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Donald Macleod witnesses Mozart under pressure from all angles. As the sands shifted, how could Mozart possibly keep his family afloat?

Five years before Mozart’s premature death aged 35, the composer felt at the top of his game. He was performing regularly in Vienna and his music was beloved throughout the city. However, the Austro-Turkish War between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire would soon have a negative impact on Mozart’s prospects, along with changing musical taste in the Austrian capital. The nobility had more important things to do than hold concerts and commission new music. Money was in shorter supply. As a composer for hire, Mozart had to change tack and write chamber music for publication and for performance in middle class homes, rather than concertos for the nobility.

In today's programme Donald Macleod finds Mozart struggling to support his sickly wife Constanze. Those rejuvenating baths at Baden didn’t come cheap.

Symphony No. 39 in E flat major, K. 543
I. Adagio - Allegro
English Baroque Soloists
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

Adagio in B minor, K. 540
Alfred Brendel, piano

Divertimento in E flat major, K. 563
II. Adagio
Trio Zimmermann

Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581
II. Larghetto
Jörg Widmann, clarinet
Arcanto String Quartet

Piano Sonata No. 17 in B flat major, K 570
I. Allegro
Mitsuko Uchida, piano