17th March 2023

The songs of the cicadas in the orange groves would sound more mournful if Ottaviano Petrucci did not rush to the printing press in a Venetian gondola and print Odhecaton, but the intrigues of the Esterházi court would be just a tirade of annoyed rants, if it were not he - Joseph Haydn, a master of subtle humor and musical rebuses.

The dirty face of the passing winter was polished this evening and the audience of Riga (as well as the musicians of Sinfonietta Riga) met for the second time the daughter of blooming Tuscany, the excellent violinist Lorenza Borrani. This evening - exciting and joyful, brought satisfaction to all of us, even despite Haydn's elegant joke, incorporating several false endings for his 90th C major symphony and squeezing out applause from the otherwise disciplined Riga audience. But let's not take it to heart so seriously - this plot, after all, was recorded in the score already 225 years ago!

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