Scottish Chamber Orchestra

What’s in a key? The scales of C Major and C minor might start from the same note, but the music they inspired from Mozart and Beethoven couldn’t be more different.

For Mozart, C Major was a region of self-confident optimism and cosmic order, as in the so-called ‘Linz’ symphony – written in just a few days in 1783 – and his 1779 ‘Coronation’ Mass, one of the most joyfully life-affirming of the many Missa brevis settings that Mozart composed in Salzburg.

But Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture turns to C minor to create a single-mindedly tragic experience, a musical journey to self-annihilation written for Heinrich Joseph von Collin’s play. And the Magic Flute Overture? It’s in E-flat Major, C minor’s jubilant cousin…