Mozart: Serenades

The Voice of God: “This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.” The director Peter Shaffer had Mozart’s (purported) rival Salieri say these words in his cult movie Amadeus. The music he was referring to was from Mozart’s “Gran Partita” Serenade. Indeed, Mozart’s wonderful serenades for winds are a treasure trove of musical imagination which whisks listeners off to the magical atmosphere of Vienna by night.