About

Benjamin Northey Conductor

Varese Octandre Mozart 
Serenade No 10 (Gran Partita)

French-born Edgard Varese spent most of his musical career in the United States where he developed the concept of ``organised sound’’ where timbres, rhythms and even technology are grouped together to create a new musical definition.

While Varese’s surviving compositions are comparatively few, he had a huge influence on other 20th century composers.

He became one of the pioneers of electronic music, was influenced by medieval and renaissance music and admired Hector Berlioz and Erik Satie.

Octandre was amongst a group of orchestral works written during the 1920s which gained him international recognition as one of the great musical innovators.

Mozart composed this seven movement serenade in either 1781 or 1782. Originally scored for 13 instruments, the title of Gran Partita appears on the score but according to the experts, the spelling is incorrect and it is not written in Mozart’s handwriting.

Nevertheless, it is a delightful work filled with typical Mozartian flourishes. In the 1984 film Amadeus, Salieri first meets Mozart at a concert performance of the serenade. In the 2009 film Bright Star the third movement accompanied Keat’s recitation of Ode to a nightingale. Mozart would have been pleasantly surprised.