1984
"London" covers one of Mozart's happiest periods, his childhood visit to the British capital, where he and his family were idolized by the royal court and came into contact with some of the foremost musicians of the time. Two musicians who had a seminal influence on the young man were German immigrants who ran an important concert series, Johann Christian Bach and Karl Friedrich Abel, the son of the great Johann Sebastian and one of the Thomaskantor's prize pupils. Both men had spent significant phases of their musical development in Italy, and so their music, which inspired Mozart's style, represented a virtual symbiosis of the greatest musical styles of the century, styles which saw their ultimate realization in works like. Performance: piano concerto No. 12, KV 414; Vladimir Ashkenazy performs the double role of soloist and conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the Great Hall of Lancaster House.