning "Ch'io mi scordi di te" for soprano and piano obbligato, which expresses unwavering, loving loyalty in the face of great adversity, and his final Viennese piano concerto in C major: a piece that perfectly balances light and shade, sorrow and joy, and ends in deep, glorious affirmation. 

In February, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century will play two concerts starring Mozart and contemporaries. For number two, the help of amazing young violinist Theotime Langlois de Swarte will be flown in, an ambassador for historically informed music and specifically for the composer Joseph Bologne, better known as Chevalier de St-Georges. The Volkskrant announced Theotime two years ago as "the great sensation of the baroque violin" and not without reason. His albums are praised to the skies without exception, and last year he won an Edison classical for his Vivaldi album. Tonight you can hear him in repertoire you've probably never heard live before.

Joseph Bologne was a violinist and composer born in Guadeloupe in the 18th century as the illegitimate son of an enslaved and plantation owner. At the age of 10, he came to Paris. His life was a tremendously extraordinary story, but because of his skin color, he fell into oblivion. Bologne was a phenomenal composer and virtuoso violinist, fencing champion (yay!) and lived in the tumultuous Paris of around the French Revolution. He was probably taught by Jean Marie Leclair, and Haydn himself suggested him as conductor for his Paris symphonies. Either way, you will not forget the name Joseph Bologne after tonight.

Why are some composers in classical music over-famous, and have you never heard of some? Why are Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn among the iconic composers of our past, but others -often totally forgotten- are not?

In this program with conductor Vaclav Luks and pianist Olga Pashchenko, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century breaks a lance for two Czech composers from the time of Mozart. Dùsik and Vanhal were celebrated and acclaimed in their own time, but did not stand the test of time for the larger audience. In this concert, the orchestra shows how unjustified that is.

This tour is a diptych with Mozart in Paris, which raises the same questions for the composer Joseph Boulogne Chevalier de St George, who until recently had also actually completely disappeared from the canon.

In 2025, the orchestra will once again join forces with the Dutch National Opera Academy to perform an opera by Haydn.

In 2023, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century collaborated for the first time with British soprano Nardus Williams. In (among other places) a sold-out Muziekgebouw, she sang the stars from heaven. Not for nothing was she The Guardian's "one to look out for" and received a rising star award at the renowned international opera awards in 2022. In 2024, she will be back with the orchestra for a special morning concert at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Tickets are already almost sold out. The concert will be livestreamed at AVROTROS.

The Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century joins forces once again with recorder player and singer Lucie Horsch. A special program on recorder and voice with works by J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi and a brand new work by Reza Namavar. Old music in a new way; new music inspired by old masters.

Bach wrote no solo works for recorder, and yet the evening opens and closes with a concerto by the German grand master. The opening was arranged by founder of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century Frans Brüggen; the closing piece Lucie Horsch herself arranged for her instrument. This is how Bach sounded if he did compose for recorder!

The Latin name for recorder "ricordare la voce," literally means "remembering the voice. Lucie takes it to the test. She arranges Bach's concerto in a minor for recorder and brings the aria "Stirb in mir, Welt" back to its vocal roots.

Especially for this program, composer Reza Namavar is writing a new work inspired by Vivaldi's double concerto in a minor. The double violin concerto becomes a violin recorder concerto.

A model rendition of Mozart's ever-popular death mass
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After its resounding success two years ago, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century once again joins forces with Cappella Amsterdam for one of the finest works in the classical repertoire. Mozart's Requiem. A stately work about death and mourning, but oh so magnificent and emotional. For forty years this iconic work has been on the orchestra's lectern, and still it does not bore. Every note and bar never ceases to surprise. A true masterpiece.  

In the first half, the orchestra plays another Mozart masterpiece: Symphony No. 40. As with Beethoven's fifth, the whole world knows the first few bars, but this world-famous piece hides many brilliant passages that never surface because it always sticks to the first notes. The Orchestra dusts it off, making Mozart sound like it's the first time you've heard it.